50 Fun Facts About French New Wave

What is the French name for the New Wave?

The movement peaked roughly between 1958 and 1962.

Which film magazine did Truffaut, Godard, Rohmer, Rivette and Chabrol all write for?

Its early covers were film stills on bright yellow with no headlines.

Who directed Breathless (1960)?

It was his first feature and Jean-Paul Belmondo's breakthrough.

Who directed The 400 Blows (1959)?

It was his debut and his most successful film in France, with 4.1 million admissions.

Which editing technique did Breathless make famous?

Godard trimmed long takes from the middle to hit a 90-minute running time, on Melville's advice.

Which American actress plays Patricia, selling the Herald Tribune on the Champs-Élysées?

She took $15,000, a sixth of the budget, and privately doubted the film would sell.

What is the name of Truffaut's alter ego, played by Jean-Pierre Léaud in five films?

Léaud played him in five films, ending with Love on the Run in 1979.

How does The 400 Blows end?

An optical zoom pushes into his face as he looks into the camera.

Who is the 'spiritual father' to whom Truffaut dedicated The 400 Blows?

The Cahiers co-founder died just as shooting was about to start.

Who founded the Cinémathèque Française, the other 'father figure' of the movement?

The future directors met each other at his screenings.

Which 1954 Truffaut essay attacked the French 'Tradition of Quality'?

He denounced safe literary adaptations turned into unimaginative films.

Which American critic coined the English term 'auteur theory'?

The French original was 'la politique des auteurs'.

Who wrote the 1948 manifesto 'The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: The Camera-Stylo'?

He argued cinema could express thought as directly as the novel or essay.

Which 1958 Chabrol film is traditionally credited as the first New Wave feature?

It was inspired by Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt; Varda's La Pointe Courte was chronologically earlier.

Which Varda film of 1955 was chronologically the first New Wave feature?

It had no commercial release until 2008.

Which group included Resnais, Varda, Marker and Demy, as opposed to the magazine critics?

They were older, more literary, and identified with the political left.

Which 1953 American film did Truffaut credit with showing the New Wave the way?

He praised Morris Engel for showing them independent production.

In which 1967 Godard film does a famous long tracking shot follow a traffic jam?

Long tracking shots and existential absurdity were hallmarks of the style.

What did New Wave crews reportedly use for tracking shots when they lacked a dolly?

Godard also pushed his cinematographer around in a wheelchair on Breathless.

Who was the cinematographer of Breathless, hired by producer Georges de Beauregard?

He shot hand-held with almost no lighting and pushed Ilford HP5 from 400 to 800 ASA.

Which New Wave director appears in Breathless as a dead body hit by a car?

Michel's alias Laszlo Kovacs is a nod to Belmondo's character in Chabrol's Web of Passion.

Which screenwriter, a notorious seducer, inspired Michel's character in Breathless?

Gégauff wrote many of Chabrol's scripts.

Which prize did Godard win for Breathless in January 1960, before its release?

Cahiers put the film on its cover the same month.

Who directed the 2025 film about the shooting of Breathless, with Zoey Deutch as Seberg?

Nouvelle Vague casts Guillaume Marbeck as Godard and Zoey Deutch as Seberg.

Which French idiom does the title Les quatre cents coups come from?

An early US subtitler rendered the title as Wild Oats before the distributor vetoed it.

Where were the reform-school scenes of The 400 Blows filmed?

The final beach scene was shot a few miles away at Villers-sur-Mer.

Which award did The 400 Blows win at Cannes in 1959?

It opened the festival and was later nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.

Who plays Catherine in Jules and Jim?

Critic Ginette Vincendeau called her style the incarnation of the New Wave actress.

Who wrote the 1953 semi-autobiographical novel behind Jules and Jim?

Truffaut found the book in a Paris shop and befriended the elderly author.

Who composed the score for Jules and Jim?

Time magazine listed it among the ten best soundtracks in its All-Time 100 Movies.

Who directed Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)?

Florence, alias Cléo, waits for a biopsy result in near real time on June 21.

Which composer plays Bob the pianist in Cléo from 5 to 7?

He wrote the film's score and later most of Jacques Demy's musicals.

Who wrote the screenplay for Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour?

It was Resnais's first feature and a France–Japan co-production.

What is the hometown of the French actress in Hiroshima mon amour?

She fell in love with a German soldier there during the Occupation and had her head shaved.

Which radical collective did Godard form in 1969?

His later films turned from Marxism toward a more humanist perspective.

Which actress, Godard's first wife, starred in Vivre sa vie and Pierrot le Fou?

Filmmaker magazine called their collaborations arguably the most influential body of work in cinema.

Which 1963 Godard film starring Brigitte Bardot was his biggest commercial success?

Le Mépris also starred Michel Piccoli and Fritz Lang as himself.

In which Swiss town did Godard live from 1978 until his death in 2022?

Varda and JR knock on his door there at the end of Faces Places; he did not answer.

According to a Godard aphorism, what do you need to make a movie?

Another: a film has a beginning, a middle and an end, though not necessarily in that order.

Which Truffaut film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film?

Godard sent him a furious letter calling him a liar over it, ending their friendship.

In which Spielberg film did Truffaut play a French scientist?

He also acted in his own The Wild Child and Day for Night.

Which director was the subject of Truffaut's 1966 book-length interview?

Hitchcock/Truffaut tied for second on Sight and Sound's list of the greatest film books.

Which Ray Bradbury novel became Truffaut's first non-French film in 1966?

It showcased his love of books; it was shot in English.

In which country was Agnès Varda born?

Born Arlette in Ixelles, Brussels, she legally became Agnès at 18.

Varda was the first woman to win which Cannes honour, in 2015?

Scorsese called her 'one of the Gods of Cinema'.

Which Demy musical of 1964 has all its dialogue sung?

Kurt Vonnegut wrote that it broke his heart and that he liked it that way.

Which seaport of Demy's childhood is the setting of Lola?

Varda's 1991 film Jacquot de Nantes recounts his life and death.

Éric Rohmer's pseudonym combined Sax Rohmer with which film director's name?

He was born Jean-Marie Maurice Schérer and gave reporters different birth dates.

How long is the rarely screened 1971 film Out 1?

Cinephiles treat it as a Holy Grail; his improvisational method followed May 68.

Which 1956 short by the director of Out 1 is often cited as the first New Wave film?

Truffaut later credited Rivette with developing the movement.