Impacts French New Wave Film on Traditional Cinema

Impacts French New Wave Film on Traditional Cinema How and why did the French New Wave upset traditional film grammar? Firstly we must look at the period before French New Wave came about to understand why this movement upset tradition. The French New Wave period reigned from the 1950s to the 1960s and entertained millions of people who watched film at the time. This period is very important as famous directors such as Franà §ois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard emerged. They were the next generation of directors; they had been brought up in a France that had been torn apart after the second World War meaning France was starting to get back on its feet. They had seen the works of directors that had come before this period titling it, cinà ©ma de papa or Dads cinema, and wanted to separate themselves from it. Films prior to the French New Wave period were often dull and had little quality put together in them. Truffaut often wrote in Cahiers du cinà ©ma, a critics magazine on film about the films he had to grow up around. Truffaut displayed an almost obsessive hostility to the post-war French film industry, attacking what he sarcastically labled the French Tradition Of Quality as nothing more than three hundred continuity shots stuck together a hundred and ten times a year. Powrie, P. Marie, M. (2006) p.83 This objectivity towards the cinà ©ma de papa began to grow and new light was being shone on other films that played with different ideas. Directors such as Jean-Pierre Melville started to make films that resembled the French New Wave Movement mixed with other techniques that had been used before. In his film, Bob Le Flambeur, he films it in a film noir style but the film has so many modern aesthetics to it such as its similarities to western gangster genres. This similarity between American film and French was an important reason why the French New Wave Movement upset tradition. We can only imagine what it must have been like to be living in France after the war and have a mass influx of Hollywood cinema that had been imported due to the production of French film being too expensive. Truffaut and Godard had witnessed this through the years and decided to start making films, perhaps influenced from the American films they had seen. Such influences are seen in Les Quatres Cent Coups with the Humphrey Bogart style hat we see Antoine wearing when he steals the type writer, and the same with À bout de souffle with the protagonist dressing like Bogart. Many of the directors and audiences that watched Bob Le Flambeur were amazed at the â€Å"clipped street language, low budget on-location work, moody street scenes and contemporary jazz soundtrack.† (Phillips, R. 2006 ) and this shines through in later works such as À bout de souffle. This was completely going against the previous era of film making in the sense, directors were starting to open up to the outside world and focus on making their own artistic impression. This perhaps can be a reason to why French New Wave upset traditional film grammar. An interesting point to look at is the way in which the generation gap from after the second World War was so concerned about the future of France. In Les Quatres Cent Coups the school master shouts, â€Å"What will France be like in ten years?† (Le s Quotres Cent Coups, 1959) and we can perhaps look at this as being Truffauts own thoughts coming through in the films dialogue. We can also look at the technology that was sweeping across the world at the time. New cameras had started to be produced and this gave people like Godard exactly what they needed to create the sweeping, moving shots we see in À bout de souffle. The American low-budget cinema, on the other hand, tended to be thought of as a commercial and studio-based product, to which Godard pays homage in his dedication of A bout de souffle (1959) to Monogram Pictures. Powrie, P. Reader, K. (2002) p.21 This was a new innovation in film making and made shots look realistic in the sense, cameras could be placed in busy crowds and could follow a person with ease. The shot of Michel in À bout de souffle of him walking through the hotel reception is a prime example of this new technique as he follows the camera through a vast open room without any sight of a film crew in the shot. Continuous shots like this excited Godard and also Truffaut, which is perhaps why he favours using the lightweight camera in Les quatres cent coups where Antoine is running down the road near the end of the film. This gave French New Wave films a sense of freedom and the scene where Antoine is running really symbolises this sense of freedom as the shot of just him breaks out into a panoramic view of the sea something he had long desired in the film. Such big camera shots echo the likes of the Italian Neo-Realism film movement where we saw similarities between the way the directors had placed the camera. The war had changed France a lot and cultures within the country started to feel the difference. French New Wave films began to explore particular human traits such as sex, violence and swearing. This may have shocked an audience twenty years prior to the movement, but instead it seemed to add emphasis to the reality of the film and story. In both À bout de souffle and Les quatres cent coup, we see a great number of references to violence and sex. In À bout de souffle, Michel is seen at the beginning shooting a policeman with a pistol he finds in the car he has stolen. Also, the way in which he