Scorsese and the French New Wave

Martin Scorsese is one of the best living American directors. His films were heavily influenced by many European filmmakers, including the French New Wave. This essay analyses the influence of this movment on his films and examine how he created masterpieces such as Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas.

The French New Wave were well known to break cinematic rules and conventions. Scorsese adopted many of these ideas and applied them in his own films. In particular I look at editing, specifcally the jump cut which was employed extensively in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. I find that early in his career, such as in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, Scorsese applied this technique extensively. I also look at other techniques such as freeze frames and camera moves and examine how they are adopted to tell a cinematic story. Finally the essay takes a quick dive into auteur theory and the influence it had on Scorsese and his generation of American filmmakers.

#Scorsese #FrenchNewWave #Godard #Truffaut

Clips in order of appearance
Hugo (2011, Martin Scorsese)
Back To The Future (1985, Robert Zemeckis)
Shanghai Knights (2003, David Dobkin)
Safety Last (1923, Fred Neymar)
Breathless (1960, Jean-Luc Godard)
The 400 Blows (1959, Francois Truffaut)
King Of Comedy (1982, Martin Scorsese)
Pierrot Le Fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)
Le Mepris (1963, Jean-Luc Godard)
2 Or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
It Happened One Night (1934, Frank Capra)
Who’s That Knocking At My Door (1967, Martin Scorsese)
Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese)
Shoot The Piano Player (1962, Francois Truffaut)
Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese)
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974, Martin Scorsese)
Raging Bull (1980, Martin Scorsese)
Jules Et Jim (1962, Francois Truffaut)
Goodfellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)

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