French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

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Lowry_Sam
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#126 Post by Lowry_Sam » Wed Oct 11, 2017 7:10 pm

If we're considering literary adaptations like Sundays and Cybele, I'd like to petition for the inclusion of Jean Delannoy's Les amitiés particulières [That Special Friendship]. While the bulk of his career may have prefigured the new wave, Les amitiés particulières fits in quite well with films like The 400 blows. Despite his dismissals of Delannoy's early work, Truffaut would have a difficult time arguing why The 400 blows (or Sundays and Cybele) are qualitatively better/newer than Les amitiés particulières and some have argued for its inclusion. It would certainly figure toward the top of my list. Given how few gay-themed films there are before the 70s, it was certainly quite radical for its time (and the age gap makes it probably even more so today).

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movielocke
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#127 Post by movielocke » Fri Oct 13, 2017 5:52 am

Breathless sometimes one is very very wrong. And when I watched this at 17, off a battered VHS from the public library on a 13 inch tv, it made almost no impression other than being puzzled this was one of the greats. I have vague memories of struggling to read the VHS subtitles, and strong memories about a languorous eternal scene in a bedroom I loved. I remember almost nothing about the crime plot, I think I did not really get any of the details, either I was not paying close attention or I couldn't read the subtitles well enough to follow what was going on. A little of both I imagine. I strongly remember loathing belmondo, and struggling to identify with Patricia and being disoriented that a film about such a jerky asshole was supposed to find his miserable misogyny as endearing or something ;)

I think breathless was about the third French subtitled film I ever watched, after grand illusion and 400 blows (both of which blew me away at the time). But I had little context in cinema language for what was going on, I missed most of the gorgeous, startling camerawork, and had no context for how stunning the editing works. And as a third French film, I certainly did not pick up on the accent. The very first thing that jumped out at me this viewing was just how grating and in your face her American accent is, I don't think it ever sunk in that she was American, until this viewing.

It's interesting having rewatched it just after seeing weekend and noting how the drive through the countryside brackets the beginning and alleged end of the French new wave. Whereas before Godard was free on the roads to race by everyone else as in the beginning of breathless, now he's stuck on the same road in a congested apocalyptic mess.

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knives
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#128 Post by knives » Sun Oct 15, 2017 9:25 pm

Five Day Lover
Here's a genuine New Wave adventure from de Broca though in many respects it still feels in line with such romances as An Affair to Remember or Indiscreet. It mainly differs in budget and with its New Wave aloof permissiveness that still gives it a feeling of being naughty even though its morality has become the norm in romances. de Broca also allows the film to get much goofier with a fair number of visual gags that make even Donen's split screen only mildly cheeky (there's also a ton of that New Wave mirror obsession to the point where the film might as well be called Looking at Me Through You).

Enough of the aesthetic and story though. The real heroes here are the actors who all give pitch perfect jobs elevating the film from average to endearing with a particularly effective final act. Certainly Seberg will get the lion's share of the accolades because of her fame and central role not to mention how she is genuinely great in a role more in Katherine Hepburn's mold. I want to hop over to Francois Perier though who of the four leads has the hardest job with the least amount of screen time. His character easily could come across as cruel or stupid as written. The script has it out against the character, but Perier plays him with a wit that goes against the blind cuckold he may have been in a lesser character. He ultimately plays as a fellow to Henri Crémieux in Les demoiselles de Rochefort embodying a goodness that feels real to a surrounding evil. The plays well with Seberg, going back to her, as she too is needed to play her character so that the audience has a complexity of emotions where as the script is much more simplistic. As with any adultery romance the film doesn't want us to judge her or dislike her for her desire, but de Broca in his mis-en-scene also suggests there is a villainy to her as well. In a sense it is like looking at the other Hepburn's character in Roman Holiday and emphasizing greater the damage such a naive fulfilling of desires can accomplish. Perhaps this is the need to hire Seberg as an older actress, which the film clearly treats her as, would be more willing to play up the villainy or be more protective of her innocence. Seberg quietly steps into the role though playing her as tired more than bored and egotistic rather then purely naive. In some ways it is the most difficult role I've seen her in.

