French Cinema by Dudley Andrew

Author:Dudley Andrew [Andrew, Dudley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780191028717
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2023-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

How the New Wave was produced

How did ideas for films like these move through writing into realization? Every film requires an environment that can support its gestation; hence the common nucleus consisting of writer, director, and producer. The last of these arranges the conditions to nourish the project, primarily with seed money and connections to supply lines. To match the creative gambles of their cineastes, New Wave producers had to be equally innovative and daring. Godard and Varda relied on Georges de Beauregard to clear their way. Quite new at the business, he had previously employed Godard as a rewrite man, and was impressed with his shorts and with the three ideas he pitched, one of which, À bout de souffle, carried Truffaut’s endorsement. With Les Quatre cents coups making headlines, Beauregard agreed to come up with the $120,000 he calculated should be sufficient for a project without major stars, sets, or lighting. When À bout de souffle filled theaters at home and abroad, he signed up to produce a string of Godard’s features and readily doled out small budgets to his friends. Before helping Varda, he produced Jacques Demy’s fetching Lola and Jacques Rozier’s underappreciated Adieu Philippine. Varda, like Demy, had wanted to shoot in color, but with Cléo de 5 à 7 there were funds enough only to cover the opening sequence. She could thank Beauregard, since austerity engendered ingenuity and sharpened her script and her eye. For instance she contrived a sequence in which Cléo visits a movie theater where her friend’s husband, a projectionist, is screening a short comedy. Acting in this film-within-a-film are Anna Karina and Godard, mocked for his dark glasses. In fact Varda shot this trifle just after the couple’s actual wedding where she had served as official photographer (and Beauregard had been a witness). The New Wave could feel like a party.

21. Cléo de 5 à 7 (Varda, 1962). Cléo (Corinne Marchand) caught in her hall of mirrors.

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