Opposing Collisions: crashing realism and formalism in the French New Wave

Since when did cinema fit into so many tiny boxes? So much about the way we break down the vast and infinite world of film and film studies out there, we begin to see the facade of terminology that divides and conquers our picture of order. It's become a world of stifling genres, three tiers of world cinematic division and ultimately forced assumption through these arbitrary means of separation. Film has become an object which is easily contained in our "horror," "romantic comedy," and "action" categories. Even the smallest of low-budged, independent films fall to the powers of the "foreign film" or "avant garde" labels. Our cinematic language is controlled and contained through the use of a simple mode of classification. It's either, or; good or bad. We've become a simplistic society of a set dichotomy; one that encourages the proliferation of economically advantageous marketing labels, and leaves little room for grey area.

As I returned to the past in my first week studying the French New Wave, I remembered what it meant to transcend these false boarders. And frankly sometimes I forget that film, of all modes of popular artistic expression, can have the power to bring about "opposing forces." In our world of the Hollywood Blockbusters, Independent Film Festivals, and art house cinema, we tend to forget that our lines of division are not as clear cut as our modes of viewing. Cinema does not exist within our three spheres of production: First, Second and Third Cinema. Our attempts to separate the three in fact come from disconnected third-party designation of categorization. I would argue our grey boarders are full of films that have not succumb to the boarders of marketable production, rather attempt to see film outside of our realms of division as a means of expression.

And I would argue the very opening scene of Truffaut's The 400 Blows crashes our divisions in a single take. The very first rung of filmmatic division comes with the theories of Formalism and Realism. If one takes a simple Intro to Film course, you'll likely come across the common spectrum expressing the various genres that lie to the far ends of the two categories. We have documentary on one end (Realism) and Avant Garde (Formalism) on the other. In between lies the mundane of Classical Hollywood Cinema. For so long, this dichotomy of Realist and Formalist cinema has plagued the how one chooses to view a film. I myself, found the comfort of expressing my views as a "formalist" using the superfluous spectrum to support my opinions. But I now see, after beginning to delve into the brief but beautiful period of the New Wave, how film is a medium to blend, bend, and deny these divisions. Film is a unique in itself, as it melds the lens from which we view the world, to both manipulate reality and be entirely honest in a single moment. Truffaut's opening sequence, illuminated through a playful little soundtrack, disrupts our poetic and iconic image of the Eiffel Tower and deconstructs it at the same time. His jump cuts remind us we are in the world of cinema, ultimately bound to the constraints of our director, yet allows us to glimpse at the gentle grace of a moving camera, seemingly captured by a single object. We, like the tower are both bound and free; placed at the heart of the cinematic world and cleverly manipulated to the changing will of a single lens.