As just a small aside I do wonder if this or at least films like this were on Resnais and Robbe-Grillet's mind when making Last Year at as many shots and plot moments seem in explicit critique of this film. Finally Natalie Portman has to play Seberg in the inevitable film about her life right? With this brown wig they basically look like twins. Cohen's set is very much worth at least renting for this which has a very (very) outside chance of making my list for now.

Love on a Pillow
Well this is shocking beyond belief. A Vadim film with competent editing and even some effective use of mis-en-scene! That's not to say the film is more than adequate and that is only in its enjoyment, but given what I've come to expect from the man this is a very positive leap forward.

Les Bonnes Femmes
Sorry Dom on the watching in tandem thing. I just couldn't resist. On the surface of things this is Chabrol's first stereotypical New Wave film. It has the disaffected youth, Paris, endless parties, and aloof cinematic references that by 1960 were already coming to be established. It quickly though shows itself to be a pretty devastating satire on these films though with more in common with The Blue Gardenia then Les dragueurs or Breathless. While it never goes into a full Langian horror show even the lightest of moments are penetrated by an assumption in the mis-en-scene and the performances (especially Lafont's) that violence against women by men in possible. During dates the women seem to be calculating how likely they are to be raped and during work the fear of an explosive temper causes an affectation of attitude. For example early on there's a scene where one of the women is late on her first day to work and is called into the bosses office. It's a genuinely harrowing scene even as Chabrol never makes explicit as to why. Even the simple and very New Wave act of dissolved love exclusively because it is played from the woman's point of view becomes this intense thought exercise emphasized by close-ups out of Sam Fuller. No wonder it apparently flopped when it was first released.

That's not to say the film is all about danger. Like Lang there's a genuine sense of warmth here in the idea of female friendship which seems to be able to overcome any sort of difference, whether class, age, or something else. Even when they are catty with one another the friendship shines through and they get along. It's clear that in Chabrol's world the only way to prevent the disaster of masculine violence is with feminine friendship.

Finally just a small word on the film's aesthetic which is something to behold. It's not particularly showy and certainly has none of the improvised feel that tends to be associated with the New Wave. There is though a marked brilliance in the way that Chabrol can turn a POV shot into an exploration of the city rendering a sense of the subjective to what is arguably suppose to an objective series of shots. Jean Rabier, Chabrol's longtime cinematographer, also provides this amazing lighting that is very classical, but completely against the tone of the script. A lot of the sense of the bizarre genre mixings comes from his work in a way that is essential to the overall success of the movie.

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domino harvey
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#129 Post by domino harvey » Sun Oct 15, 2017 9:50 pm

I honestly don't think I'll have time, so I encourage you and anyone else to dive in!

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knives
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#130 Post by knives » Sun Oct 15, 2017 9:54 pm

Cool, though I feel bad that all of the most interesting sounding Chabrols are outside this list.

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domino harvey
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#131 Post by domino harvey » Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:21 pm

He is cursed with a consistently interesting and lengthy career spanning over five decades!

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knives
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#132 Post by knives » Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:29 pm

To say the least. Even discounting what I've seen (which puts him easily as my favorite of this generation of filmmakers and maybe my favorite French one) looking at the descriptions of some of these is like catnip. I mean I just found out that he made a film with Orson Welles and Anthony Perkins that may or may nor be a parody of Resnais.

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knives
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#133 Post by knives » Sun Oct 22, 2017 12:53 pm

Shoot, just realized there's only about ten days left of this and with wanting to get to about thirty more films. This just isn't enough time (for me though probably for others).

alacal2
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#134 Post by alacal2 » Mon Oct 23, 2017 5:31 am

Amen to that!

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knives
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#135 Post by knives » Mon Oct 23, 2017 8:51 pm

domino harvey wrote: I recall Les Godelureaux's "revenge" hinging on a pointedly minor slight and Chabrol getting some mileage out of the disconnect...
Boy is it ever slight. You have to cackle over a film whose plot is a man ruins another's life for moving his car. To be honest though this is only fitfully entertaining (which means that it's better then most of the film's I've seen lately), but having Brialy as a bisexual satanist is enough entertainment value to hold the rest of the film together. Though he's not alone at with Lafont giving a wonderful and slightly mysterious performance that in its wide eyed violence reminds me of Daria Nicolodi's work for Argento.

