Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a musical directed by Jacques Demy in 1964. This film is extremely colorful and musical which create an almost sensory overload to the viewer. It is a dramatic love story between a young girl who works at an umbrella store with her mother and a man who works as a mechanic. In the beginning of the film the two characters are madly in love but when Guy finds out that he must serve in the military and leave Geneviève, their dynamic changes. As time passes, the couple drifts apart. Geneviève becomes pregnant with Guy's child but since he is not present, she is being pursued by a well-to-do jewelry dealer, Roland. In the end, Guy and Geneviève seem happy with their new lives but both hold onto the past that they had with each other
The vivid colors of the film balance the unrealistic sung dialogue. If the film did not have such interesting color to appeal to the eye, the music would overbear and become to unsettling. Every line of the movie is sung ( en chanté) , the songs do not have a beginning or end, the verse/chorus structure of the music is absent. The dialogue is sung in a more operatic structure and sung very slowly.

Shoot the Piano Player

Shoot the Piano Player, Francois Truffaut's second film, relased in 1962 is based on film noir as well as American gangster films of its time. However, it sets itself apart from American gangster films because of the addition to comedy. Shoot the Piano Player has a comic and tragic tone to it, it has as many funny scenes added to it as it does violent. In one of the shootout scenes, there is a comical undertone to the way that Léna dies. Her body is shot while she is running in the snow and it continues to roll down the hill in an dramatic and awkward manner. Truffaut seems to be de-emphasizing the role of violence in the film throught this scene. The tone of the film seems to change from scene to scene, Truffaut structured this film rather chaotically. The unstrutctured pattern of the film seems to work for it because all of the elements of romance, comedy and tragedy somehow make sense together. Although this film may be classifed as a gangster movies, it could be appreciated by any type of movie-goer, no matter what style of film they appreciate.

Cleo from 5 to 7

Cléo from 5 to 7 was released in 1962 by the only female Nouvelle Vague director, Agnes Varda. The film is shot according to the life of Cléo from the hours of 5 p.m. to about 7 p.m. on a certain day in June. Varda was one of the first directors to experiment with this sort of real-life use of time to portray the characters.
The main character, Cléo, is a semi-popular singer in Paris who is narcissistic and attention-craving. The beginning of the film shows Cléo visiting a tarot card reader who predicts that she may be looking death in the eyes. Cléo believes her while admitting that she is superstitious and continues her day dwelling on the fact that her life may soon be coming to an end because of cancer. Her vanity is evident throughout the film. For example, she plays one of her own songs at a café and expects the customers to react to it positively. When no one seems to pay attention to the music, Cléo becomes even more frustrated with herself. Cléo demonstrates a variety of emotions througout the 2 hours of her day, when she learns that she does have cancer, her mood seems to settle and her paranoia eases.
Varda's camera work is intersting in this film, like Godard she plays with jump cuts in a few scenes. The scene where Cléo is wandering the street and noticing the faces of passer-bys is also memorable.

Pickpocket

This film by Robert Bresson was created in 1959 along with many other contemporary New Wave films in France. The main character, Michel discovers that he has an interest in pickpocketing while at the race track. Michel's character is somewhat difficult to understand. He seems lonely and empty and finds comfort in the material world of pickpocketing. His emotions are so hidden that his feelings for Jeanne, his mother's caretaker, to not arise until the end of the film. I don't believe Michel's character was intended to be romantic; his supressed feelings seem to come from the guilt that is bottled inside from stealing from his mother as well as strangers.
The most memorable scene of the film is when the three accomplices devise a plan to pickpocket at a train station. The three men steal wallets, pass them to eachother, empty the wallets, and replace them all while keeping the owners oblivious to what is happening. Bresson focused on the hands and facial expressions of the accomplices during this scene; the body movements flowed and it seemed more magical than real.
Pickpocket has a style all its own. Bresson's creation of Michel is someone to be admired for his mastery of pickpocketing as well as pitied for his lack of confidence and hope.

Hiroshima Mon Amour

Hiroshima Mon Amour is the story of two people, a French woman and a Japanese man, who find love in the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The film consists of a dialogue between the two characters about their past and present relationships. The director, Alain Resnais, is constantly aware or the concept of time in this film while focusing on memory and past events. The female character explains to the Japanese man her previous love interest while Resnais shows flashbacks of what her memories of this may have looked like. The concept of memory is what the basis of the conversations between the two characters revolve around. The female actress seems to be re-living her previous love interest with the German soldier through her new love affair with the man from Japan. Her old memories of the German soldier have surfaced because of her new relationship. The direction of the film is interesting because it leaves many gaps for the viewer to fill in. The relationship between the two characters is difficult to figure out because the woman seems to caught up in the past to live a normal life in the present. Hiroshima Mon Amour is structured fragmentarily, which creates this disarray of time between past and present.

Breathless

Jean Luc Goddards film Breathless is regarded as somewhat of a reflection of a Hollywood gangster film. One of the main characters, Michel Poiccard, is influenced by Humphrey Bogart, a famous figure of the American B films that Goddard admired. Poiccard is constantly rubbing his lips the same way that Bogart once did. Throughout the film, Poiccard continually shows interest in all things American. He chases an American girl, steals American cars, and imitates a popular American celebrity. On the other hand, Patricia Franchini, an American who works for the New York Herald Tribune in Paris, submerges herself in the French culture. She works in Paris, speaks broken French, admires French artwork and music as well as French clothing designers. In two scenes of the film, both characters compare themselves to symbols of each other's native culture. Poiccards, who stares at a picture of Bogart in front of the cinema, and Patricia, who compares herself to the woman in the Renoir painting.
Aside from the characters, the film is famously known for Goddard's New Wave filming techniques. Goddard shot the film with a natural style. His use of sound during the scene where Patricia and Michel are in the apartment help create a more believeable scenario between the characters. Their conversation seems to be improvised and is drowned out by sirens and noise pollution from the street. Goddard deliberate use of jump cuts also make this film stand out in the French New Wave era. His use of a hand held camera allow the viewer to focus on exactly what Goddard intends to show. Goddard's Breathless will forever be a revolutionary film from the French New Wave era.

Truffauts 400 Blows

Truffaut's film, Les Quatre Cents Coups, translated as The 400 Blows, depicts a semi-autobiographical story of a young mischevious boy who is regarded as a trouble maker by both his parents as well as the teachers at his school. Truffaut's first film is often regarded as one of the best French New Wave works of art. Truffaut is praised for his innovative use of camera angles as well as his ability to develop his characters with a believable, natural presence. The 400 Blows portrays the life of a young French boy, Antoine Doinel, who is trapped in the middle of an unstable family while being labeled in society as a juvenile delinquent. Antoine continually looks for trouble, whether it's stealing, plagairizing, starting fires, or skipping school, his actions are constantly destroying his reputation. Antoine acts as if his behaviors are non-consequential, he seems to accept his bad luck. Truffaut rarely shows a genuine expression of emotions through the character Antoine. One moment where the audience can grasp a sense of what the boy is experiencing is when Antoine is at the carnival with his friend the day he skipped school and he seems happy for the first time in the film as he spins around and soaks up the experience. Truffaut does not dwell on Antoine's emotion towards his family. He is aware of his mother's affair, yet he seems to accept it and stay out of her business. He is constantly reminded of her lack of interest in being a good mother. Antoine is left to himself to figure out how to get by in life, even if he finds out the hard way.