Week 4 (Lecture Reflection) – Neo-Realism, French New Wave and Existential Cinema
As we delve further into this semester, I am starting to uncover fresh concepts… in small, bite-sized bursts throughout each lecture. This week's discussion pointed me towards the development of existential cinema – a post-new-wave genre of French cinema. I found the wrong-note approach particularly intriguing, as it relates to some of the foundational material taught to me in Music Language 2. Utilising chromaticism for leading tones and tension-building has found its way into my compositional practice. One of my favourite harmonic tricks is the classical Maj7-Dim7 (one semitone above).
References
Hellerman, Jason. 2024. What Was the French New Wave in Cinema? No Film School. Accessed 22/08/2025.https://nofilmschool.com/french-new-wave-cinema