Painterly Hybridisations

Abstract

New Wave film exhibits a wealth of interactions with painting, ranging from the most literal inscriptions - the referencing of paintings, presence of painter figures and recording of the act of painting - to a plethora of more subterranean interactions. Taking Eric Rohmer's essay 'The Century of Painters' and André Bazin's'Painting and Cinema' as its starting point, this chapter analyses the movement's appropriation and reframing of the visual arts. Revisiting Jean-Luc Godard's incorporation of artworks in his films,it considers the director's practicealongside two filmmakers who were trained in the fine arts, AgnèsVarda and Guy Gilles. The chapter investigates seminal intermedial figurations such as the tableau vivant, as well as charting the three directors' varied engagement with a visual heritage no longer perceived as a restrictive model, but, on the contrary, as a rich repository of iconographies, motifs and techniques to be appropriated and reimagined.