French Impressionist Cinema
French impressionist cinema, also referred to as the first avant-garde or narrative avant-garde, is a term applied to a group of French films and filmmakers of the 1920s.
Film scholars have had much difficulty in defining this movement or for that matter deciding whether it should be considered a movement at all. David Bordwell has attempted to define a unified stylistic paradigm and set of tenets. 1 Others, namely Richard Abel, criticize these attempts and group the films and filmmakers more loosely, based on a common goal of “exploration of the process of representation and signification in narrative film discourse.” 2 Still others such as Dudley Andrew would struggle with awarding any credibility at all as “movement.” 3
1. Pictorialism (beginning in 1918): made up of films that focus mainly on manipulation of the film as image, through camerawork, mise-en-scene, and optical devices.
2. Montage (beginning in 1923): at which point rhythmic and fast paced editing became more widely used.
3. Diffusion (beginning in 1926): at which point films and filmmakers began to pursue other stylistic and formal modes.
Based on David Bordwell’s family resemblance model: 4
I. Camerawork
A. Camera distance: close-up (as synecdoche, symbol or subjective image)
B. Camera angle (high or low)
C. Camera movement (independent of subject, for graphic effects, point of view)
II. Mise-en-scene
A. Lighting (single source, shadows indicating off-screen actions, variety of lighting situations)
B. Décor
C. Arrangement and movement of figures in space
III. Optical devices
A. As transitions
B. As magical effects
C. As emphasizing significant details
D. As pictoral decoration
E. As conveyors of abstract meanings
F. As indications of objectivity (mental images, semi-subjective images, optical subjectivity)
IV. Characteristic editing patterns
A. Temporal relations between shots (Flashback or fantasy)
B. Spatial relation between shots (synthetic, glance/object, crosscutting)
C. Rhythmic relations between shots
However, even Marcel L’Herbier, one of the chief filmmakers associated with the movement, admitted to an ununified theoretical stance: “None of us – Dulac, Epstein, Delluc or myself – had the same aesthetic outlook. But we had a common interest, which was the investigation of that famous cinematic specificity. On this we agreed completely.” 5
Richard Abel’s re-evaluation of Bordwell’s analysis sees the films as a reaction to conventional stylistic and formal paradigms, rather than Bordwell’s resemblance model. Thus Abel refers to the movement as the Narrative Avant-Garde. He views the films as a reaction to narrative paradigm found in commercial filmmaking, namely that of Hollywood, and is based on literary and generic referentiality, narration through intertitles, syntactical continuity, a rhetoric based on verbal language and literature, and a linear narrative structure 6, then subverts it, varies it, deviates from it.
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