French New Wave

The French New Wave, or Nouvelle Vague, was a film movement that emerged in France in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Its directors, many of whom had started as critics for the magazine Cahiers du cinema, rejected the conventions of the established studio cinema and made films with small crews, location shooting, natural light and improvisation. Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette were among the key figures, and Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Godard's Breathless became landmarks. The movement stressed the personal vision of the director, a notion known as the auteur theory. It strongly influenced filmmakers in many countries, including the New Hollywood generation.

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