ART HOUSE TV

Greer Kofoed

Sally Cloninger

RC1

11/13/09

European Art House Cinema and its Influence on American Television

“My ideas only get through on television.”

Godard, Pariscope 24-30 September 1975 (MacCabe)

Few film movements in the history of cinema have been as momentous as that of the French New Wave.  Erupting after the end of World War II, this young and contemporary movement resulted from the inner turmoil of France’s evolving political views and widespread national debt (Neupert, 4).  The films that came out of the new wave movement delivered a message about the state of the country they came from, and about experimental, new opinions on modern art, self-expression, and what directors thought the public wanted and needed to see.  In many ways, it was reminiscent of Italian neo-realism.  It redefined the standard not only for storytelling, but also conventional film budgets and production norms.  An astonishing 120 new French directors had been estimated to have the capacity to shoot feature-length motion pictures between 1958 and 1964 (Neupert, XV).  Most noteworthy among these new talents of Le Nouvelle Vague, were: Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini, and Ingmar Bergman; each delivering an undeniable style that would go on to shape modern television and cinema as we know it.

When I think about Fellini, I think about women.  His films are chock-full of them.  They are beautiful, curvaceous, and full of life—yet somehow, they lack the definition of his male characters; they play the role of the anima.  To quote Jung, whose research I connect to my own studies of art media, “Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman, not the image of this or that particular woman, but a definite feminine image.  This image is fundamentally unconscious, a hereditary factor of primordial origin engraved in the living organic system of the man, and imprint or “archetype’ of all the ancestral experiences of the female, a deposit, as it were, of all impressions ever made by woman” (Stubbs, 57).  Fellini found the most appeal in Jung’s concept that there is “more” to know within the unconscious, even though that in it self might be ineffable; the anima is what can reveal the inexpressible (Stubbs, 62). Consequently, although women do not play the main roles, they are instigators in divining the man’s true, undeniable desire.

Godard makes films about ideas.  He sets out to show the viewer proof of these ideas, and not an analyses; he shows that events occur, but not why they occur.  Sometimes, like in Vivre Sa Vie, he uses text to provide proof, and sound to provide proof—but not in conjunction with one another.  They make his message more evident by standing alone (Sontag, 199).  People want logical explanations when actions that they don’t comprehend occur.  In most movies, the plot is set up so that the viewer gets a clear understanding of a series of events; Godard has a pointed lack of reasonable explanations in his films.  This used to be frustrating to me, but now I think of it as a representation of human nature—in real life, people don’t often justify their actions logically, even to themselves. They just ‘do.’  Godard utilized every shot as a means to employ “multiple cultural effects,” more so than simply emulating the style of a favorite director (Neupert, 207).

Ingmar Bergman was the cult art-cinema director in the pre-nouvelle vague era of the fifties.  His films have an almost too intimate quality about them; maybe it is the way that he repeatedly used the close-up of the face as a relentless reminder of what the character is experiencing—they are reduced to bone and hair and flesh—a quivering existential mass experiencing different stages of crisis (Ford, Web Source).  Bergman’s filmic imagery, while praised by many as some of the most beautiful in the world (Woody Allen via The Seventh Seal), is riddled with such intensity that uncomfortable feelings are opened up, and left visible for the world to see (Ford, Web Source).  He used high-contrast lighting in the majority of his films, the result of which being the hyper-real stasis that film stills will reveal the characters to be preserved in (Gervais, 162-3).

Funding for these films often comprised solely of the director’s own production money, and because of such a restraint, it was imperative to shoot as hastily as possible. One way around this was to shoot with portable equipment.  Such a way of working forfeit the control and glamour of the mainstream, and resulted in the modern, lively look now unmistakable as part of the genre’s aesthetic (Neupert, XVII).

Stylistically, there are several key, recognizable conventions that have been used in the majority of these films: the jump cut (a nonrealistic edit that illogically removes frames from part of a long scene), recording live audio, shooting on location (most directors frequently shot in the streets or in a friend’s apartment), natural lighting, improvised dialogues and scenes, and unusually long takes (Phillips, Web Source).  A superb film example that shows utilization of many jump cuts is Godard’s 1961 classic, Une femme est une femme (Figure 1).  Angela, played by Anna Karina, is an attractive young woman working as a striptease dancer who desperately wants to have a baby, much to the chagrin of her boyfriend.  Godard uses the jump cuts to not only remind the viewer that they are watching a film, but also to represent Angela’s unsure thought process as she goes through the motions of everyday life.  Une femme also has a lot of scenes set in the streets, where random people perform their shopping or errands while the hand-held cameras film them.  The viewer will notice that some of the people look mildly startled. To alleviate another aspect of the budget, many directors cast their friends or unknown actors as the leads in their films.  Thus, this method launched the careers of Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Jeanne Moreau, to name a few (Neupert, VX).

