If we can tentatively agree that the Point-of-View shot sequence is the modus ponens of the basic logic of cinematic grammar, one can invite other notions into a general argument about The French New Wave (1959-1968) as a cinematic movement. Namely, that the various idiosyncratic styles of all of those filmmakers associated directly or by circumstance to The French New Wave were filmmakers who deliberately or instinctively defined their cinematic style via their aesthetic relationship to the use of the point-of-view shot sequence. Some filmmakers avoided this basic cinematic grammar to a greater degree than others. For instance the classic point-of-view shot sequence is anathematic to the cinematic ecriture of Anges Varda (Cleo 5 a 7, Le Bonheur) and Jean-Luc Godard, whereas it is employed with various disruptions in the work of Francois Truffaut (Les Quatre Cent Coups, Tirez Sur Le Pianiste) and Alain Resnais (Hiroshima, Mon Amour, L'annee Derniere a Marienbad). But the point-of-view shot sequence is absolutely essential to the cinematic ecriture of Robert Bresson (Pickpocket), Eric Rohmer (Ma Nuit Chez Maude). In these examples we can see that the radical cinematic styles that was to characterize The French New Wave were styles that either sought to find another way to express the basic modus ponens of cinematic logic or sought to express more in adhering to its use. Supporting this argument is the fact that French film critic and founder of Cahiers du Cinema, Andre Bazin had already voiced his disdain for montage and his exalting of the use of long take and 'democratic' mise-en-scene which goes a long way in explaining how important the classic point-of-view shot sequence is to understanding the development of French New Wave cinematic stylistics.
Before going any further with this argument let's back up and return to the notion that the point-of-view shot sequence bears a striking resemblance to one of the oldest argumentative forms of logic: modus ponens. In logic the most basic valid conditional argument form is: If A, then B. A, therefore B which is recognized as the modus ponens argument form. In the cinema, the logic of one of the most standardized forms of cinematic grammar can be described as: If a character looks off screen and the next shot is of an object, if the following shot is returned to the same character then that character is looking at that object. The return shot is the shot the sutures the off screen glance as that initial character's point of view within the fiction.(1) We can simplify this editorial procedure as: If A looks at B, then B is the object looked at by A. Therefore, A looked at B. This is a basic cinematic rhetorical form that can be a visual corollary of the modus ponens argument form. Its conditionality is accepted as an indicative mode based upon its repetition either within the film or across a wide variety of films throughout history until the present. The evidence is that it is so widely understood by so many people across so many cultures, languages, and other differences.
If we can agree that modus ponens is a fundamental characteristic feature of mental reasoning, then it stands to reason that the application of this form of mental reasoning would find its way into the rhetorical structure of cinematic grammar. That is, older forms of reasoning that prefigured the cinema would aid and abet the organization of visual and auditory material in a narrative. Sergei Eisenstein had already pointed out to us that many aspects of cinematic grammar (the rhetorical organization of visual material to transmit a narrative) was prefigured by the 19th century novel. Most importantly, by the internationally known work of Charles Dickens. Eisenstein notes that there is an opticality in Dickens that," gives us an image clothed in an excess of characteristics." (2) Moreover, he established a link between Dickens opticality and Griffith's narrative strategies that formed the basics of early cinematic grammar. I believe that it is the deep underlying rhetorical structure basic to mental reasoning as seen in language (words, sentences) that in turn formed the basis for the ordering of visual and auditory material in Classical cinema. This is a point that may have already been addressed by semiologist Christian Metz, but I am only interested in looking at the transpositional development of this deep underlying structure from language to cinema.
If we start quickly from Ferdinand de Saussure's observation that," No word has a value that can be identified independently of what else there is in its vicinity," we find a form of mental reasoning that is primarily associative; that is, elements communicate via their juxtaposition- their sequential ordering with one another. (3) What can be accepted as true in language finds its corollary in the cinema through images and their juxtaposition- their sequential ordering that communicates a narrative or suggests associations that communicate a narrative. For instance, the Russian Formalists were quick to notice that," the meaning of individual shots gradually becomes clear because of their contiguity and sequentially."(4) This observation was confirmed by Lev Kuleshov and the now famous Kuleshov effect where the same shot of an actor's expressionless face was juxtaposed to another shot of an object and depending upon the content of that following shot, audiences inferred what the actor must have been feeling about that object- even though the actor's face had remained the same. This we can understand was an early demonstration of the point-of-view shot sequence and how the arrangement of shots evokes mental associations between the spectator and the images that are ultimately reflected back into the narrative. Thus, it was not the simple symbolic linguistic structure of language (sign/signifier/signified) upon which the cinematic grammar was based, but instead it is based upon associative forms of mental reasoning that becomes a rhetorical structure that can be transposed from the understanding of language to an art form.
The point-of-view shot sequence was standardized as a basic form of cinematic grammar by the success of early filmmakers (Porter, Griffith) and the classical Hollywood studio film which was seen and understood internationally. This is what brings us to the establishment of The French New Wave, because we know that after WWII various cine-clubs reopened and the French could finally see all of the American films that had been made during the German Occupation which had banned them. More than this, the Cinematheque Francaise which was operated by Henri Langois was the center of cinematic education that was attended by the various key members of the French New Wave: Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Charbol, Varda... et all. Having exposed themselves to the standardized techniques of cinematic grammar via the Hollywood studio system in the b-films they championed by directors who deviated from that standardized grammar as much as they could, it was inevitable that to find their own cinematic voices they would have to 'rebel' as much as possible from the standard. Think of those decidedly different films like Nicholas Ray's opening heliocopter shot in They Live By Night or Welles' deep focus and anti-montage strategies in Citizen Kane and we can see the seeds of rebellion being s(h)own to those young critics who would soon become young filmmakers.
Thus, the point-of-view shot sequence was a standard of cinematic grammar through which French filmmakers could choose to avoid, utilize sparingly or adhere to strictly to develop their own cinematic 'ecriture' and discernible style. We can discern the importance of the discussion of the point-of-view shot sequence (or the shot/reverse shot) in French film culture via French film theorist, Jean Mitry's statement that," the shot/reverse shot technique lends it self to misuse for the fact that it provides easy solutions." (5) The easiest solution to finding a way to organize visual material is to use the standard rhetorical form -the modus ponens of cinematic grammar: the point-of-view shot sequence to communicate a narrative. But to establish an auteurist style in such a way as to separate oneself from the herd and be an artist is by finding other ways and means of communicating that narrative by breaking or reformulating that cinematic grammar. Wasn't that the real mission, the summa bonna of the movement we romanticize as The French New Wave?
Notes
(1) See Daniel Dayan's "The Tutor Code of Classical Cinema" in Bill Nichols Movies & Methods Vol. 1(2) See "Dickens, Griffith and Film Today" in Sergei Eisenstein's Film Form Vol. 1
(3) Page 114, Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics
(4) Page 15, Formalist Film Theory by Herbert Eagle, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1981.
(5) Page 62, Jean Mitry's The Aesthetics & Psychology of the Cinema.
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