Cinéma Du Look: Spectacle over Substance?
After the decline of the New Wave movement throughout the 60s, French cinema sought for new ways of bespoke artistic expression. A focal point in any study of the French New Wave has been auteurship; the notion of a director's personal style and direction is one which remained paramount in paving the way for a more current film movement in the 1980s. Instead of a shunning of the Classical Hollywood conventions, the auteurist vision moved onto the film's "thematisation of specularity" (Ezra, 2002, p.227), which enticed a conflict between the narrative and the spectacle. As such, a new generation of revolutionary French directors emerged with the likes of Luc Besson and Leos Carax.
Films from these directors have been coined part of the 'Cinéma Du Look' and feature a politically engaged dialogue involving a certain realism. Films such as 'Les Amants Du Pont Neuf' (Carax) highlight in particular a youthful alienation in the world alongside issues such as marginalisation and homelessness. Hayward underlines that Carax, while directing this film, was attempting to articulate the exclusion of such members of society within the confines of the excluded space - the Pont-Neuf bridge - wherein they find themselves for the majority of the film (2005, p. 312). Furthermore, narrative in this film is advanced enough to include a deeply meaningful depth to the ideological character representation: "the characters' struggle becomes also a struggle for personal history" (Allmer, 2014, para. 32).
Intriguingly with the Cinéma Du Look, there are moments in the narrative where we witness an aural excitement that takes over the screen for an extended period. In other words, music and dance is used to express how our characters think and feel. The music can come suddenly and catch the viewer off-guard and unprepared; this is a deliberate effect that people such as Beneix and Carax sought to use. With this inclusion comes the debate of 'substance vs. spectacle'. This very rudimentary basis for narratological argument has been seen before at the birth of cinema when films were seen to use their visuals for "solicit[ing] spectator attention, inciting visual curiosity, and supplying pleasure through an exciting spectacle - a unique event." (Gunning, 1990, p.58).
The film manages to offer these 'attractions' without omitting narrative development, Ezra illuminates how the scene of Alex burning Michèle's missing posters is one of the most 'visually arresting' scenes in the film (2002, p.230); the spectacle of this underpins exactly what the film's narrative highlights: destruction in the lives of the characters through love. This is just a single example of this short-lived film movement using it's spectacle - whether it be two homeless people slow-dancing and water-skiing through a vibrant firework display or simply a snowy scene on the Pont-Neuf bridge by night - as a tool to heighten dramatic and narrational meaning and messages.
'Les Amants du Pont-Neuf' is paradigmatic of the movement and it features a poetic and timeless tale of two lovers. This film shares particular common tropes of the romance story with others, however it utilises a sharp realism which sets it aside from typical romantic stories. Needless to say, the viewer finishes the film with a vivid knowledge of the fate of our protagonists as well as with a contemporary European viewpoint on the incessant, patient and sometimes violent nature of love.
Bibliography:
Allmer, P. (2004). "Window Shopping"? Aesthetics of the Spectacular and Cinéma du Look. Scope, 28, 1-14. Retrieved from https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/scope/documents/2004/february-2004/allmer.pdf
Carax, L. (Director). (1991). Les Amants du Pont-Neuf [Motion Picture]. France: Films A2.
Ezra, E. (2002). The latest attraction: Léos Carax and the French cinematic patrimoine. French Cultural Studies. 13(38), 225 - 233. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=7673922&site=eds-live
Gunning, T. (1990). The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde. In T. Elsaesser with A. Barker (Ed.), Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative (pp. 56-62). London: BFI.
Hayward, S. (2005). French National Cinema (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge Ltd.
Films from these directors have been coined part of the 'Cinéma Du Look' and feature a politically engaged dialogue involving a certain realism. Films such as 'Les Amants Du Pont Neuf' (Carax) highlight in particular a youthful alienation in the world alongside issues such as marginalisation and homelessness. Hayward underlines that Carax, while directing this film, was attempting to articulate the exclusion of such members of society within the confines of the excluded space - the Pont-Neuf bridge - wherein they find themselves for the majority of the film (2005, p. 312). Furthermore, narrative in this film is advanced enough to include a deeply meaningful depth to the ideological character representation: "the characters' struggle becomes also a struggle for personal history" (Allmer, 2014, para. 32).
Intriguingly with the Cinéma Du Look, there are moments in the narrative where we witness an aural excitement that takes over the screen for an extended period. In other words, music and dance is used to express how our characters think and feel. The music can come suddenly and catch the viewer off-guard and unprepared; this is a deliberate effect that people such as Beneix and Carax sought to use. With this inclusion comes the debate of 'substance vs. spectacle'. This very rudimentary basis for narratological argument has been seen before at the birth of cinema when films were seen to use their visuals for "solicit[ing] spectator attention, inciting visual curiosity, and supplying pleasure through an exciting spectacle - a unique event." (Gunning, 1990, p.58).
The film manages to offer these 'attractions' without omitting narrative development, Ezra illuminates how the scene of Alex burning Michèle's missing posters is one of the most 'visually arresting' scenes in the film (2002, p.230); the spectacle of this underpins exactly what the film's narrative highlights: destruction in the lives of the characters through love. This is just a single example of this short-lived film movement using it's spectacle - whether it be two homeless people slow-dancing and water-skiing through a vibrant firework display or simply a snowy scene on the Pont-Neuf bridge by night - as a tool to heighten dramatic and narrational meaning and messages.
'Les Amants du Pont-Neuf' is paradigmatic of the movement and it features a poetic and timeless tale of two lovers. This film shares particular common tropes of the romance story with others, however it utilises a sharp realism which sets it aside from typical romantic stories. Needless to say, the viewer finishes the film with a vivid knowledge of the fate of our protagonists as well as with a contemporary European viewpoint on the incessant, patient and sometimes violent nature of love.
Bibliography:
Allmer, P. (2004). "Window Shopping"? Aesthetics of the Spectacular and Cinéma du Look. Scope, 28, 1-14. Retrieved from https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/scope/documents/2004/february-2004/allmer.pdf
Carax, L. (Director). (1991). Les Amants du Pont-Neuf [Motion Picture]. France: Films A2.
Ezra, E. (2002). The latest attraction: Léos Carax and the French cinematic patrimoine. French Cultural Studies. 13(38), 225 - 233. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=7673922&site=eds-live
Gunning, T. (1990). The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde. In T. Elsaesser with A. Barker (Ed.), Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative (pp. 56-62). London: BFI.
Hayward, S. (2005). French National Cinema (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge Ltd.