While the true amazement typical of his work is limited to a few shots this is a really compelling film for Chabrol from a strictly auteurist perspective. It also highlights for how outside the other Caheirs filmakers he was given not just the radically different technique, concerns, and concept of genre, but most especially in his utter loathing of Paris at least as a setting. In general I think it is fair to say Chabrol is not a location filmmaker in the sense that setting is a major part of the story with most of his films placed in an almost fantasy world. Yet during this string of New Wave films location has played a very important role basically akin to what class will play in his films starting with Les biches. While certainly bad and good can come from either Paris or the rural outskirts it is clear Chabrol prefers to call the outskirts home. If Les Bonnes Femmes plays as critique of his peer's idea of Paris this is definitively saying that Paris holds no interest for Chabrol.

Right away the film sets up this dynamic by having Brialy mocked for living outside the city with the Parisian set up to be the main character which I suppose he is in a way. Like Lafont though Chabrol immediately takes a greater interest in Brialy's sick little fascist and almost forgets Charles Belmont exists. This actually sets up a similar dynamic to the first two features, though there Chabrol was never so harsh to the character of the good as to call him boring. Guilty perhaps, but never without interest. Belmont here though is as thin as paper always in the background like on the poster.

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sinemadelisikiz
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#136 Post by sinemadelisikiz » Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:18 am

My two cents: I too would appreciate more time, so I could hopefully see more than the easily available stuff. Catching up on that highly prolific Godard was time consuming enough on its own! But since the end is near, anyone have any shorts recommendations? Right now I'm likely to rank "Gare du Nord" (Rouch segment from Six in Paris, too bad "Les maitres fous" is a year off from the cutoff :cry:) and "Toute la mémoire du monde", which are both longtime favorites. Outside of those, I haven't seen many that I feel strongly about. Would love to hear recommendations even if they seem obvious!
Anyway, some brief thoughts on recent viewings:

Les Bonnes Femmes
This was a bit of a revelation, as most of the new wave films I'm most familiar with seem to view women as an alien species to be pondered over. Knives mentioned The Blue Gardenia as a comparison point, and I completely agree; you could throw in a bit of The Best of Everything as well. Both films are well-balanced between lighter elements of female friendship and darker aspects of male-female interactions. And the film paces its horrors well, to the point where you could convince yourself that you're watching a completely different kind of film... until you reach that ending of course.

Therese Desqueyroux
This would make an utterly depressing double feature with the above film. They both give time to a women's fears of losing bodily autonomy, but the focus here is the depression that follows. I'm not typically drawn to stories of bored women stuck in loveless marriages, but I found this very effective. The strength here is due to the sympathy shown towards the protagonist and the quietly devastating performance by Emmanuelle Riva. To put it simply, the scenes of Therese
SpoilerShow
separated from her child and lifeless with depression after the attempted murder
are entirely accurate to the condition.

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TMDaines
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#137 Post by TMDaines » Wed Oct 25, 2017 8:14 am

Is Les Dimanches de Ville d'Avray considered to be New Wave film? Just trying to prioritise my watching and it appears that this probably isn't part of the loose movement.

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knives
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#138 Post by knives » Wed Oct 25, 2017 8:29 am

It's eligible for the list. I don't find it all that New Wave, but you might. As to shorts, Story of Water and Rivette's film seem like clear must sees.

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zedz
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#139 Post by zedz » Wed Oct 25, 2017 3:21 pm

I rewatched Hanoun's L'Ete last night and it's an interesting test case.

I don't consider the Nouvelle Vague in strictly auteurist terms, as there are some films in the period directed by Nouvelle Vague directors (e.g. Chabrol) that are really just regular French commercial genre films. Likewise, there are directors I don't consider New Wavers that happened to direct films in that style at the time. Hanoun is in that category for me: he has nothing much to do with the movement, but a few of his films get close in spirit and style - though he's a lot more rigorously experimental than the directors associated with the movement.

L'Ete follows an unnamed woman who flees Paris after May '68 and holes up in an old house in Normandy. The film is basically an hour of her killing time: listening to music, reading Michael Kohlhaas, writing to a friend, trying to remember her boyfriend. What really matters is the style, which is dense, intense and playfully disruptive. Godard is the most obvious reference point, but I find this film - and Hanoun's cinema in general - far more disciplined and intellectually satisfying. (I also watched my three favourite Godards of the period to see if I should include any of them in my top twenty, but I'm not going to comment on them here.)

