Sumários
Truffaut, Les 400 coups / 2
27 Março 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
Continuation of the discussion on "Les 400 coups". The use of the subjective perspective and the adoption of the point of view of a child: why it is innovative. The documentary aspect of Truffaut's cinema: Antoine and his daily routine. Antoine's relationship to writing and the Balzac motif: authenticity, plagiarism, and the "writer's block". Literature as a model for cinema: continuity and discontinuity.
Truffaut, Les 400 coups
25 Março 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
Discussion of Les 400 coups: the structure of the plot based on Antoine's attempts at conquering freedom and independence; the punishment that follows. The setting in time: once again, focus on the present. The setting in place: interior vs. exterior settings / close vs. long shots. Main topics: the critique of social institutions, namely the family, the school, and the correctional system; the treatment of sexuality: Antoine's ambivalent relationship to the female body, suspended between seduction and terror / disgust. Truffaut's cameo and the reference to the beginnings of cinema (the Rotor attraction as a "théâtre optique"; metacinematographic nature of the scene).
François Truffaut, “A Certain Tendency in French Cinema”
20 Março 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
Continuation of the discussion of Truffaut's article “A Certain Tendency in French Cinema”. The attack to Aurenche and Bost against a cinema made exclusively by screenwriters and ideological distortions of literary sources; critique of what he calls "the process of equivalence". The insufficiency of psychological realism as lack of personal, authorial vision. The contradiction of a bourgeois anti-bourgeois cinema; the representation of the lower classes. Introduction of Les 400 coups: Truffaut's autobiographical inspiration and the importance of the movie in the history of the Nouvelle Vague. The opening scene and the centrality of Paris, at once background and character of the story.
François Truffaut, “A Certain Tendency in French Cinema”
18 Março 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
Discussion of François Truffaut's article “A Certain Tendency in French Cinema” as a milestone of the history of the Nouvelle Vague. "Les Cahiers du cinéma" and the rise of a new generation of critics; the Nouvelle Vague and cinephilia; the sources of Truffaut's cinema: Orson Welles and authorship; Alfred Hitchcock and the model of American cinema; Italian Neorealismo and the renewal of topics (Bazin and the "image-fait"); Robert Bresson and the adaptation of literary sources. Truffaut's attacks to the Tradition of Quality in order to promote cinema as a means of self-expression. The article is not a manifesto in itself, as it doesn't promote just one way of doing cinema but stresses the importance of the director's vision.
Godard, À bout de souffle / 3
13 Março 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
Discussion of Godard's À bout de souffle. Analysis of characters: Michel's fixation with Humphrey Bogart and the characteristics of the anti-hero; Michel's philosophy of life in light of existentialist notions such as freedom, choice, and authenticity; the language of slogans. Patricia and the ambiguity of her quest of freedom and independence; the openness of the finale. Godard's cameo in the movie and meta-cinema as a defining feature of the Nouvelle Vague. The genre of the city symphony.