Content wise, the characters in Truffaut and Godard’s films are much more ambiguous than the usual Hollywood role requires, and the theories discussed in their dialogue are often of an existential nature (Mauer, Web Source). This sort of intellectualization, combined with the mysteriousness of post-war Europe, struck a chord with American television, especially with product sponsors that desired to create a milieu of danger or fear in their ads.  Sponsors were competing for the favor of the youth culture, and they were fascinated at how persuasive these art films could be.  As early as 1958, Art Direction, a prominent design magazine of the era, “struck a deal with major Hollywood motion-picture companies ‘to review all applicable films’ in a regularly occurring film review column penned by Ralph Porter” (Spigel, 218).  Films of interest were Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963) for it’s “stream of consciousness” techniques, and Truffaut’s Jules and Jim (1962) that was comparable to a 7UP commercial that used silent film (Spigel, 218).  Perhaps the type of commercial that took the most from the flood of new wave cinema was that of the car commercial.  Taking into consideration the growing number of women drivers, Chevrolet commercials produced multiple ads that were visually appealing to women: “something between a Vogue fashion layout and a John Ford western” (Spigel, 235). These productions, in particular, relied on a sense of movement and cinematic flair more so than, say, a commercial for an ironing board.  A Goodyear tires commercial from 1966 entitled “Foggy Road” perfectly captures the art-cinema look; a chic young woman drives alone at night, and gets a flat tire while under cover of fog.  The woman does not speak, but there are rapid cuts between close-ups of her face, the tire, and the deserted road.  Combined with high-contrast lighting and reassuring if not sexist narrative, the result is that the viewer feels like they are indeed watching a piece of avant-garde cinema (Spigel, 233).

Various other commercials for household products and cosmetics received the same stylistic treatment: “rapid montage, location shoots, moving camera, high-end film stock, color, elaborate musical scores, and a battery of visual effects” were some of the most common embellishments employed.  A 1960s commercial for Jet National Airlines, “Miami Go Go,” created a lavish, go-go style party at what appears to be a hotel balcony in Miami.  The opening sequence shows a jet taking off from the runway, and then the camera cuts to the party where everyone is dancing to cheery saxophone music.  The next shot is quite innovative because as the camera zooms out from the balcony scene, the picture pans across the road to show other hotels and outdoor pools; the viewer realizes that the camera must be on a helicopter. The words “Miami Go Go” flash across the screen in large, white letters.  A woman’s voice begins to talk about the luxuries of Miami, and a rapid series of cuts shows a man doing a flip off the diving board, a tray of drinks garnished with a maraschino cherry, a jet boat cruising on water flanked by palm trees, a woman jet skiing, and a dance scene in a swanky club where the saxophone player is revealed.  In the end of the commercial, the narrator reflexively looks into the camera, and says, “Are we putting you on?” and ends with a wink.  These ads were costly and laborious, and aside from the talent and art directors, required a multiple person crew to achieve full production operation (Spigel, 234).  One 1966 commercial for Hunt’s tomato paste, “Relatives,” went to great lengths to replicate an atmosphere of Italian neorealist cinema, creating a detailed set that might appear in a Fellini film.  A fairly simple plot is executed, but over 6,000 feet of film were shot to capture the ninety feet actually used in the finished product; it is obvious that the producers were willing to do whatever it took to achieve the type of look they wanted (Spigel, 235).  Carbonated beverage companies also used cutting-edge methods to try and entice the younger demographic.  A Dr. Pepper ad campaign from the 1960s opens with a handsome man playing the trumpet.  It reveals several twenty-something’s frolicking on the beach, and carrying a cooler emblazoned with a large Dr. Pepper logo.  While upbeat, the shooting style is done with quick cuts and inventive framing. One series of cuts in the middle of the ad shows a bottle of Dr. Pepper, then cuts to toes wiggling in the sand, then to the trumpet player’s cross-eyed face, and finally to an attractive blonde giggling as someone feeds her an ice cream cone.  This sequence, which would take a considerable amount of time if it were by Fellini, takes about 2.5 seconds; a length that would make Godard proud.  Interestingly enough, when trying to emulate French new wave cinema, American companies missed the mark by going about the production process in a contradictory way: they used large-scale budgets and lengthy shoots, the opposite of the authentic, minimalist routine.  To the untrained eye, these commercials look and behave like French new wave, but they severely lack the underlying romantic or political agenda of the director—they lack soul.