speaks to Patricia in the film is quite aggressive and we can see Godard asserting masculinity into the character of Michel. His final words to Patricia are also quite offensive and this definitely would have broken the mould from films in previous years, before French New Wave. The sexual references in the films are very much giving light to the realities of modern day culture. In Les quatres cent coup we see Antoine in the police station with prostitutes and also where he is telling of how a foreigner told him he could use a prostitute even though he is very young. The way these references to violence, sex, and swearing are used in the films adds to the audiences reaction and the reality of the story. By showing people what life is like in the darker parts of Paris, French New Wave directors were able to maintain this reality. Location was a big factor in French New Wave films. The opening scenes of Les quatres cent coups are so important when looking at why the movement may have upset tradition. We see this great tracking shot of the Eiffel tower, a iconic feature of Paris and perhaps symbolising France as a whole. The reason why this upsets traditional film grammar is the way Truffaut has shot this scene with the tower in the background and in the foreground a not so nice Paris. Something that hints Italian Neo-Realism, in the way that the director wants to show the audience realistic scenes instead of a artificial studio set. This idea of getting away from the studio is ever present in French New Wave films. Truffaut discovered a new aesthetics of simplicity and sincerity. Indeed, in taking to the street to escape the heavy-handed rule of the studio system, Truffaut unconsciously doubled the rebellious attitudes and actions of his young protagonist, Antoine Doinel. Powrie, P. Marie, M. (2006) p.83 The whole factor of shooting film out in a busy Parisian street gave French New Wave films a lot more depth and created this sense of a modern France. In À bout de souffle the shots of the actors walking down busy streets enforced this sense of realism and added to the story. French New Wave films pioneered the way films were edited. They were really the first to play with jump cuts and this is apparent in À bout de souffle. This may have upset traditional film grammar because of the fast pace it gave films. the rapidity of the editing and the disorientating scale of the shots means thatMichels crime takes place before the spectator and, we might surmise, before he himself has a chance to realise what is happening. Powrie, P. Marie, M. (2006) p.93 This process of having a very disruptive cut between different characters in one scene can give the film a scene a whole new meaning. To an audience at the time this was quite innovative and gave a scene, quite a disturbing feel to it. This is an example of how directors like Godard played with the idea of Mise En Scà ¨ne. It demonstrates how a meaning can be changed by altering different cuts and camera angles even though we are still hearing the same dialogue. Godard and Truffaut were very interested in the way American Film had been made prior to the French New Wave period and in particular the studio system. Due to France being in an economic problem after the War, it meant studio filming could not be accomplished very often. This contributed to some of the fantastic shots used in French New Wave films. The new wave directors, like their Hollywood predecessors, worked individually and creatively within often severe budgetary constraints and the conventions of the studio genre. Powrie, P. Reader, K. (2002) p.21 This definitely contributed towards the innovative look of French New Wave films but without funding from the French Government. With the generation gap after the war, France needed new directors to carry on film making and to write scripts. â€Å"They were also greatly helped by the introduction, in 1960, of the avance sur recettes, a system of government loans, granted on the basis of a working script, to enable films to be produced. Powrie, P. Reader, K. (2002) p.21 Therefore, we saw a greater amount of scripts and directors willing to create films in France. This contributes towards this upset in traditional film grammar because there is an increased amount of variety from where the films are coming from. There is more of an incentive for innovative films such as the films we see in French New Wave and this certainly is a factor to the movement being successful. To conclude, the French New Wave period marks a great change for Frances film industry. In particular, the directors who contributed to the movement are probably the most influential in the change. Truffaut, a famous film critic turned director believed in auteurism the process in which the directors vision comes across in a film. He liked the idea of the camera being a pen in which he could write out his masterpiece. European art-house directors, such as Renoir or Rossellini, had traditionally been treated as the authors of their films, in much the same way as Balzac or Baudelaire were of the literary texts they signed. Powrie, P. Reader, K. (2002) p.21 Both Truffaut and Godard pay tribute to this auteur theory in their works with Godard even using Balzacs work in Les Quatres Cent Coups as an inspiration to Antoine. The idea of these new directors coming into the limelight and putting their own touch into film was a crucial part of understanding why French New Wave broke the mould and ultimately upset traditional film grammar as it had not been done before to this extent.

