Film Studies 2

This course will explore the cross-cultural connections between the Nouvelle Vague and American cinema. The 
Nouvelle Vague is both one of the most popular film movements and one of the most complex. We will analyze the 
influence of American film culture on the new and paradoxical attitude toward making films in France that arose 
during the 1950s to 1960s. In turn, we will also focus on the important effect the Nouvelle Vague had on American 
films in the 1960s and beyond, particularly auteur theory and certain clichés. The complex aesthetic core of the 
film movement, from its sources to its legacies, will be studied throughout the semester. A circulation of influences 
will consider simultaneously French and American film cultures in the second half of the twentieth century.

Syllabus and bibliography to be distributed during the first session