The real and the fantastic in the films of the "French new Wave"

Popova Liana Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0002-9766-7535 PhD in Cultural Studies Senior Lecturer; Department of Philosophy; State University of Management 109542, Russia, Moscow, Ryazan, 99, office U-463 pliana@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The work of the directors of the "French new wave" was studied within the framework of the general theory of cinema by such researchers as J. Deleuze ^[8], A. de Beck ^[2],[3], A. Tassone ^[33], V. Vinogradov ^[5], K. Medvedev ^[12], J. Douche ^[28], J. Sickler ^[32], A. Bychkov, F. Girenok ^[21]. Collections with statements and interviews of directors ^[31], A. Tassone ^[33], as well as collections dedicated to individual directors: A. Rene ^[1], R. Bresson ^[4], J. –L. Godard ^[7], F. Truffaut ^[23],[27] were published. Despite the availability of literature and research, the work of the directors of the "French new wave" is little studied. The relevance of studying their work lies in the fact that they, along with the Italian Neorealists ^[17], they revived the techniques of cinema-verite, the experience of the Russian avant-gardists, as well as the techniques of the German expressionists, creating their own language and film ethics. The purpose of this study is to examine the space created by filmmakers. The scientific novelty of this study lies in the juxtaposition of the real and the fantastic in films directed by the "French new wave" (using the example of films by Jean–Louis Godard and F. Truffaut). This study uses an integrated approach combined with phenomenological, comparative, and philosophical methods.

The real and the fantastic in the films of the "French new wave"

The cinema of the 1960s needed changes. The nascent television was gaining momentum. Cinema needed new forms and ways of expression. F. Truffaut noted in 1978 that twenty years ago there was no such question, because "... the magic of the spectacle was organically inherent in cinema. Now it has been lost by him through the fault of television" ^{[23, p. 211]}. The appearance of the French "new wave" was quite natural.

F. Truffaut described the "New Wave" in an interview as follows: "Several brilliant personalities emerged from oblivion, and they became actively working directors. Some people were unlucky: the first film had certain advantages, but did not receive the public recognition that would allow them to continue working; these people were destined to suffer from injustice, they did not have the opportunity to try their luck a second time. Then there were a number of interesting debut films, which, however, did not yet constitute the beginning of a career.... In any case, we can say that the “new wave” allowed some non-filmmakers to gain interesting experience. There must be people who created a single film, just as there are authors of a single book" ^{[23, p. 255]}. F. Truffaut believed more in individuality than in collective performances. He appreciated creative freedom, and many new wave films were conceived and shot "in an atmosphere of complete freedom" ^{[23, p. 255]} although freedom "does not always contribute to the creativity of a cinematographer" ^{[23, p. 255]}. In order to return cinema to its magic, Truffaut believed that "from the very first part it is necessary to declare the color scheme of the film and further win the viewer, not entertaining him, but, on the contrary, attracting, concentrating his attention ..." ^{[23, p. 255]}.

Along with Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut the representatives of the French "new wave" include Eric Romer, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette. Agnes Varda and Jacques were also associated with the New Wave. Demi, Alain Rene. Representatives of the "new wave" suggested that when making a film, they go out of the pavilions and onto the street and film people's real lives. That is why F. Truffaut appreciated the work of R. Rossellini ^{[23, p. 126]}, who filmed real life without pavilions. Regarding the shooting at the pavilion, F. Truffaut said in an interview: "I did not shoot at the pavilion at all.... This is not a principle. It's more a matter of economy and aesthetics; to create in the pavilion an analogue of what I have found in a natural setting so far, I would have to spend more than the budget of a French film. Even if you spend the entire studio budget, you won't get the effect that we achieved in "Jules and Jim" by shooting in an authentic chalet. Not to mention the fact that it would be impossible to move from the outside to the inside within one frame, from the first floor to the second, the chalet built in the pavilion would deprive us of any accidents and unexpected effects, for example, an episode in the fog" ^{[23, p. 224]}. At the same time, he noted that the pavilion can be interesting "when it can really compete with reality" ^{[23, p. 224]}, as in F.V. Murnau's films "The Last Man" or "Sunrise".

French directors appreciated the work of R. Rossellini, who was influenced by Cinema verite, that is, the experience of Russian avant-gardists, in particular, D. Vertov. In Agnes Varda's 1962 film "Cleo from 5 to 7," we see Vert's favorite technique, reverse photography: the magician swallows live frogs, then spits them out. The film "Cleo from 5 to 7" tells about one day in the life of a girl who is waiting for a diagnosis as a verdict.

