New Wave-An Intellectual Fraud For The Ages

quite a bit wrong with this post and normally i wouldn't bother but it's late and i have nothing to do.

After just viewing about a dozen films by Francois Truffaut as well as Breathless and A Woman Is A Woman, the first two feature films by Jean-Luc Goddard, I must conclude that the French "New Wave" is one of the biggest intellectual frauds ever perpetrated on the public. the film viewing public or otherwise.

you do realize that you're doing something no different from what the Cahiers did in the first place: criticizing contemporary (i guess in this case "modern" would be the better word) French cinema because of your personal dislike of it. that's fine, but don't blame a critics group for doing the exact same thing as you in the next few paragraphs.

This intellectual fraud undoubtedly started at Les cahiers du cinema, the French cinema publication, where both Truffaut, Goddard, and other self styled "intellectuals" worked as film "critics" during the 1950's. Truffaut, Goddard, and the other critics kept demeaning contemporary French films and, of course, since they were the all knowing, all important, universally recognized "experts" on French cinema, the film viewing public gradually too began to believe that contemporary French cinema was just "crap".

just a random question but how much 50s cahiers have you read? i've read all of Godard's writing as well as a lot of Truffaut's and it's all pretty incredible, plus they gave the world re-consideration of such masters as Hitchcock and Hawks, plus developed what is perhaps the most influential non-Bazin theory, plus accepted genre films as a legit film alongside art-films...mind you these are things that have to do with their CRITICISM and not their FILMS. they were not experts on french cinema as you think they saw themselves. they were speaking out against popular french film criticism standards at the time, and were considered to be pretty "edgy" for lack of a better word because of their dissenting views. they started cahiers and were successful and gained notoriety (and later funding for films) so i'd say as critics they were certainly successful, even if they weren't the "experts" that you say they believed they were.

But What To Do? What To Do? I mean if the contemporary French cinema of the day was really "crap" as these all knowing, "intellectual" film critics at Les cahiers du cinema said it was, where do we go from here? This obvious question was the call to Truffaut, Goddard, & other self styled "intellectuals" of cinema to "put your money where your mouth is". So Truffaut & Goddard & some other self styled, self important film critics decided to take the plunge into film making, although, in reality, none of them had very much real filmmaking experience. But not to worry, Right? Because they're smart intellectuals types & if you can criticize other filmmakers, then that means that you certainly know how to make a better film than those guys, Right? And they even coined a new word for these self important, narcissistic, "intellectual" film critics who tried their amateur hand at filmmaking. That new word was "New Wave".

this was pretty much the first time anything like this had ever happened, critics trying to make movies that they all collectively liked. it sounds self-masturbatory in hindsight but it's also pretty ballsy too, really. sure, they didn't know much about film-making, if you've never read a cahiers in your life. about the only thing these guys didn't have that a film school student had was experience and a degree, and they already had much better taste, refined theories, and perhaps the best connections in the world. with their finances and l'enfant terrible notoriety, making feature-length, quality films was almost unheard of at the time, influencing later generations possibly forever to make their own films if they feel they are READY (quick note, none of the cahiers critics bar Chabrol made any feature films until 1959, which was several years into the cahiers business). they were prepared for this moment and had been planning for it. i'm also rather confident they themselves didn't coin the term new wave, though i could be incorrect. it's an apt-term regardless, even if you don't like a film movement that doesn't invalidate the damn name of the thing. i don't really see why you use the word intellectual so much in this paragraph either since i can't recall ever seeing the word used in a cahiers review, outside of maybe describing a character.

And the gullible movie going public really ate it up. WOW!!! I mean these really smart film critics are going to show us how to REALLY make a movie, Right? Even though they really didn't have much filmmaking experience, Right?

nobody is born with experience, though you should note that they tended to work on short films and assist on others wayy before this and knew plenty about the filmmaking process. that's why their films still LOOK like films, they're not just random stuff on a screen, they have coherence, narrative, good production values, etc.

The result was that the amateurish qualities of the early New Wave films were even lionized as "breakthroughs" in filmmaking. For instance, Goddard in Breathless is hailed a "genius' for innovating a new editing style that had a lot of jagged breaks & jumped around the scene a lot. However, Norman Cousins in The Story Of Film reveals that this cinematic "breakthrough" was Goddard's amateurish use of short film stock that was intended for still photo cameras & not for motion picture cameras. Hence, Cousins informs us, every "innovative" editing break in Breathless is a point where the cameraman had to reload the camera with yet another inappropriately short roll of film. But since the gullible movie going public, & apparently other gullible film critics were convinced of the "genius" of these narcissistic film critics cum filmmakers they interpreted every such amateurish quality of these truly inexperienced filmmakers as "marks of genius".

that wasn't exactly how jump-cutting began but sure, i guess if you heard it from Story of Film it must be true. being that that's the only source you've cited here i'm willing to bet that it's the only base of information you have on the new wave since you seem to only know a small bit of it. for example, godard's jump-cuts were a result of trimming the film in small segments to get it down to the proper length for the producers. you can argue that this wasn't genius or that innovative or whatever, but it was something unique that was adopted through the years in part due to godard's identification with the free-feeling new wave. most of the praises for the film were from the other cahiers critics, which makes total sense because 1. godard was their friend, 2. they wanted it to be successful so their films would be successful, 3. godard had similar taste to the rest of the cahiers so if he approved of it, they likely did too. this is, again, not speaking about the qualities of the film at all, which you're welcome to like or dismiss since i know godard isn't for everyone. this is merely an attempt to educate you on how blatantly inept some of your logical conclusions are.