The soundtrack is multilayered and disjunctively edited. Sounds and (early) music start and stop abruptly, narration is doubled and relayed. When the lead character is writing to her friend Marianne, we hear both the voice of the writer and the voice of the reader on the soundtrack. The text of the film is ruthlessly audio-based - we don't see what the protagonist is writing or reading, we just hear it on the soundtrack and sometimes the clack of an unseen typewriter. Even the film's opening and closing credits are read aloud over empty screens. There's plenty of written text within the film, but it's almost entirely composed of revolutionary slogans sprayed on the walls of Paris in the photos taken of the protagonist before her escape.

Visually, the film is constructed of jump cuts, repeated shots, stills (and almost-stills), and lateral, associative montage. Events and actions we hear described on the soundtrack appear in different parts of the film. The camera is often static, but there's a highly kinetic sequence at the end of the film when she visits a village fair in which Hanoun gets to try out a whole new bag of filming and editing tricks. There's the threat of action in the film's final minutes, but really this is an experimental mood piece. It's barely over an hour, so check it out if you have the time.

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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#140 Post by alacal2 » Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:58 am

Les Cousins

My first viewing for this Project and first viewing per se. To be honest I struggled with this immediately after particularly because of its recognition as a masterpiece by posters here whose views I respect. Over the last couple of days it's grown on me. "Is that it?" was my first reaction to which maybe the reply is "Isn't that enough?" I liked the way in which Decae worked wonders with filming in the confined setting and the way the film has the habit of wrong-footing your preconceptions (particularly with Paul and Charles's characters).
So I'm looking for some help here. I clearly need to watch more Chabrol (I have both the Arrow sets) but a greater understanding of Chabrol would help before I do. I'm also at a disadvantage in having the MOC Blu which doesn't have the Adrian Martin commentary. I'm also unclear as to its standing in the New Wave as apart from featuring young people and having some outside locations it doesn't feel particularly 'New-Wavey' to me - although in the accompanying documentary Chabrol chuckles that it was mainly because producers saw it as a way of making films cheaply. Or is that Chabrol being Chabrol (whatever Chabrol is)?! I'd also like to understand a bit more the influence of Lang on this (and other NW films). Overall I'd call it cheerfully wicked (as opposed to wickedly cheerful) - a bit like Chabrol himself?

400 Blows

I've seen this 2 or 3 times and my only fear was that it might be a disappointment after such a long time and after dipping into a lot more unseen New Wave films.It would normally have been top of my list. But I still love it and its as powerful as I'd always remembered. What impresses is Truffaut's sheer exuberance, his use of the Paris streets as an extension of the school playground, his handling of the child actors etc. Having read about the constant hurdles he had whilst filming, last minute script changes and constant rewriting its amazing how assured his film-making is whilst creating such a feeling of spontaneity (although I accept there were a number of improvised scenes). I'd also forgotten how funny it is, particularly the birds-eye view of the gym-teacher 'losing' his students bit by bit as he marches them through the streets).

The ending still packs a punch and couldn't help feeling that it's still influential today in films like the ending of 'Moonlight' although where the sea is seen as something magical and life-transforming, here it's just a dead end for Antoine (and ironic given his conversation with his school friend where he wishes he could be sent to a naval as opposed to the military academy threatened by his father as he has never seen the ocean). Incidentally, this may be common knowledge to people on this board but I hadn't realised in some countries it was shown with a tagged on positive commentary at the end which would never have worked in my view.

A couple of other points. I agree with Domino about Antoine's family that far from being a happy one, the night out is a brief attempt to 'play' at happy families (this scene was apparently inserted by Truffaut as he felt unhappy about the negative portrayal of Antoine's parents). I understand why some posters earlier feel the film to be not 'neo-realist' enough but I think that probably represents Truffaut's conflicted feelings about his own childhood experiences. And although I'm not aware of Truffaut stating it, it feels to me that the film's portrayal of adolescence can perhaps read as a metaphor for the start of the New Wave and that Antoine's freeze-framed stare at the end is Truffaut's gauntlet to critics and the tradition of classic French cinema. This will be on my list but I'm not sure where.