We Must Stop Overpopulation and Pollution of Our Environment Essay

We Must Stop Overpopulation and Pollution of Our Environment Once we humans hit on the idea of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, we had a means for exponentially increasing our population. Even as mere 2-legged, wingless creatures, humans could expand to cover the world, and pull from the earth nutrients to support this massive layer of people. The population increase has continued, and there are disagreements as to if and when the increase will end. The number of people on this earth is the indirect problem; more directly, the problem is that 6.3 billion people need a lot of food to survive, and the earth can only support so much. The industrial character of our societies on this earth means that our existence is give and take: we take minerals from the soil and from the depths of the earth, and trees and water from the surface, and we give back all sorts of wastes. Whether or not our enormous population is actually overpopulation, and thus a problem, is debated. Some theories predict futures of doom, in which our population is finally stabilized by widespread death, while others believe that our population will stabilize before the situation is anywhere near that morbid. (Southwick; Dolan) Whatever the population will do in the future, the fact remains that the amount of people we have on the earth now have a tremendous impact on the environment, in terms of both human actions and the space that humans take up. (Southwick) Furthermore, a large amount of people creates a demand for a large amount of energy and products, and the methods we use to fulfill the demands heavily impact the environment as well. While some of the problems of industrialization have been widely noticed and some have been solved, many remain unrec... ... Back to the earth I screamed and no one listened to me Back to the earth I lived and they all followed Come and see my world -Rusted Root, "Back to the Earth" Sources Dolan, Edwin G., Ch. 5 from "TANSTAAFL: The Economic Strategy for Environmental Crisis" 1974, pp. 55-72. Fahey, D. W., Ravishankara, A. R. "ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE:Enhanced: Summer in the Stratosphere" Science, 1999, vol. 285, pp. 208-210. Hansen, J., Ruedy, R., Sato, M., Lo, K., "Global Warming Continues" Science 2002, vol. 295, p. 275 Kerr, Richard, "A Brighter Look for Good Ozone" Science, 2002, vol. 297, pp. 1623-1624. Southwick, Charles H., Ch. 15 from "Global Ecology in Human Perspective" Oxford Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 159-182. text of Kyoto Protocol found at http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html; date found at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/kyoto/kyotorpt.html

