World Cinema: The French New Wave
July 9, 2009 by admin
Santosh Sandhu discusses the French New Wave…
French cinema in the post war years consisted mainly of genre movies with high production values. It was often studio bound and formulaic. The Gaullist regime came to power in the late 1950s and wanted to promote a home grown industry to compete against the dominance of Hollywood. A film subsidy called the avance sur recettes was put in place which enabled many new directors to get their first films made. Roger Vadim’s commercially successful Et Dieu créa la femme (And God created Women, 1956) had given production companies faith in young directors working with low budgets.