Writing up Storyline

The same enthusiasts who avidly read the film journals now began setting up film clubs, not just in Paris, but all over France. The most famous of these was Henri Langlois' Cinematheque Française, which first opened its doors in 1948. The cinema, which he co-founded with Georges Franju, was small, consisting of just 50 seats, but the programme of films shown was both comprehensive and eclectic, and it soon became a mecca for serious film enthusiasts

Langlois believed the Cinematheque was a place for learning, not just watching, and he wanted his audience to really understand what they were seeing. It became his practice to screen films on the same evening, that were different in style, genre and country of origin. Sometimes he would show foreign films without translation or silent films without musical accompaniment. This approach, he hoped, would focus the audience attention on the techniques behind what they were watching, and the links connecting films that might otherwise appear very different.

It was here, at the Cinematheque, that many of the important figures of the New Wave first met. Francois Truffaut, only sixteen, was already a veteran film-goer. From a young age, the cinemas of Paris had been his refuge from an unhappy home life. He had even set up his own cine-club, Le Cercle Cinemane, although it only lasted for one session. Jean-Luc Godard was another who immersed himself in the cine-clubs. He was studying ethnology at the Sorbonne when he first started going to the Cinematheque, and, for him too, cinema became something of a refuge. He later wrote that the cinema screen was "the wall we had to scale to escape from our lives."