French New Wave
In the 1950's, a group of French film critics banded together under the publication "Cahiers du Cinema," a journal dedicated to breaking away from the constrictions and conventions of Classical French Cinema. Over the next ten years, filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut and Claude Chabrol (all original "Cahier" critics) would create a radically new and invigorated form of film. They took their cameras (and their audiences) out of the safety and comfort of the sound stage into the streets of Paris. Long tracking shots were severed by jump cuts within and between scenes creating a jarring, spastic narrative. While a number of their innovations were born of necessity in the Post-World War II French economy, the films created during this time have continued to inspire directors for their resourcefulness and originality.
While Godard (Breathless, Band Of Outsiders) and Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Jules et Jim) led the way, other notable names include Agnes Varda (Cleo de 5 a 7), Claude Chabrol (Les Biches, The Unfaithful Wife), Jacques Demy (The Young Girls of Rochefort, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and Louis Malle (Elevator To The Gallows, Murmur of the Heart).
page 1 of 2 next
Breathless
$19.95 | 90 minutes
Former "Cahiers du Cinma" critic Jean-Luc Godard threw everything he had learned from years of movie watching into his debut feature--creating an enormously influential film and a seminal study of existential longing and betrayal. Within the first few minutes, Michel (Belmondo), a foul-mouthed Parisian who idolizes Humphrey Bogart&hellip…
The 400 Blows
$16.95 | 99 minutes
Director François Truffaut's first feature film, THE 400 BLOWS, is a landmark in French cinema. Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is a 13-year-old boy who can't seem to do anything right. His parents yell at him and then bribe him for his love and his promises to work harder in school. Meanwhile, his schoolteacher is out&hellip…
Band of Outsiders
$26.95 | 95 minutes
French New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard continues his fascination with dime store novels and American crime films with 1964's BAND OF OUTSIDERS, a free-spirited romp in the same vein as the director's breakthrough smash, BREATHLESS. More traditional than BREATHLESS in its technical execution, BAND OF OUTSIDERS sparkles with freshness and&hellip…
Shoot the Piano Player
$34.95 | 81 minutes
Francois Truffaut's second feature is a tender, playful but ultimately tragic story of a man who has never recovered from a past betrayal. Charlie, once a renowned concert pianist, now plays background music in a run-down bar. A sympathetic waitress there loves him, but Charlie can neither forgive nor forget his former wife's infidelity…
Les Biches
$17.95 | 100 minutes
Claude Chabrol crafts a complex social allegory in LES BICHES, a subtle and intricate tale of desire, despair, and murder. Released in March of 1968, just months before the May 1968 student revolts in Paris, Chabrol filtered the ever-increasing class struggle in France into the compelling tale of glamorous Frédérique (Stephane Audran)&hellip…
Elevator To the Gallows
$29.95 | 92 minutes
This psychological thriller is imbued with a wonderful Parisian atmosphere and a moody, improvisational score by legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. A beautiful woman, Florence, and her lover, Julien, plan to murder her husband (who happens to be Julien's boss as well), so they can be together. After carefully carrying out the crime&hellip…
Jules et Jim
$31.95 | 105 minutes
JULES AND JIM is François Truffaut's intense, beautiful, enigmatic film about the lifelong friendship between two writers – French novelist Jim (Henri Serre) and Austrian children's author Jules (Oskar Werner) – and their mutual love for the eccentric Catherine (Jeanne Moreau). With artful black-and-white imagery, the&hellip…
Cleo de 5 a 7
$26.95 | 90 minutes
Agnes Varda's signature strategy of mixing documentary and fiction comes to fruition in this intimate and fluid portrait of two hours in the life of pop singer Cleo Victoire (Corrine Marchand) as she restlessly awaits the results of a cancer test. With a distinctly feminist take on the French New Wave films of the early 1960s, Varda's&hellip…
Lacombe, Lucien
$26.95 | 138 minutes
This unflinching film by legendary director Louis Malle was one of the first of its time to openly discuss the troublesome issue of French collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. It follows an innocent young man (the very talented Pierre Blaise, who was killed in a car accident a year after the movie was made), who's looking&hellip…
Masculin Feminin
$21.95 | 105 minutes
A film about "the children of Marx and Coca Cola" directed by the child of Brecht and Hollywood, MASCULINE-FEMININE is a touchstone in the career of Jean-Luc Godard, a window into the kinetic world of Paris in the 1960s, and a high point in the cinema of the French New Wave. It chronicles the love affair between Paul (Jean-Pierre Leaud)&hellip…