Introduction

In Critical Studies we have been set a new project, which is set around the concept of genre. So far we have been learning about such genres as the American Western and how far this term can actually used for films that don’t look like westerns on first glance. We have also looked at the British Film genre of social realism, we as a class watched one of the first British films to concentrate on exploring social realism outside of the middle and upper classes in 20^th century Britain. It was ‘Saturday night, Sunday morning’.

When talking about this it also led on to talking about Marxist film theory, as Saturday night, Sunday morning seems to hold lots of Marxist connotations. After looking into marxism in films on the internet, i discovered i director who is well known for the marxist context in his films.
For my research I will be looking at the work of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard. Born in 1930 he was a prominent member of the French New Wave movement that went on in France between the nineteen fifties to the nineteen sixties. Others directors who were involved in this movement include Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and Francios Truffant.

Jean Luc Godard was a theorist and included a lot of philosophy in his work, he used a lot of Marxism theories in his work, looking at Marxism theory in the British New Wave interested me somewhat but i have decided not to research into this as it doesn't relate that well to the genre topic that we undertaking. Instead I be researching in the Auteur film theory and that do auteur film directors such as Godard and Hitchcock become genres in themselves.