Anyone who has been moved - or who has at least conscientiously taken the trouble - to research 'Le Nouvelle Vague' must, quite simply, be forever in debt to Bertolucci's wonderful nostalgia-trip for the way films were, and the way film culture was for an historical moment.
For one of those not fortunate to have been in any sense intellectually or emotionally 'there' during the sixties, this meditation by one of those who were part of that ferment on the formative experiences of their early life (one must notice the injunction to the Matthew/Bertolucci character to recognise Mao Tze-tung as a great film director, and reflect how this would issue many years later in 'The last Emperor') acts like an implanted memory: Retrospectively, we find ourselves protesting at Henri Langlois' politically-motivated sacking from the Cinematheque, and see the image of the young Truffaut flickering from Jean Pierre Leaud's face to Truffaut's documented own and back again in a seamless transformation between the actor of Truffaut's alter ego, Antoine Doinel, and his great directorial and life mentor.
From then on, the New Wave rolls again as the film unfolds. It is a document of the spirit, and a love letter to the cinema which ignited the young Bertolucci. That there is such a commanding talent still working in film in today's shallow culture is a miracle. This is a film to convince audiences that statements of freedom should still be possible, and even to inspire honest and wholly original careers.
The complexity of this at once fresh and passionate and intensely intellectual experience is exhilerating, and not to be briefly summed-up: First one feels one must immediately renew one's acquaintance with so many great films of this movement - or get to know them for the first time, indeed.
It seems the New Wave is forever young! It is obviously designed to inspire a whole new generation of filmgoers with just the idealism that so entranced the young of the sixties, and led them to see the life-affirming, life-changing possibilities of film.
Here was an age when the mercurial surface of film seemed a portal to our innermost desires ...
For one of those not fortunate to have been in any sense intellectually or emotionally 'there' during the sixties, this meditation by one of those who were part of that ferment on the formative experiences of their early life (one must notice the injunction to the Matthew/Bertolucci character to recognise Mao Tze-tung as a great film director, and reflect how this would issue many years later in 'The last Emperor') acts like an implanted memory: Retrospectively, we find ourselves protesting at Henri Langlois' politically-motivated sacking from the Cinematheque, and see the image of the young Truffaut flickering from Jean Pierre Leaud's face to Truffaut's documented own and back again in a seamless transformation between the actor of Truffaut's alter ego, Antoine Doinel, and his great directorial and life mentor.
From then on, the New Wave rolls again as the film unfolds. It is a document of the spirit, and a love letter to the cinema which ignited the young Bertolucci. That there is such a commanding talent still working in film in today's shallow culture is a miracle. This is a film to convince audiences that statements of freedom should still be possible, and even to inspire honest and wholly original careers.
The complexity of this at once fresh and passionate and intensely intellectual experience is exhilerating, and not to be briefly summed-up: First one feels one must immediately renew one's acquaintance with so many great films of this movement - or get to know them for the first time, indeed.
It seems the New Wave is forever young! It is obviously designed to inspire a whole new generation of filmgoers with just the idealism that so entranced the young of the sixties, and led them to see the life-affirming, life-changing possibilities of film.
Here was an age when the mercurial surface of film seemed a portal to our innermost desires ...