French New Wave
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Watch: How the French New Wave Changed Cinema
The above video essay provides an excellent introduction to the French New Wave, which helped re-invigorate French cinema post-WWII. Spawned by Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and other Cahiers du cinéma critics-turned-filmmakers, the film movement introduced the notion of the director as auteur. A collaboration by Press Play and No Film School, this video essay is the second in a series on film movements, their histories and their enduring influence. You can watch the first film in the series, on German Expressionism, here.
by Paula Bernstein on Sep 8, 2016 -
DAMIEN CHAZELLE, “GUY & MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH”
Damien Chazelle’s Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is a throw back and perhaps a harbinger of things to come, a bebop tinged DIY mumblemusical that, despite its New Wavesque 16mm B&W aesthetic, is very much a movie of this time and moment. It concerns a relatively young, black and talented trumpet player named Guy and his would be, perhaps still his lover, a white grad student named Madeline (the oddly alluring Desiree Garcia). Played by real life Boston jazz scene leading light Jason Palmer, Guy engages in a series of pseudo-romances, bemoans the marginality of the relatively esoteric Jazz […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 3, 2010 -
Angela Ismailos, Great Directors
A curious celebration of cinema and the mix of craft, history and ideology that goes into its making, Angela Ismailos’ Great Directors provides a chance to travel into the minds of ten of the world’s most celebrated film directors. In conversations with Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Liliana Cavani, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles, Ismailos probes these directors for the secrets of their success while recounting much of the history of post-War world cinema via archival footage, occasionally ponderous black-and-white B-roll of the filmmakers, and mostly insightful voice over commentary. Detailed and […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 30, 2010