Breathless

To my shame I've never seen this (nor most of Godard except some of his much later curmudgeonly stuff)) and could kick myself. If Truffaut's first film was a bit of a polite slap to French cinema then this is a glorious two fingers! What I enjoyed so much about this was its outright inquisitive playfulness and its carefully controlled 'making it up as you go along'. There are absolutely no longueurs here - the wordplay and banter never seem 'clever'. Its randomness IS the point. As an aside what also amused me was the constant reading of newspapers by most of the characters and yet you never see Jean Seberg's journalist writing anything! There's no way I'm going to get through a lot more of Godard before the deadline but I'm looking forward to what I can.

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domino harvey
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#141 Post by domino harvey » Sat Oct 28, 2017 5:14 pm

"Cheerfully wicked" is as good a descriptor as any for Chabrol on the whole. His films may be cruel at times, but he's never goosing his characters into easy judgments. Les cousins for me is a great film about unfairness, and should be looked at from its class depictions. Here studious work and ascription to virtues fails, and goofing off and coasting by on borderline sociopathic charm wins. The traditional narrative we've been groomed from a lifetime of popular culture to expect is upended, and the bootstraps are only pulled up in order to strangle oneself with. Social strata like water finds its own level and maintains the status quo against social mobility and justice.

Good God, the deadline is on Thursday?! Considering I've received zero lists so far, I'm open to extending the deadline to allow for more participation

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zedz
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#142 Post by zedz » Sat Oct 28, 2017 6:31 pm

I’m belatedly working through some rewatches, so I wouldn’t mind an extension.

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knives
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#143 Post by knives » Sat Oct 28, 2017 7:10 pm

I'd appreciate that as well. Even when I limit myself to the small bit I have on hand Thursday is cutting things close. One more week should handle that.

As to Les cousins, I'll co-sign and add that it not being very New Wavey is a huge part of what makes it good. Honestly it remains a surprise to me that Rivette is the horse Positif decided attach themselves to since these first two films are so outside of what Truffaut, Mocky, and kind were offering with just the right sort of leftist class awareness you'd think would work for them (versus Rivette who even in political works strikes me as fairly apolitical). I suppose their disgust was in the impotence that Chabrol characterizes the good with (it's much nastier in Le Beau Serge though I think the acting and more laid back form of Les cousins is what makes it unquestionably better). Chabrol has always been of an anti-ideology ideology even in interviews (for example when laughing off the auteur theory) which these films follow by making any ideology either absurd, ugly, or especially in these early films impotent. I suppose that could have threatened his films to be nihilistic, but the self deprecation he brings forth really helps to prevent that.

I suppose that's why I love the ineligible Nada so much. It's an extremely political movie about how the politics of the day was/ is just excuses for behavior with nothing beyond the selfish to motivate it, but he also plainly shows that people are capable of thinking of better strategies just so long as they act self reflexively. That's a bit the opposite in these first two films were reflexive personalities manage to ruin things, but in part that is because they were broken to begin with and in part because the reflex comes to the conclusion of superiority rather than self deprecation. In a world of horror and melodrama humour seems to be the key to doing good rather than just being.

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zedz
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#144 Post by zedz » Sat Oct 28, 2017 11:10 pm

In general, having two lists projects closing within weeks of one another tends to harm participation in one or both.

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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#145 Post by movielocke » Sat Oct 28, 2017 11:41 pm

I had no idea this was Thursday ! Oh dear I need more time

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domino harvey
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#146 Post by domino harvey » Sun Oct 29, 2017 11:51 am

How's November 18th sound?

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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#147 Post by alacal2 » Sun Oct 29, 2017 11:53 am

A lot better!

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knives
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#148 Post by knives » Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:01 pm

I can dig that. As to show that the extension is not in waste here's some recent viewings from me.
L'Immortelle
Fortunately this is not as gross as the marketing nor the American label would suggest this as being. It is't really even as violently sexual as Last Year which is interesting. Robbe Grillet also doesn't make it as immediately uncanny as his great Resnais adaptation either with the playing of structure with memory not coming until about 70 minutes into the film. That said Last Year is clearly on the film's mind as it repeats a lot of that film's motifs and structure for its own ends. Instead of a Resnaisian musing on how memory is affected by history we get something of a travelogue providing some history on Istanbul. The last forty or so minutes of the film provide some keys for what a travelogue provides for Robbe Grillet though that is so obscure I certainly can't say for sure on this first viewing.
SpoilerShow
At best I can guess he is using the inexplicable mystery of place and its pull as a metaphor to the same sort of pull a sexually desired person can have (or vice versa or both at once) and how that can breed a sort of sickness. The man romances the city and plays out its details with the abusive eye he remembers the woman killing her over and over again.
That's the best I can get at for now though I can tell this will improve with each viewing.