Once this snowballing of gullibility achieved momentum, it proceeded in time through the decades where most people even today still think that the amateurish qualities of early New Wave films are "marks of genius" and "innovation", even to the point where other filmmakers imported these amateurish qualities into their own productions although, thankfully, often in a more refined and considered manner.

the techniques used in the new wave were new, hence the name, and since they had not been performed that way before (jump cuts, on-set shooting, breaking the 4th wall in the manner godard did, direct homages to certain genres, etc.) then, by the very definition of the word, these techniques are innovative. of course they're going to look amateurish at first, we can look back on a Griffith film and see the obvious progression of Griffith apart from his peers, but the multiple storyline narrative of Intolerance can't hold up to the weaving of narrative in something like, say, Satantango. but it's innovative and just as incredible all the same because it was the first time anyone had done something like this in film. so basically, most of what you are saying is true, but you've got an extremely twisted view on it all for some reason.

All in all, the rave about New Wave films over the decades is proof positive of the gullibility of the average person for any person that is put in front of them as an "expert" of some sort, be it a "cinema critic" or some "scientist" warning them about the drinking quality of their tap water. Because Truffaut, Goddard, and other French film critics of the 1950's were recognized by the gullible average person, which includes, apparently other film critics, as "experts", their inexperienced, even amateurish efforts at filmmaking themselves had the "expert effect" carried over from "expert film critic" to "expert filmmaker". So we must conclude that the monumental fraud perpetrated on the public by New Wave filmmakers is not really the fault of these decidedly amateurish filmmakers, but is really the fault of the average person to unreflectively believe whatever the newest "expert" is about to tell them.

most of the "people" that went and saw the fnw films didn't necessarily do it because the big, mean critics told them to (or not to) but because they liked these movies. 400 Blows was considered extremely touching at the time, and still is today. while france was more ingrained artistically in the 50s than, say, the US, regular people were not popular consumers of cahiers, and they went AGAINST critical opinion for the most part, as seen by how Truffaut developed a theory which pretty much took a dump on modern french film criticism at that time. the fault is not on the average person for believing an expert, and that will certainly sound a lot more true if you read that out loud to yourself a bit. if you go to the doctor and he tells you that you're fine and you die from cancer in two years, is it the person's fault, or the doctor's? obviously movies are not a science but these critics were in the industry for years and were respected writers, so it's pretty safe to say they were critics through and through (they certainly saw more films than the average person).

This is why I view the reviews of any self styled "film critic" merely with amusement, because NOBODY is going to convince me which films I should enjoy and which films I should not enjoy. I am a free thinking, independent person who knows what he likes and what he doesn't like and I will never let any narcissistic "film critic" rob me of my own opinion about a film, as they have robbed the movie going public of their true opinion about the amateurish New Wave cinema.

congrats on you then. most critics don't really care, they're just trying to share their opinion in an artistic yet convincing way, sometimes making it an art in and of itself (rosenbaum, the cahiers themselves, others). what's there to say that critics didn't actually like the fnw? this is what i always laugh about when i see; people accusing the critics of lying or being pretentious or what-have-you. most of them have seen several THOUSAND movies and are pretty sure what they like, what reason would they have to lie to their readers who respect and trust their views? and of course the critics aren't going to shove their opinions down your throat, they know that everyone should be free-thinking because they themselves are, in most cases at least. criticism is a way to see what films are "considered" to be critically great, i use it more as a viewing guide (like from They Shoot Pictures or Sight and Sound) rather than a direct way to rate movies.

you don't seem to be criticizing the film Breathless itself and you're really just making a ton of half-claims, sort-of-truths, and then posting questionable amounts of flat misinformation, all on a subject (film criticism, specifically in france in the 50s and 60s) that you know nothing about.

but you tried, at least.

have a nice day
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I think the real frauds are the modern so-called critics, which encompasses pseudo-intellectuals and self-satisfied writers like Rosenbaum, the folks at Cinemascope, or even modern Cahiers reviewers. Throw in the Youtube critics trying to be clever for views, the condescending video essayists rendering their "judgments" on how filmmaking should work, and all the fanboys like McWeeney and Goldberg, and it's a wasteland.

Were Truffaut and Godard arrogant at times? Probably. They'd be critical or downright negative about some of their contemporaries, but at least they put themselves out in the arena and competed. As you say, it's really the fault of viewers who jump on every popular opinion bandwagon. Personally, I think Godard was great and his approach on BREATHLESS wasn't necessarily about "technique," as in he wasn't just systematically applying techniques to make a film. He was being subversive by developing his own language by which to tell stories and was unapologetic about breaking away from widely accepted norms of filmmaking.

Non of the self-styled losers today have the courage to put themselves out there and prove that they know what "works" in cinema or how to create an original experience. They're armchair bullies who have bought into their sense of power over being able to nudge the score on a review aggregator and hand down grades/scores/judgments on other people's work. And still, in modern cinema and the discourse around it, the average moviegoer doesn't have the intelligence to discern between nuanced critical analysis and self-important, yet elegantly worded, trash.

If anything, it's worse today because of all the review aggregators that assign a simple score/percentage to a film. And the internet/social media has killed any chance for dissenting opinions since everybody jumps on whatever the trend is on twitter and so on. Film criticism is dead. And none of these people...Kael, Ebert, Rosenbaum, etc were really any better than today's idiots because they all bought into the same elitist "I am the final judge of what's good" mentality.

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