An example of a French new wave director is-
Francois Truffaut, The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups), released in 1959
French new wave was established by a group of pioneer directors around the 1950's who revolutionised cinema by combining "the rapid cuts of Hollywood with philosophical trends"(read more)
A pragmatic movement, created due to limited funds after the 2nd world war, smaller cameras are now more affordable and available at that time. Their key styles were: Non-linear and discontinuity editing. Their styles were influenced by their experience of cinema being used to indoctrinate the masses by the Natzis. Their concern was that continuity editing made the film to realistic and powerful, much like the Theatre practitioner Brecht who used techniques like the actors changing character and costumes on stage to help the audience to remember that they were witnessing a play not real life. This is the approach that the French new wave director took by making the audience passive against the all powerful text but through these new styles. However the theorist Stuart Hall (creator of the theory preferred readings) argues that each viewer attaches their own meaning/reading to a text.
Good. To be clear, there are two key approaches to audience theory (although some theories mix these up): passive (presumes the audience is weak and the text is powerful) and active (switches these expectations around). Remember the link to Brecht when you're working on Eval audience Q and the MANGeR audience question
ReplyDelete