The Third Lover (what a dumb translation)
The lowering of the budgets really begins to be felt with this one to the point where it comes across more as a first film than Chabrol's actual first film. Fortunately Chabrol's expertise (as one should expect with a sixth feature) for the most part leaves this with the charms of a first film and none of the failings. That's not to say this is a great film. It is clearly the weakest since Le beau Serge, but there are enough good things here to recommend on. For example the Paris/rural divide gets pushed even further into the realm of the political by setting this in the countryside near Munich and explicitly calling the genre conventions of the film as related to Hitler. That explicitness is probably something which brings the film down, Chabrol's later treadings on genre and fascism are definitely better and more deftly handle, though as an artist in transition it really helps to articulate the roughest edges of stories and themes he'd strike again and again. Charrier's angry gaze as he talks about his own poverty is as much a blueprint for Chabrol as Breathless' first jump cut is for Godard.

Speaking of, this film also shows off Chabrol's cinephilia in a much more explicit and New Wave sort of fashion then any other I've seen. He practically explains his sources and always keeps them in his line of sight while elsewhere he seems to flit back and forth from them. For example I generally disagree to the degree to which people bring up Hitchcock since outside of a few narratives in a few films Chabrol honestly has no overlap with Fritz Lang as a much more clear father of his cinema. This though is the exception that proves the rule with at least Chabrol's aesthetic in tune with Hitchcock even as he resorts to techniques of poverty like voice over or the single setting that Hitchcock never had to. The push in on a contented and fey Charrier as his plot seems to be going along perfectly might as well have come from an explanation of the dinner scenes in Shadow of a Doubt or Cary Grant in Suspicion. Chabrol's main inspiration for this essay on Hitchcock though isn't cinematic at all, but rather from the world of Tom Ripley. Charrier as Ripley gives a strong face to Chabrol's evolving political voice as he grows sensitive to leftist causes, but finds them equally capable of villainy even if it is a much more crude and self serving sort. Chabrol seems to realize Ripley not as the sexual mastermind so many adaptations have made him out to be, but rather a rather dumb guy fortunate only due to a system that rewards viscous anonymity.

Adorable Liar
This is kind of nutty in a way that works perfectly. Although there's not much new to what Deville offers (he's pretty blatantly working as Richard Quine) how he offers it induces so much giddiness I don't think anyone could say no. For example most of the film plays as the lost scenes to My Sister Eileen, but almost at random Deville hits the genre switch and gives us a a mystery story line right out of Woody Allen (I do feel I missed whatever instigated it though). All of this silliness could have easily failed, especially one scene in the Tartuffe plot, though if not for the strength of the two leads, Macha Meril and Marina Vlady, who give the Brigettes a run for their money on most likable protagonists of the New Wave. I haven't really taken notice of either before despite prominent roles in Godard films, but that's set to change given the sheer star power both exhibit. I also watched the very late Deville film Almost Peaceful just to get a sense of him though it is illegible and I thought it was pretty good. Maybe it doesn't reinvent the wheel, but as a light farce about moving on from tragedy it's excellent and doesn't beget the negative feeling some here have expressed on late Deville.

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zedz
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#149 Post by zedz » Sun Oct 29, 2017 3:54 pm

I'm playing catch-up with the Nouvelle Vague and rewatched a bunch of films over the past few days, all ones I'd presumed I'd be including.

Le Combat dans l'Ile (Alain Cavalier, 1962) - This is a terrific New Wave thriller, which kind of plays like a much more commercial Rivette film. There's theatre, there's a big conspiracy, there are flights to a house in the country, but it's all tied up in an hour and a half, the conspiracy is real and makes sense, and the film is focussed on a few main characters. Romy Schneider discovers her husband (Jean-Louis Trintignant, impressive as a reptilian shit) is part of a violent terrorist outfit and gets sideswiped by his secret life of political violence. She's left at a safe house while he flees to Buenos Aires, but when Schneider decides that life is actually just fine without a homicidal maniac sleeping in the same bed, he comes back to 'set things right'. Hey, this film also has an action set piece at the end. Take that, Rivette!

