I get why French New Wave would be so popular in its day. You abandon studio-bound moviemaking and garish Technicolor in favor of crisp B&W film shot on the streets and on the move.
Breathless is like a Vitamin B12 shot.
But let's be real here. If you're not someone who devours film and understands its historical arc, what does the majority of French New Wave offer modern audiences? A bunch of self-conscious, amateur-hour actors posing and bloviating, or hearing someone else bloviating while posing. Usually it's some ham-fisted leftyst drivel puts into their mouths by the writer/director. Often, we also get a narrator to help thread the scenes together so we don't throw up our hands in despair.
If we're lucky, we get a beautiful girl/woman to stare at for a while. All too often she stars opposite Inanimate Carbon Rod Jean-Pierre Leaud, whose charms completely escape me. He comes across as a mopey ingrate in every movie I've seen him in.
If there is an actual plot here, I didn't care.
Frankly, French New Wave doesn't hold a candle to the New American Cinema it inspired. Except the women tend to be a lot better looking, give or take Faye Dunaway and possibly Sally Kellerman (personal fave).
Breathless is like a Vitamin B12 shot.
But let's be real here. If you're not someone who devours film and understands its historical arc, what does the majority of French New Wave offer modern audiences? A bunch of self-conscious, amateur-hour actors posing and bloviating, or hearing someone else bloviating while posing. Usually it's some ham-fisted leftyst drivel puts into their mouths by the writer/director. Often, we also get a narrator to help thread the scenes together so we don't throw up our hands in despair.
If we're lucky, we get a beautiful girl/woman to stare at for a while. All too often she stars opposite Inanimate Carbon Rod Jean-Pierre Leaud, whose charms completely escape me. He comes across as a mopey ingrate in every movie I've seen him in.
If there is an actual plot here, I didn't care.
Frankly, French New Wave doesn't hold a candle to the New American Cinema it inspired. Except the women tend to be a lot better looking, give or take Faye Dunaway and possibly Sally Kellerman (personal fave).