FILM CLUB: The birth of the New Wave
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Elevator to the Gallows
WiseJake — 16 years ago(September 08, 2009 02:49 PM)
I know that picking firsts in a particular genre or movement is a tough thing to do but I want to try it here anyway. I feel that Elevator to the Gallows is one of the first true French New Wave films. Many will say Godard's Breathless or Truffaut's 400 Blows, but realize that this film came out at least a year before either of those did and has a lot of the hallmarks of a French New Wave film. If I had to classify it's a New Wave film noir. But anyway, what are your opinions on the first New Wave film. By this I don't mean how it got it's roots, but the first true film of the French New Wave.
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carcarrera-1 — 15 years ago(April 25, 2010 03:08 PM)
Interesting post.
Problem is Malle was never considered a "member" of this group. The style has some similarities, of course but much better direction than the real "members" achieved in their first movies (IMHO)
I feel many films of the Nouvelle Vague are bad aging ones. Some of them created much better movies later (especially Rohmer and Chabrol)
The film considered as first one of this movement is "Le beau Serge", directed by Claude Chabrol (December, 1957 to February, 1958) -
ilpohirvonen — 15 years ago(December 28, 2010 07:34 AM)
Louis Malle is often considered to be part of the French New Wave, not part of Cahiers du Cinema (Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, Rivette & Rohmer) nor the 'left-side: politically more aware (Varda, Demy, Marker & Resnais) but Malle was a new wave director, at first. He was somewhere in between of the left-side and Cahiers du cinema just as Jean-Pierre Melville and Georges Franju (one of a kind) for instance were. There are several directors who aren't actually considered as part of the new wave, but their films are seen new wavish.
I don't think this is the first though, many consider that Agnes Varda started it all with her shorts and Jean Rouch (father of Cinema Verite) is praised often as well. It's really hard to pick truly the first one but the way I see it Jean Rouch started it all, opened the door and especially his influence on Jean-Luc Godard was tremendous. So The Mad Masters (1955) a short-film about a Hauka-rite could easily be seen as the first, or Rouch's first attempt to combine reality and fiction Moi, un noir (1958) which I prefer as the true first French new wave film.
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