French New Wave film directors are divided into two groups:

They are the New Wave and the Left Bank.

The French New Wave film movement is the third film movement with world influence after European avant-gardeism and Italian neorealism. It has no fixed organization, unified manifesto, and complete artistic program. The essence of this movement is a movement that calls for a complete transformation of film art in the spirit of modernism. Its emergence pushed the modernist film movement in Western Europe to a climax. This movement has two parts, one is the author's film, that is, the "New Wave"; the other is the author's film, that is, the "Left Bank".

The style of "New Wave" auteur films mostly record or represent an event or some characters in a focused manner. The film is produced at a low cost: it uses non-professional actors; it does not use a studio but shoots in real locations; it does not pursue exciting scenes and dramatic conflicts.

The "Left Bank" is a film director group that emerged in France in the late 1950s. It was named after its members all lived on the Left Bank of the Seine River in Paris. "Left Bank" directors became interested in filmmaking because of their interest in the development of man and spirit. Therefore, their films have a clear tendency to focus on the inner description of characters.

Background of the birth of the "New Wave"

The birth of the "New Wave" has a specific historical background. This is that after the Second World War, the long-term institutional rigidity of the society created a problem for the young generation. disillusionment.

Literary and artistic works at that time began to pay attention to these young people, and describing these people became a special phenomenon in literature and art of this period. They were called the "Beat Generation" in the United States and the "Angry Generation" in the United Kingdom. "Youth" is called the "Pain of the Century" or the "New Wave" in France; therefore, in the "New Wave" films, everything from themes to plots, styles to expression techniques bear the imprint of this era.

This background is related to people's hesitation and depression after World War II, so a considerable number of New Wave works are reflections on World War II. It is also closely related to the postmodern trend of thought. Postmodernism is the deconstruction of modernism, the suspicion of modernism, the venting of confusion, and in a sense liberation.

At that time, Cahiers du Cinema, edited by André Bazin, gathered a group of young editors, such as Claude Chabrol, Truffaut, Godard and more than 50 people. Deeply influenced by Sartre's existential philosophy, they put forward the slogan of "subjective realism", opposed the "rigid state" in past films, and emphasized the filming of films with the director's "personal style". They were also known as the "Cahiers School" ” or “ auteur film .”