Claude Chabrol, 1958, 112 minutes. The first big hit of the Nouvelle Vague sees director Chabrol following the ambivalence of pre-'60s young people as they struggle and celebrate through the new moral relativism infecting the Paris college scene.
The French New Wave changed the cinema completely, from how we make movies to how we watch them. Initiated by film critics from the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, the Nouvelle Vague led to films shot on the cheap about contemporary subjects on one hand, while playfully re-imagining genres such as Science Fiction and musicals on the other. Without a single unifying theme beyond reaching for a greater sense of personal expressiveness in film, directors such as Malle, Resnais, Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, Marker, Varda, Demy, and Vadim marked a trail that would transform cinemas from Hollywood to Japan to Czechoslovakia, injecting a blast of youth, energy and vision that still resonates today.
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