Alphaville and French New Wave Cinema

In the lecture in week three we watched Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 film Aphaville. It is a science fiction film that I at first found to be complex and hard to understand until doing some more reading on the film.The main themes was dystopian living(bad conditions of life) and this was created by making it a dark film created in black and white in the streets of Paris. The setting of Alphaville was that of another planet though.


I found that although it had some interesting points to make I found that it was a film that would need to be watched again to fully comprehend the ideas the writer was portraying as there were some abstract ideas.


The 1960's film Alphaville proved some good points about what the future of technology could be like over time. A main computer that chooses how the beings must live and act with severe consequences is something that is not out of the question in the future of technology.

Living in this kind of world would be a dull existence being forced to live without emotions or die for it.

It is a film that reflects the negativity of technology and that although we are currently using technology to increase our standards of living and understanding it could also be our ultimate downfall if we depend on it to control our lives.

Reading: La Nouvelle Vague
French 'New Wave' cinema, a movement in the late 1950 early sixties replaced the classical form of cinema, creating a cinematic experience based on political and social issues. The themes of this cinema was made with personal artistic expression and Jean-Luc Goddard made many other movies during this movement. New Wave Cinema was at a time when the second World War had ended and the movies in France where therefore made on a small budget, giving this type of cinema distinctive characteristics. These are Jump cuts, shooting on location, use of natural lighting, improvised dialogue/plotting, direct sound recording and long takes.