"Cléo from 5 to 7" and French New Wave Context

In Richard Neupert's article The French New Wave: New stories, styles and auteurs, he explores the specifics of what he believes defines and designates films in the category of “French New Wave”, an intellectually focused group of spectators and filmmakers who, Neupert asserts, were largely a result of “France’s post-Second World War cultural context,” and the prolific writings of theorist Andre Bazin. In a more broad perspective, I will assert that French New Wave, despite it’s situationally-defined context, is better defined as an international, socio-psychological message; one that speaks directly to France’s rebuilding, the psyches of its citizenry, and spectators around the world. To accomplish this I find it more effective in defining the title “New Wave” as an embracing of the other-self symbiotic relationship, or achievement of comfort with the world outside our self-defined physical border; Neupert dedicates much of his essay to defining the “French” aspects of the term, an adjective that I feel is widely known and understood. Agnes Varda’s 1962 New Wave film Cleo from 5 to 7 narrativizes this message of intellectual self-improvement, which I consider the most important common thread in New Wave works, national specificity nonwithstanding. Through its portrayal of a woman’s gradual discovery of happiness within herself, the film is a symbolic pinnacle of what I believe defined New Wave ideology in France; the creation of works which depict happiness achieved through the pursuit of intellect and self-understanding.

Neupert’s article is, admittedly, highly specific to the historical causes of French New Wave; however, despite the historical context, I do not believe that French New Wave films are defined specifically by their reaction to Hitler’s military actions and the resultant change in French society. Neupert spends pages listing specific names, theorists, and technological developments being implemented at the time, and despite their great literal relevance to the movement, I believe he dedicates far too little words to the general applicability of this situation to other contexts, as well as common threads within the movement that do not solely apply to the French (43). Neupert asserts that “the New Wave…[films]…reflect a unique fascination, respect and understanding for their place in world cinema”, yet spends little of his own essay exploring the importance of this notion of “fascination” to the movement, and other New Wave movements around the world (42).

Agnes Varda’s work Cleo from 5 to 7 is a more effective starting point in understanding the aura of French New Wave than a strictly defined cause-effect historical analysis. The film’s narrative rejects fully conventions of yore; we follow Cleo, a beautiful pop star, over the course of an evening as she visits friends, frets about an implied illness, interacts with ‘commoners’, engages in subtly romantic dialogue with a soldier, and learns she will soon undergo minor chemotherapy for said illness. The scenes take place in highly populated areas with little separation of those involved in the film and those curiously examining the camera as it passes by; the general mise-en-scene of the film is naturalist/realist, with clothing, environments and dialogue all holding a casual feel. As Neupert asserts, its style is indeed a response to the effects of WWII on France, but upon closer inspection illuminates the basic root of all social, national, and international problems; the mentality of the citizenry (41).

Just as morale is important to running a ship, so too is the outlook of a nation’s citizens upon their world; Cleo’s transformation from a vain, confused girl to a somewhat satisfied woman is solely achieved through her curious exploration of the world around her rather than through any type of nationalist or social division or definition. Neupert’s conclusion that the “New Wave was made possible by an audience, a social setting, a critical renaissance, government institutions, and new production options” barely hits upon the importance of the basic change that the French New Wave brought: a mentality of removing the rift between ‘self’ and ‘other’ through intellectual pursuit (43). This approach is evidenced throughout Cleo from 5 to 7, many other French New Wave works, and is spelled out in terms of filmic intellect in Neupert’s essay. He defines these films in relation to their emphasis and valorization of “a detailed knowledge of film history as well as film technique and storytelling”; in short, he himself explains the common thread of “self-other” intellectual embracement in these works, but as restricted within his own world of film (42).

