Movie analysis and critical interpretation

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. 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, a rawness, and a cinema verite feel. These traits are characteristic of La Nouvelle Vague and Alphaville embodies the genre through the use and manipulation of light. Repeatedly while watching the film, the viewer wonders whether Alphaville is a narrative drama or a documentary. This affect is a result of the lighting.

The lighting contributes to creating a surreal and trippy feeling, more so than what the plot itself generates within the viewer. This is a film noir, detective mystery; therefore, there is an inherent element of mystery present without the lighting at work. Additionally, this film has a science fiction element because Alphaville, the place and the film, takes place in a future or alternate present where there is advanced technology and different orders of organization in society such as in the novel, Brave New World. Thus, the film is trippy in several ways without the lighting. With the addition of the lighting, besides that it underscores the genre of film noir, makes the film even more surreal.