Description:
This course critically and historically examines the idea of a ‘film wave’ though a survey of post-60’s youth-driven national film movements that were often labeled with the term. Topics to be covered include the French New Wave, New Latin American Cinema, British New Wave, New German Cinema, New Taiwan Cinema, and the Romanian New Wave, among others.
In 1957, the French magazine L’Express coined the term ‘new wave’ to describe France’s post-WWII baby boom, and the name quickly became associated with a burgeoning youth-driven film culture in France now known as the French New Wave. Ever since, the names ‘New Wave’ or ‘New Cinema’ have been used to label, describe, and sometimes market youth-driven national film movements. This course will ask what it means to label something a film wave while surveying a number of those film movements. What does it look like when groups of young filmmakers, committed to doing something new, make a mark on their respective film industries? What are the aesthetic, historical, and political qualities of a film wave? We will ask these questions in relation to films from the French New Wave, New Latin American Cinema, British New Wave, New German Cinema, New Taiwan Cinema, and Romanian New Wave, among others.