French New Wave films often aimed to break the stylistic conventions of cinema at the time, they did this by breaking a lot of the pre-established rules and creating their own unique style of filmmaking. They also had lower budgets, leading to them having lower quality filming equipment and sets.

Some of the Narrative aspects of French New Wave include-

-Dialogue improvisation

-Stories with existential themes

-Self-awareness

-Stories difficult to follow, makes the audience think about the story and message instead of easily consuming media

-Themes of Love (often romantic)

-Fleeting nature of human existence, themes of time and the past

-Focus on character emotions over plot

Some of the Technical aspects of French New Wave include-

-Discontinuity editing, actions are not always smooth and easy to follow, contrasting the “seamless” editing style of many Hollywood films

-Use of outtakes to break the illusion

-Lack of establishing and master shots, audience have to figure out location layouts on their own

-No expensive sets- often real locations used

-Crossing the line/ Long takes/ Extreme close-ups/ Jump cuts, further breaks technical style of popular films

-Black and White- due to lower budgets, they often could not use coloured film

-Handheld Camera

The Left Bank and The Right Bank-

The right bank was a group of French New Wave filmmakers who were mostly on the right bank of the river Seine in Paris, and made up of members of the Cahiers du Cinema. Their main goal was to break the stylistic conventions of popular French cinema of the time and pushing the auteur. Left bank filmmakers were more focused on using film as an art form, they were often older directors, but had a similar audience to the right bank of young people who were tired of the repetitive nature of film. The two groups were not opposed, instead promoting and encouraging each side’s work.