Origins of the subject
Film Studies as a discipline is a relatively recent area of study. A big influence on its inauguration as an academic subject has been the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) directors such as Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Louis Malle. In the 1950s alongside their innovations in film-making, they were writing for a publication called “Cahiers du Cinema†that created a body of film theory and concepts that helped to create the foundations for Film Studies. Recognisable film criticism was in evidence prior to this but somehow these French directors encapsulated and refocussed this previous writing, embodying it and providing a set of films, notably some commercial U.S. products such as film noir ‘B’ movies, to serve as paradigms of film quality.