Nouvelle vague

Nouvelle vague means "new wave" in French. It was used to represent a movement and trend in new visual expressions in the movie world from the 1950s to 60s. The representative works of that movement&sbquo centered in France&sbquo are said to be Franois Truffault’s les quatre cents coups (1959) and Jean-Luc Godard’s A Bout de Souffle (1959). Both directors started off their career as film critics&sbquo but while attempting to develop a new movie language through an independent magazine called Cahiers du Cinema&sbquo they established a common cinematic expressive technique through rediscovering such filmmakers as Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks. Even as it rejected the conventional so-called art film&sbquo the technique sought to dispel or destroy the narrative quality of film and reflect the discovery of live language and gestures that directly confront reality. The concept&sbquo in particular&sbquo of simultaneous documentary-like development has been credited with changing definitively the "space" in films made thereafter. This progressive stance in expression naturally led to the unavoidable experience of political transformation. Although this unanimous film movement ended with the Paris Revolution in 1968&sbquo it has remained a great influence on cinematic expressions and techniques even today. This technique was imported to Japan as a Japanese style Nouvelle vague. It was established as a documentary type cinematic expression especially for criticizing political and social trends. How to interpret this historical context for cinematic design is both an issue and theme. Cinematic design in particular is advancing owing to digital technology. If new cinematic design techniques and philosophy are necessary for the contents&sbquo corresponding to this new technological advancement in form&sbquo there should be a variety of factors suggested in the movement.

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