French New Wave Shorts
25 Episodes
There was cinema before the French New Wave, and there was cinema after. The explosion of creative innovation that emanated from France in the late 1950s and early ’60s forever altered the course of film history by opening up new avenues of stylistic experimentation and trumpeting the concept of the “auteur” director, whose aesthetic vision and thematic obsessions took center stage. Featuring early works and rarities by Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy, Jacques Rivette, and Éric Rohmer, this selection of nouvelle vague shorts charts the evolution of a movement that rewrote the rules of cinema by liberating it from commercial demands and reclaiming it in the name of unfettered personal expression.
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Presentation, or Charlotte and Her Steak
Episode 1
Directed by Eric Rohmer • 1951 • France
Walter and Charlotte are a young couple who engage in an awkward conversation before Charlotte is set to take a train out of town.
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08:32Episode 2
Les horizons morts
Episode 2
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1951 • France
Jacques Demy makes a rare on-screen appearance as the star of LES HORIZONS MORTS (“The Dead Horizons”), his debut dramatic short from 1951, about a young man suffering from a broken heart.
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06:16Episode 3
Crazeologie
Episode 3
Directed by Louis Malle • 1954 • France
In 1954, Louis Malle was a film student at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris, where he shot this rarely seen short, CRAZEOLOGIE. Inspired by the theater of the absurd of such playwrights as Samuel Beckett and Eugène Iones...
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28:10Episode 4
Le coup du berger
Episode 4
Directed by Jacques Rivette • 1956 • France
Just before embarking on PARIS BELONGS TO US, Jacques Rivette directed the following 1956 short film about an adulterous wife and her lover’s attempt to figure out how she will explain his gift of a mink coat. Cowritten by fellow French New Wave lumina...
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23:40Episode 5
Le sabotier du Val de Loire
Episode 5
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1956 • France
This 1956 short film by Jacques Demy documents a week in the life of a clog maker in the Loire Valley.
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19:51Episode 6
All the Boys Are Called Patrick
Episode 6
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard • 1957 • France
A man makes dates with two women on the same day without realizing that they are best friends.
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12:32Episode 7
Une histoire d'eau
Episode 7
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut • 1958 • France
In this short film, a young woman tries to go to Paris, but her garden and the whole village is flooded with water.
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18:40Episode 8
Véronique and Her Dunce
Episode 8
Directed by Eric Rohmer • 1958 • France
In this short film from director Eric Rohmer, Véronique tutors a perplexing young boy.
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27:45Episode 9
Du côté de la côte
Episode 9
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1958 • France
As if you need any more reasons to visit the beautiful south of France, Agnès Varda celebrates the splendor of this area in a short documentary funded by the French Tourism Office. In this cheeky little film, Varda highlights the importance of tourism to...
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17:31Episode 10
L’opéra-mouffe
Episode 10
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1958 • France
Pregnant with her first child, director Agnès Varda turned her camera to her immediate surroundings capturing day-to-day life along the Rue Mouffetard. Lacking synch sound and incorporating a number of unconventional techniques, this short work displays Va...
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21:47Episode 11
Ô saisons, ô châteaux
Episode 11
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1958 • France
Starring Danièle DelormeMade early in Agnès Varda’s career, this lushly shot Eastmancolor short was commissioned by the national tourism board to promote the medieval castles of the Loire Valley region. It deviates from the standard travelogue format by m...
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12:58Episode 13
Charlotte et son Jules
Episode 13
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard • 1959 • France
A jilted man rants at his mostly silent former lover.
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30:39Episode 14
Antoine and Colette
Episode 14
Directed by François Truffaut • 1962 • France
This short film is the first segment of five in the multinational feature Love at Twenty (1962), all five segments on the theme of first adult love. After indulging in much delinquency in his youth, seventeen-year-old Antoine Doinel, having been prov...
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05:43Episode 15
Les fiancés du pont Macdonald
Episode 15
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1962 • France
Directed by Agnès Varda for her film CLÉO FROM 5 TO 7, this short film stars her French new wave colleagues Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina, Sami Frey, and Eddie Constantine.
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La Jetée
Episode 17
Directed by Chris Marker • 1963 • France
Chris Marker, filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor, and now videographer and digital multimedia artist, has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement ...
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23:27Episode 18
The Bakery Girl of Monceau
Episode 18
Directed by Eric Rohmer • 1963 • France
Starring Barbet Schroeder, Michèle Girardon, Claudine SoubrierDelicate and jazzy, THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU, the first entry in the Six Moral Tales series, evinces stirrings of what would become the Eric Rohmer style: unfussy naturalistic shooting, ironi...
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13:28Episode 19
Nadja in Paris
Episode 19
Directed by Eric Rohmer • 1964 • France
A university student wanders around Paris in this short film by Eric Rohmer.
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29:27Episode 20
Salut les Cubains
Episode 20
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1964 • France
Starring Michel PiccoliAgnès Varda constructed this invigorating travelogue from over four hundred still photographs taken during a trip to Cuba in the wake of its 1959 revolution. Through fluid montage, the people captured by her camera come to playful, ...
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13:06Episode 21
A Modern Coed
Episode 21
Directed by Eric Rohmer • 1966 • France
An examination of the lifestyles of female college students in 1966. Directed by Eric Rohmer.
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19:36Episode 22
Uncle Yanco
Episode 22
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1968 • France
In her effervescent first California film, Agnès Varda delves into her own family history. The short documentary UNCLE YANCO features Varda tracking down a Greek emigrant relative she’s never met, discovering an artist and kindred soul leading a bohemian l...
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28:42Episode 23
Black Panthers
Episode 23
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1970 • United States
Agnès Varda turns her camera on an Oakland demonstration against the imprisonment of activist and Black Panthers cofounder Huey P. Newton. In addition to evincing Varda’s fascination with her adopted surroundings and her empathy, this perceptive sho...
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09:02Episode 24
Réponse de femmes
Episode 24
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1975 • France
Starring Agnès VardaThis 1975 short film by Agnès Varda was commissioned by the French television channel Antenne 2, which asked seven female filmmakers each to make a film in response to the question “What is a woman?”