Nicholas Paige: The French New Wave and a Look to the Future

Welcome to the Cinema of Change podcast with Tobias Deml and Robert Rippberger. Cinema of Change is a magazine and community that challenges the conventions of film and its ability to effect change in the world.

Professor Paige teaches at the UC Berkeley French Department and has published a number of papers and books focusing mostly on seventeenth and eighteenth-century French literature and culture. What makes him so unique to us is that he is on of the foremost experts on the French New Wave - and the magazine that came with it, the “Cahiers du Cinema.” This period in 1960s French Cinema sparked a revolution in filmmaking worldwide. How could a few french intellectuals change the face of cinema? We’re about to find out.

• 00:25 - Intro: The French New Wave (FNW)
• 01:23 - How does a film movement form and become successful?
• 05:50 - Did the "Cahier du Cinema" magazine dictate the course of the French New Wave?
• 10:12 - How did the FNW filmmakers transition from critic to creator?
• 13:45 - How does a journalistic background influence a filmmaker?
• 19:46 - When do film revolutions happen - and how can we forecast them?
• 24:35 - Is a cultural shift usually preceded by a generational shift?
• 27:39 - What's the next revolution that makes us rethink cinema?
• 35:12 - Can films properly portray the existential questions of life?

We hope you find this conversation interesting and evocative. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss an episode. Until next time, be the change that you want to see in the world. Then turn it into cinema.