La Nouvelle Vague, Lighting, & Alphaville the Essay

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La Nouvelle Vague, Lighting, & Alphaville

The focus of this essay will be on the aspect of lighting in the film Alphaville, directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The film is a detective story and a film noir released in 1965. The French New Wave, or La Nouvelle Vague, distinguishes itself from other movements in film in numerous ways, one of which is the use of and sculpture of the light. The following essay illuminates how the lighting in Alphaville distinguishes it as a French New Wave film, a film noir, and a surreal experience of the narrative. Movements such as the surrealists and the situationists heavily influenced the French New Wave filmmaking community. The use of light in Alphaville reveals the artistic and political perspective of Jean-Luc Godard and his crew. The paper, through examination and analysis, proposes that the lighting is an integral element in the aesthetic and artistic success in Alphaville.

Film noir is heavily predicated on contrast. Lighting in film noirs are high contrast, intentionally positioned as such. There are very bright whites and very dark blacks in film noirs.

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This technique underscores the contrast among the characters, plots, and other levels on which the film operates. The narrative of Alphaville is stereotypical of a film noir. Mystery stories of a misplaced detective compelled out of his/her element into a strange, alluring, and dangerous places are often the narratives of film noirs. In this Godard picture, there is quite a spectrum of grays. It is clear that most, if not all, of the lighting in the film is practical. Practical lighting is light that naturally occurs as a function of the location such as lamps in a bedroom or an overhead light in a bathroom. Those lights naturally occur in bathrooms or bedrooms. They were not added there for the purposes of film lighting. Film lighting often cheats and creates light from imaginary or impossibly placed sources. That is not the case in this film. All of the lighting fixtures are real. All of the lighting is practical. This choice is lighting style provides the film with an edge,….....

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