French New Wave

The French New Wave was made by critics who got tired of writing about the movies and went outside to shoot them.

They had no studios and almost no money, so they used the streets, their friends, and whatever light Paris gave them, and the rawness read as honesty. Breathless got its famous jump cuts because Godard’s first cut ran long and he shortened scenes from the inside instead of dropping them. For a few years every picture seemed to break a rule the audience had not known was a rule. In 1958 the festival at Cannes would not let Truffaut in, on account of his reviews; in 1959 The 400 Blows won him Best Director there.