The French New Wave: A Cinema Revolution

In 1959, an unforgettable boy did "the four hundred tricks" in front of the camera of a beginner named Francois Truffaut and splashed with his success, popular and Cannes, the filmography of a nascent band of intrepid. Claude Chabrol's "Le Beau Serge", Jean-Luc Godard's "A bout de souffle", Jacques Rivette's "Paris nous appartient", Eric Rohmer's "Le Signe du lion", Jacques Rozier's "Adieu Philippine", Agnes Varda's "Cleo de 5 a 7"...: This wave, quickly named "New Wave" - an expression invented by Francoise Giroud in an article dedicated to youth - is the work of apprentice directors who, for many, have swallowed kilometers of film at Henri Langlois' Cinematheque francaise and sharpened their judgment in the columns of Cahiers du cinema.