Teaching French New Wave Cinema in Comparison with Indian New Wave Cinema: Similarities and Differences.

Film viewing and Film Studies are two distinct tasks. While the former is a popular leisure activity, the latter is an academic discipline. Teaching film in a classroom amounts to teaching the formal properties of the medium of film. The challenge to retain the interest of the learners in a French Studies class is the same as in any other class. This paper focuses on the task of teaching French New Wave cinema in comparison with Indian New Wave Cinema to MA (French) Second Year (Third Semester) students in The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad. The French New Wave was an important cinematic movement in French cinema, which started in the late 1950s. Based on the auteur theory, it revolutionized the world of cinema with its unique language and grammar. One can see its impact on the films of Indian New Wave, which started in the late 1960s. To enable the learners to understand and respond to the cinematic imagery of the French New Wave, the paper has incorporated a specific pedagogical strategy which includes: in the first stage, giving general information on French New Wave, its history, ideology, and theory; the second stage would concentrate on explaining the cinematic techniques of this movement; and the final step would involve showing an Indian film of the New Wave. The third stage would also lead to an evaluation where the learners would be asked to draw comparisons and trace the similarities and differences between the two films, one from France and the other from India, both belonging to the New Wave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]