Book Review on the book Virgin Birth

Gerd Ludemann is the author of a well-known book namely Virgin Birth: The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus. As mentioned above, this essay basically would present a critical review of this book. The author of this book, Gerd Ludemann works at the University of Gottingen as a Professor of the New Testament. The author of this book has also penned down other master pieces of nearly the same concept such as The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really said and Did, What really happen to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection, The Unholy in Holy Scripture: The Dark Side of the Bible.The book has been written by this German New Testament scholar as an attempt to put forward the historical realities that lie behind the birth of Jesus, who as said was born to a virgin mother namely Mary and the description of the Holy Family by the evangelists. The book is one of its kinds and in it; the author has gone through all of the previous references that were made to Jesus and his birth along with the Holy Family in the writings presented by the early Church and certain rival sources of the Jews.In the book under consideration, that is Virgin Birth: The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus, the author has discussed some of the previous stories of Christmas (the birth of Jesus) that are present in the New Testament, reforms the traditions that have been used in them and then moves on to answer or to put forward the main concept of the book, that is the answer to the question of what really happened at the birth of Jesus Christ. The main point of the book is basically to grapple the concept of the birth from a virgin, its validity and the loopholes that are present in the concept while backing it with a number of historical evidences.Critical Review â€Å"It is time to life the veil which—woven from a mixture of dogmatics, piety and fantasy—has lain over the figure of Mary. Mary is better unveiled, because in this way she becomes more credible and mor e human† –Gerd Ludemann As known to all, the Bible states that Jesus was born to a virgin mother who is a very well-known character in history and religion and her name was Mary. A vast number of anti-Christian groups, in order to tarnish the image of the religion and especially that of Virgin Mary have claimed that as Jesus was born out of wed lock he was illegitimate and Mary, as his mother was a sinner.In this book, the author argues that the Christian parable of the virgin birth of Jesus, upholds the formations of stigmatization, refusing the right of women to sexual and cultural freewill. His argument is that, instead of taking Mary acutely as a woman of our time and for that reason also taking seriously women in our time, a vast number of churches these days carry on ignoring the repeatedly destructive consequences of the myth of Mary men and women who believe in it.The author of this book, Gred Ludemann, who is a controversial professor of New Testament at the Un iversity of Gottingen, in Germany, in his book, has challenged the traditional teachings of the church related to Jesus and his mother Mary. The book begins with a brief over view of the Catholic and Protestant doctrines on Mary and then moves on to critically goes through all of the verses of the Bible that refer to Mary such as The Gospel of Matthew, The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, The Gospel of John, The Gospel of Thomas etc.He has done so with the hope of revealing a view of Mary’s thinking which was free of any thoughts or teachings related to the Church. The results presented by the author are very provocative and include a claim by the author stating that due to the fact that Mary gave birth to Jesus out of wedlock, she became the object of a number of lies that were put down to theory and were of great use or served the best interest of the early church, which obviously tarnished her own image and her character as a real human being.The book is rather stagnant. At times, a reader would perhaps loose interest because of the same thing being repeated over and over again. Although he has made a good attempt by going through all of the texts in a chronological order and that too all of them in three different stages. The first stage is the redaction, the second is the tradition, and last but not the least, the third is history. All three of them are linked to each other, but when read for the first time, this point is extremely hard to understand.The author has moved on from topic to topic very quickly which makes it even harder for a first time reader in particular to get what the author is trying to prove. The book somehow starts getting better after reaching page number forty, the second chapter namely â€Å"Mary in the New Testament and in the Christian Sources outside the New Testament: Redaction, Tradition, History†. As stated previously the book begins with a very brief introduction to a number of Catholic and Protesta nt doctrines, but they also have been explained in a way which is rather hard to understand at times.This makes the book seem rather uninteresting to any reader. He has also presented results of all the texts of the previously mentioned doctrines, but after going through nearly half of these results, one is forced to think whether the author is being rather very judgemental adnd if the book is not just a part of his own thoughts. Eventually in the end he has put forward the results of all the catholic and protestant doctrines along with the results of the verses and texts from the Bible, but they also tend to give the idea that the author is very judgemental and is not open to ideas.The worst aspect of the book however remains the fact that the text on its own is rather complicated and needs to be read twice in order to actually understand where the book is heading. A reader of the first time might remain baffled and complexed about what the author is trying to prove until he or she actually reads it in the end. Conclusion In the light of the above disucssion we can hereby culminate that Virgin Birth: The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus is a well-known book written by Gerd Ludemann who is a scholar of the New Testament at the University of Gottingen.He has penned-down a vast number of master pieces, which are somehow related to each other. In this book, the author has openly challenged the traditional teachings of the church related to Jesus and his mother Mary, who according to the Bible gave birth to Jesus while remaining a virgin. The book improves as it moves on, but it is rather hard to understand right at the beginning owing to the fact that it is rather complicated. Works Cited Ludemenn, Gred. Virgin Birth: The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus. United States of America. Trinity Press International. ISBN: 1563382431.

The Fate of Our Homeless Animals - 684 Words

In our world today, there are countless numbers of homeless animals. Every year, millions of animals are abused. Of those, thousands dont make it. According to the UN, 200 species go extinct every day. In the US alone, more than 1 million animals are run over every day. These are just some the cruel realities that exist in our current state. It may be too late for some, but there is still time, still hope for others. We need to invest more in preventing animal cruelty before it’s too late. We need to speak for those who dont have a voice of their own. First, animals that are used for our entertainment are inhumanely abused. When I was younger, I always dreamed of going to the circus. Seeing clowns and their funny acts, but most of all, I wanted to see the elephants do their amazing tricks. I never did get to go to the circus, but now I have lost all desire to. Once I learned what really was going on, I was outraged. 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