There are a lot of movements in film, however, nearly every civilized country that was producing films after the 1960s and the fall of the studio system had a new wave movement. That new batch of film makers making film in a new way and using plots that pushed the boundries of taboo. From the art house to the grind house to the film schools, it's new film makers making independent films. Let's go through a few new wave movements, shall we?
Starting a bit far from home, Japanese New Wave. The Japanese New Wave started in the late 1950s and went onto the 1970s. It began around the same time as the French New Wave and has, at many times, been considered a copy of the French movement. However, the Japanese New Wave started up roughly at the same time. The movement primarily included young students who studied as film critics and focused on questioning and opposing social norms. The movement didn't last that long, not past the 1970s, with only a few residual film makers still making films past the 70s. Some of the major film makers in the Japanese New Wave movement are Susumu Hani, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Nagisa Oshima, Yasuzo Masumura, Masahiro Shinoda, Shohei Imamura, Seijun Suzuki, Ko Nakahira, and Kaneto Shindo. The topics of these films were uncommon for Japan at the time, topics like sexuality, generder roles, racism, heros from social outcasts, and critiques of social structure, all of these weren't generally done in the society before this. Some of the films in this movement are In The Realm of The Senses (1976), Cruel Story of Youth (1960), Naked Island (1960), Tattooed Life (1964), The Revolutionary (1962), Boy (1969), Double Suicide (1969) and many others. An example of the change in Japan is the use of these subjects in comic books, like the manga Yu Yu Hakusho, where the main character is a High School delinquent.
Moving a bit closer now is Indian New Wave, also known as Parallel Cinema. It began around the same time as the Japanese and French movements, but has lasted a bit longer, the section known as the "new wave" took the portion from 1952 to 1976, however, what is known as "parallel cinema" lasted from 1946 to the present day. It branches off from the mainstream Indian cinema known as Bollywood and focuses on seriousness, realism, social commentary and naturalism. The early directors of this movement were Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Bimal Roy, Mrinal Sen, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Chetan Anand, Guru Dutt, and V. Shantaram. Parallel Cinema started way back in the 1920s but reached it's height in the 70s and 80s, however, by the 90s it had a major decline, primarily due to the cost of creating the films and the fact that the return was not guaranteed. People would go to underground financiers but that proved to only lead to it's downfall, along with piracy, political and economic turmoil and the popularity of TV. Recently, Parallel Cinema is on the rise once again as films that don't quite fit Bollywood. Some of the films in this movement include Sawkari Pash (1925), Pather Panchali (1955), The World of Apu (1959), Pyaasa (1957), Ankur (1974), Swaham (1994) and My Brother... Nikhil (2005).
Another step toward us is the Iranian New Wave in cinema (that's right, even Iran had a new wave). The new wave movement in Iran was quite innovative and talked a lot about political and philosophical topics, it also used highly poetic language. The shift into the new wave came after the social and political changes in the country and a shift to more romanticism. It draws parallels with Italian Neorealism. Some of the major directors from the Iranian New Wave are, Dariush Mehrjui, Nasser Taqvai, Masoud Kimiay, Parviz Kimiavi and others. One major film in the movement and the beginning of it is The Cow (1969).
Up next is the French New Wave. The French are generally seen as the originators of the new wave scene with most others copying them, however, most of the new wave movies came around the same time as the French. The French New Wave is actually influenced by Italian Neorealism and Classic Hollywood. The major things about this movement is the rejection of standard, classic cinematic form and depictions of youthfulness, and using editing, narrative and visuals to discuss political and radical subjects. This is another movement that was started by film makers that begin careers as critics. The leaders of the movement were Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette. The French New Wave was popular in the 50s and 60s and came a lot from the climate of the world after World War II. France began to revert back to the old ways and this movement was a revolt against that. The whole thing was to keep the stories honest, the plot from being too linear and to move the art form forward like directors like Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock did before them. They dealt with existential themes and absurdity, they used jump cuts and long tracking shots, they used improvisation and circular shots, they were just trying to do something different, to tell a story, not follow standard traditions. In turn, the French New Wave influenced other film movements, even the American movement, it came full circle. Some of the films from this movement are The 400 Blows (1959), Breathless (1960) and Le Beau Serge (1958) and many many others.
Right across the "pond" we have The British New Wave. This movement once again took place in the 50s and 60s like the other New Wave movements. Unlike the existentialism and poetry of the other movements, the British New Wave focused on everyday life, the working class, and just discusses class in general. However, the style is very similar to the French New Wave with it's air of spontaneity and use of real people as opposed to extras. By 1964 the movement was over with new films out of Britain being more comical and fantastic and not focused on real and serious issues. A few films from the movement are Room at the Top (1959), The Entertainer (1960), The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner (1962) and Billy Liar (1963).
And finally we get home, that's right the American New Wave, or New Hollywood. Our new wave movement came later, from the mid-1960s to the '80s and was influenced by the French New Wave. The new film makers of the American movement changed the way our studios looked at and marketed films. These film makers weren't independent film makers either, just willing to try new things. The studio system in America was failing and European art cinema was becoming more popular, thus this movement began. Most of these directors came from film schools, many were members of the 60s counterculture and most were young. The films kept the artistic aspects and put more energy and sexuality in their films. The movement began to come to an end around the 70s with the release of films like Star Wars, primarily because it began the American cinema to be more interested in making blockbusters over art films (which has carried onto today). Many excellent art films of the time also spawned unnecessary sequels just to make money, like The Godfather. Some of the big directors on the movement were Woody Allen, Hal Ashby, Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Hopper, Stanley Kubrick, Geroge Lucas, Richard Lester, John Milius, Roman Polanski, Sydney Pollock and Martin Scorsese (many are still making films). Some of the big films are Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Graduate (1967), The Godfather (1972), Harold and Maude (1971), A Clockwork Orange (1971), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and many many others.
Finally, I'll talk about No Wave cinema. It came later, from 1976 to 1985, and like, the musical New Wave movement abandoned structure for mood and texture. It was largely an underground movemet that started in New York. Some of the film makers associated with it are Amos Poe, Eric Mitchell, Vivienne Dick, and James Nares. It spawned a new generation of underground independent film makers also like, Jim Jarmusch, Steve Buscemi and Vincent Gallo.
There it is, New Wave in a nutshell, sorry it was such a long time coming but I hope you enjoyed it and hope it's up to your standards.
There are tons more new wave movements that I wasn't able to discuss but you can look it up, or maybe I'll talk about it later. Some are Australian New Wave, Brazilian New Wave (Cinema Novo), Portuguese New Wave (Novo Cinema), Czechoslovak New Wave, Hong Kong New Wave, Romanian New Wave, Taiwan New Wave and Dogme 95 (which was a movement in 1995, largely from the likes of Lars Von Trier). There are also the revivals of other genres such as Film Noir and Remodernism.
Later Gators!
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