Making Waves: New Cinemas of the 1960s (review)

Abstract

Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Making Waves: New Cinemas of the 1960s. New York: Continuum, 2008. x + 230 pp. 1960s is one of those periods to which die-hard cinephiles return over and over again with a deep feeling of nostalgia. Indeed, many of the is dead pronouncements that appeared around the cinema's centenary celebration in 1995 referenced this Golden Age of the 1960s, with its various international as the marker against which contemporary world cinema was being measured. Even those who believe that there are still many outstanding films being produced around the world each year understood the feeling. art cinema of these years is the counterpart to classical Hollywood. On the one hand, Hollywood is the norm from which these films deviate. Instead of plot driven, invisible style, escapist storytelling, these films challenged--and thus expanded--conventions of cinematic realism, character subjectivity, and film form. But what is remarkable is that so many films from this period remain just as compelling and mysterious as the finest Hollywood had to offer. In his new book, Making Waves, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith reviews the crests of these cinematic new waves. In sharp, clearly written prose, Nowell-Smith provides a broad context, considering not just films and filmmakers, but also the politics and culture of the era, changes in film technology, industry economics, new mature subject matter, and so on. In addition to this historical information, Nowell-Smith is also able to communicate vividly the ways in which so many films of this period felt new. book is divided into four sections: Before the Revolution, which reviews the cultural context that set the stage for the shifts of the 60s; The New Cinemas, which outlines the various features that distinguish the many national new waves; Movements, which features brief profiles of five important nations and regions (Britain, France, Italy, Poland and eastern Europe, and Latin America); and Three Auteurs, a chapter focusing on a trio of key figures of the era (Godard, Antonioni, Pasolini). For those seeking a primer in these new waves, one couldn't do better than this volume. But even for those who know the films of the era well, Nowell-Smith offers many fresh insights. For example, in comparing the acting styles in the two strains of the French New Wave--the Cahiers du Cinema group of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and the Left Bank group of Alain Resnais and Jacques Demy--Nowell-Smith writes: [Resnais] tended to use theatrically trained actors, rehearse them thoroughly, and encourage the use of theatrical gesture and delivery, though never to the point whon it looked false on screen. …