To take Neupert’s assessment to a more broad level, the success of these films at the time of their release is the result of a greatly reduced rift between filmmakers and viewers, and the rise of intelligence as a popular social trait. This placement of intelligence within the “self”, rather than something possessed by those in power (which coincides with reactions to Hitler’s rule, France’s surrender, i.e. powerful “others”) is an integral part of each step of production in the New Wave aesthetic. Much like the citizenry’s lack of blind trust in the “superior” government, filmmaking practices explored by Neupert reveal a general attitude of rejection of French mainstream cinema, a “closed shop production system built around seniority rather than creativity” (43). This specific establishment is clearly criticized and satirized in Cleo from 5 to 7 during the “film within a film” segment; shots are static and utilitarian, character psychology is basic and cliché, and editing is traditional. However, it is clear that critique of established French film aesthetic is not the sole focus of Varda’s work; similarly, direct critiques of French government, fascism, and other large social problems during the period are mentioned in passing, never the sole focus of the film. In this way, a direct critique or even subversive response to national social problems takes a backseat to the true subject of the film; Cleo.

What is Cleo exactly then? She is a superficial, famous singer who separates herself from her surroundings as much as possible. She is not a common citizen, rather, she walks amongst them to experience something new and is repeatedly dissatisfied by a lack of reinforcement of her “otherness”. Cleo, then, represents a type of person or outlook on life much more than simply a citizen in a country who must deal with echoes of Hitler’s reign. In a scene near the middle of the film, Cleo enters a café solely with the intention of playing her music on the jukebox and examining peoples’ reactions; in a medium shot, two men are seated at a table in the foreground while Cleo arrives at the jukebox in the background. At the exact instant she starts her song, intending to relish in her own otherness, the men mention “this Algerian business” and their indecisiveness on choosing a side over the conflict. The directorial arrangement of this scene is the clearest tie between Cleo’s desperate attempts at self-other separation, and issues of nationality/history explored by Neupert; the rest of the film, though occasionally bringing such issues to a literal forefront, is more concerned with the psychological development of Cleo and the comfort she learns to achieve.

In dialogue with Neupert’s essay, which strictly defines French New Wave by it’s first adjective, I believe that New Wave mentality itself would promote a study of this movement as a wave of ideological innovation that happened to wash through France, rather than ripples from a rock dropped there during WWII. This conclusion could only be reached through a more open-ended approach to French New Wave, half within, and half outside the national boundaries laid down in Neupert’s analysis. My own approach to New Wave is defined by what I see as the dominant ideology behind the movement itself; intellectually driven negation of borders and division. In Cleo, and numerous other French New Wave films this mentality is not expressly applied to issues of nationality, but to the characters themselves.

In accordance with my “morale” metaphor, these filmmakers are addressing the true nature of any problem, whether it be national conflict, social inequality, or even the inaccessibility of filmmaking; the whole is made of numerous individuals, and thus any problem can be directly traced back to individual psychology. At this level of examination, countries become amalgamations of individual experiences; director Agnes Varda’s individual experience of WWII may have entirely differed from the watered-down diagnosis of the overtly general “France’s post-Second World War audience”, which is akin to studying animal sociality through binoculars. In my mind, and based on the common ideological threads I see within this and other films within the category of French New Wave, I believe that the best way to approach the study of the works is on a level of socio-psychological ideology; thus, these films are bound together by embedded philosophies directed at the spectator, and are physically rooted in France. Through characters like Cleo, audiences are offered a way of looking at their world, rather than simply reinforcing that which is established and familiar; in this way, one can follow the characters as they resolve their self-other separation narratively without relying on cultural or national context diluted by one’s own experiences or prejudices.

By the end of the film’s narrative, Cleo has experienced a personal psychological change that is evident to the spectator through mis-en-scene and acting; she seems to feel a sort of peace with herself, and concerns with her otherness become less and less frequent. I believe this is the true message that New Wave, whether it be French or otherwise, offers the viewer; one should not spend much time exploring the nature of our separation from that which surrounds us, but rather embrace ourselves, our surroundings, and achieve satisfaction through an understanding of the relationship between self and other. It is this imbedded mentality within works like Cleo from 5 to 7, achieving a sort of symbiotic satisfaction, which drives me to build off, appreciate and also simultaneously reject Richard Neupert’s strongly contextual and fundamentally divisive analysis of French New Wave.

Sources:

Cleo from 5 to 7. Dir. Agnes Varda." Cine Tamaris: 1962, Film.

Neupert, Richard. "The French New Wave: New stories, styles, and

auteurs." Traditions in World Cinema. 2006. Print.