While the French new wave was heavily influential to commercials, it also contributed to some of the 1960’s most inventive television shows.  Take, for example, N.Y.P.D., a police drama created by Dan Melnick and David Susskind’s Talent Associates.  The show first aired in 1967, and was constructed after acclaimed new wave director Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima, Mon Amour and Geurre est Finie (Spigel, 231).   N.Y.P.D. was one of the first television shows to use hand-held cameras to capture the majority of their scenes, a method of shooting which was later used in both COPS and Law & Order.  This may have been because the show’s chief cinematographer, George Silano, had previously made television commercials—which had been borrowing from new wave since the beginning of the decade (Spigel, 232).  In an episode called “Deadly Circle of Violence” from 1968, Al Pacino, in his debut television role, plays a racist man who is out on the boardwalk with a girl he picked up from a bar. The camera is shot like first-person: stilted, jumpy, and sinisterly voyeuristic.  The couple hears a clacking noise coming from a cluster of trees, and moves in to investigate. The camera follows them at a distance. The trees sway in a noiseless wind, and judging from the quality of the shot, it appears that they used real, outdoor lighting.  The mood is volatile.  Silence. Then, in true new-wave style, Pacino is shot—and the scene quickly cuts away to a point of view from the top of a skyscraper in New York City.  The observer is left disoriented and unsure of what, exactly, just transpired.  That description is merely the introduction to the show; the theme music and title appear as the camera zooms farther into the city.

One television show that featured exciting youth-culture filmmakers was NBC Experiment in Television.  This show aired during the mid and late sixties, and in 1968, did a special primetime feature of Fellini’s autobiographical film, A Director’s Notebook. This showcased an extensive “making of” portion about Fellini’s latest work, Satyricon, complete with voice-over narration by Fellini himself.  Experiment in Television used “slow tracking cameras, lush color photography, and fantasy scenarios in which ‘Italian truck drivers became Roman legionnaires, butchers were metamorphosed into gladiators…[and] a woman switched from modern bourgeois matron to sadistic Messalina’” (Spigel, 229).  While shocking to some, Fellini’s style of excess makes his worlds mysterious and new by cramming more details in than the audience is used to (Stubbs, 20).  The number of colors, textures, movements, contrasts, and surprises in each scene alone are staggering; a still from Juliet of the Spirits (1965) show a completely overwhelming array of characters: Nazi commander, an obese man in a red robe who is spinning himself around the floor, three women with peroxide-blonde hair crouched against the wall, a little girl with a wreath of flowers on her head, a beautiful dark-haired woman hanging from a device in the ceiling, a naked, bearded observer, and the dangling legs of an unknown subject, just to name a few (Pettigrew, 83).

French new wave cinema is relevant to my own learning agenda in a plethora of ways.   Making television by means of technical elements like the jump cut, 360-degree camera rotations, and high-contrast lighting visually fascinates me because these things look highly unusual when compared to all of the bland, well-lit endeavors of today. These novelties make for dramatic and artful shots, and I would like to see what could be done with them in a studio setting as well as an external film production. I am also interested in the practice of improvising dialogue and even entire scenes; I believe that if the actors are committed to their characters, then spur-of-the-moment additions or changes can be refreshing and stimulating to all parties involved. In my experience with plays, actors often rely too heavily on the script, instead of making the part their own, a la Anna Karina.  There is something effortless about the way Godard’s films unwind; something akin to real life that I want to emulate.  For example, in Pierrot le fou, Jean-Paul Belmondo’s character, Ferdinand, is a married man with a young daughter.  He is tired of going to his wife’s social events, and decides to run away with the babysitter (Anna Karina), a girl that he knows from the past.  Ferdinand is able to leave everything at the drop of a hat, and makes it seem natural in the process; this is not the behavior of a rational adult.  It is the sense of spontaneity that is attractive to me.  My other desire is to create bold, modernist sets like the chess scene between the Knight and Death in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. The adversaries sit opposite one another at a chessboard. Death is wearing opaque black robes, and the knight is wearing silver chain mail that gleams in the light. Clouds roll by in the distance, and a sort of determination consumes each man. This set makes the most of contrast; good versus evil, dark versus light, etc., but the two men are, guises removed, similar.  The viewer is mesmerized by the strength of the shot; taken out of context, this image is just as effective.  I was like to conduct an experiment in lieu of Ingmar Bergman: film an entire, dramatic television storyline using multiple actors, but only take close-ups or extreme close-ups of their faces.  I am curious to see how people would react; my hypothesis is that, initially, the viewer would respond with mirth, but would eventually become sobered by the alien performance unfolding before them.  This experiment would also be challenging to the actors because they would have to be infinitely aware of how their expressions read on camera, have blocking memorized so that they could travel from one cue to another while remaining in focus, and also project the correct vocal volume in relation to their fellow actors.

Television is an extension of how people perceive life. The French new wave represented a group of people that were not afraid of experimentation because they perceived life to be experimental.  As a consequence of this mentality, some directors became successes, and some fell victim to the annals of history.  Therefore, television is widely successful because it is a home for myriad perceptions, and not different perceptions themselves. When asked his opinion of television, Fellini replied, “Generally speaking, I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise? Cinema has the capacity to offer us a high density of meaning by mobilizing each gesture, each color, each word, each element into a single powerful image. Television, on the contrary, can offer only the meaning of the facts that are being transmitted” (Pettigrew, 145-6).  It cannot be argued that silence on television is like a deadly plague; those that have it perish.  However, I think Fellini discredits television too much.  After all, was it not television that played art-cinema films like his during late night slots? This fact, alone, means that there is a level of respect for the taste of the audience.