Paris nous appartient (Rivette, 1961) - But the real thing has a whole lot of special qualities of its own, and I just love the off-kilter vibe of his muddled conspiracy films. That plot component is kind of a dissonant ambient hum that faintly charges the atmosphere of a whole lot of rambling demotic scenes, which I mostly love for the detailed and varied portrait of Paris they flash at us like smuggled contraband.

Le Bel Indifferent (Demy, 1957) - This lush, stagy monologue is so unlike most other early New Wave films, and yet it's still steeped in a love of Classic Hollywood, specifically eye-popping Technicolor. It's also as much a bridge to French cinema history as Melville's appearance in Breathless, with Cocteau occupying the equivalent place in Demy's cinematic pantheon.

La Baie des Anges (Demy, 1962) - I watched this with my wife, who loved it and asked if the opening shot was as famous as it looked. Unfortunately not. "So it's not known as the greatest opening shot in cinema?" And I didn't really have a good answer for why that is the case. I find this film by turns intoxicating and repellent, which is precisely the tone the material demands. When I first saw it, I found the upbeat ending unsatisfying, but this time around I see it as just another high on the rollercoaster course the film has been charting, and I read it with the opening shot's cautionary metaphor of delirious abandonment (a flash forward, perhaps?) in mind.

Gare du Nord (Rouch, 1965) - The most audacious and successful section of Paris vu par. . ., a small urban drama unfolding in two short bookend shots and one very long central one, which follows a character from her apartment, down an elevator, out into the streets and eventually into the distance that we'd seen from the apartment window at the start of the shot. In a way it's ludicrously dramatic, but Rouch's documentary eye and the rigour of the continuous shot make it work very effectively.

The New World (Godard, 1963) - This had always been one of my favourite Godard films, and while I still like it, I think it's more for the concept - an existential riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which a nuclear holocaust only effects emotional devastation - than the execution. Some great shots of Paris, but those aren't exactly hard to find in these films.

Vivre sa Vie (Godard, 1962), Masculin Feminin (Godard, 1966) & Week End (Godard, 1967) - My three favourite Godard features, and watching them end to end I had a similar reaction to all of them: I don't know if I'll ever see a Godard film I can love in its entirety. All of these films have sequences that I just adore, but they also have sequences I find boring, juvenile and counter-productive. The films (and a lot of Godard films, for me) come off as an erratic collection of skits that happen to feature the same nominal characters, conceived by a filmmaker who isn't anywhere near as smart as he thinks he is. That said, the good bits can be so good that I still like the films anyway. Masculin Feminin has some of Godard's best jokes, Vivre sa Vie might have the best lead performance in any of his films, and Week End has that absolutely mesmerising long narration at the start of the film.

Hiroshima mon amour (Resnais, 1959) - Resnais' early works are much more credible as films of ideas, and they have a strong connective identity despite being the works of different auteurs. I've always found his debut rather stiff, but that's Duras for you, and it doesn't detract from the hypnotic sweep of its style. I still find it hard to love, but it's so involving I'll find room for it on my list.

Muriel, ou le temps d'un retour (Resnais, 1963) - In many respects this is the most ordinary, but also the most discombobulating, of Resnais' early films. The editing is practically the lead player, and its calculated disruptions are even more shocking in the context of a small-town drama than those of Last Year at Marienbad had been. The manner in which the narrative is shattered into tiny little shards in the lead-up to the story of Muriel, and then slows right down for that is simply masterful and emotionally overwhelming. Afterwards, the fragmentation has a very different, more psychological, flavour.

Les Bonnes Femmes (Chabrol, 1960) - My favourite early Chabrol, and a great, septic portrait of French life in the early sixties. It's a cavalcade of men being awful to women and women being not that much better. There's quite a bit here cribbed from Fellini (Nights of Cabiria in particular), but Chabrol has a better grasp of people and practically no sentimentality. Is the antique Kino DVD still the best version we've got of this?
Last edited by zedz on Mon Oct 30, 2017 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#150 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Mon Oct 30, 2017 4:18 am

Well zedz that's 6 of my top 20 covered so I don't have to do any more writing. Mind you your marathon must have left you a bit woozy as Rivette morphed into Resnais at one point.

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