The film J. –L. Godard's "On the Last Breath" was a kind of breakthrough. In addition to R. Coutard's cinematography, he revealed a new hero for European cinema, the criminal Michel Poiccard, who steals other people's cars and is betrayed by his American girlfriend to the police. The influence of American cinema is felt in the film. The work of A. Hitchcock had a special influence on the representatives of the "French new wave" ^{[29, Electronic resource]}, who shot in the tradition of the Expressionists in his special manner with short, rapid-fire plans, which influenced Godard's style, which was called "torn montage". The film was shot using a hand-held camera, mounted in violation of the laws of editing.

The figures of the "French new wave" revive the traditions of the German expressionists in the field of light and shadow ^[15],[19]. V. Storaro, one of the most prominent cinematographers of the 20th century, noted that expressionism changed our attitude to light, contrasting light with shadow. Orson Welles took over the baton from the Expressionists in the film "Citizen Kane" in 1941. We see further development of chiaroscuro in the films "noir", in the spirit of which O. Welles also shot. The blurring of the lines between "black" and "white" takes place in D. Cassavetes' 1959 film "Shadows", which tells about the relationship between "blacks", mulattos and "whites". According to J. According to Deleuze, the border is formed by "two mulatto women who continuously cross it in a dual reality that already merges with the film. It is possible to grasp this boundary only when it becomes elusive, when we no longer know where it runs, the boundary between White and Black, but also between film and non-film..." ^{[8, p. 466]}. V.Storaro associates the revival of chiaroscuro with the work of such operators as Gianni di Venanzo and Raul Coutard, whose work flourished in the 1960s ^{[22, Electronic resource]}. Gianni di Venanzo has worked with F. Fellini ("Eight and a Half", "Juliet and the Spirits"), M. Antonioni ("Scream", "Girlfriends", "Night", "Eclipse") and other Italian directors. Raoul Coutard has worked with Jean-Louis Godard ("On my Last Breath", "Living my Life", "Contempt", "Alphaville", "Mad Pierrot", etc.), F. Truffaut ("Shoot the Pianist", "Jules and Jim", "The Bride was in Black") and by other directors.

Along with depicting the lives of ordinary people, some representatives of the "new wave" turn to a fantastic reality. In the film "Alphaville", shot in 1965, J. –L. Godard and R. Coutard conducted a daring experiment by shooting an image on photosensitive black-and-white film without using lighting equipment. The city was illuminated as usual at night with the help of lighting lights, which made it look ominous. Like the city in F. Lang's Metropolis ^[15],[19], Alphaville is a city named after the first letter of the Greek alphabet, controlled by one person, Professor von Braun, using the Alpha 60 computer system. The film shows a totalitarian society where people are forbidden even to experience emotions and feelings. People have ordinal numbers. The main words they use are: "okay," "thank you," "please." Every day, the words that are "cursed" disappear: "tenderness", "compassion", "cry". The word "why" is forbidden. "Consciousness" is a word unknown to Alphaville residents. The Institute of Semantics monitors the use of words. People who write poetry kill themselves. The "Big Omega" is antimatter, which is being introduced into Alphaville, causing strikes and revolutions. Smart people are being sent to destroy other countries. The "outsiders" ― the Germans and the Swedes - adapt best to the Alpha 60 regime. Those who don't adapt are killed. There is a "theater of execution". One man is sentenced to death for crying because his wife died.

The guilty people have a certain "chance": to get into the "BDB" ― a hospital of long illness, where people "recover" thanks to operations and propaganda. According to Professor von Braun, reality is too complex to put into words. The legend creates her in a form that will allow her to go around the world. In the film "Metropolis", they are waiting for the intermediary "Heart", in "Alphaville" there is a legend about the arrival of a certain Ivan Jones. It turns out to be an FBI agent, Detective Lemmy Cohen. The purpose of his arrival is to destroy Alphaville's inhuman system using poetry as a weapon. Lemmy Koushen needs to find Agent Henry Dixon, but the agent dies, having managed to tell about the possible moral death of people in Alphaville.: "Perhaps 150 light-years ago, there were artists and writers among the ants. Now they are gone." Humans will suffer the fate of insects. Lemmy Cohen manages to win over Professor von Braun's daughter, Natasha. It is possible to destroy the inhumane Alphaville system by physically destroying the Alpha 60 system. Natasha and Lemmy Ocean leave Alphaville. Natasha says the hitherto unknown words "I love you" to Lemmy Cohen.

The film "Alphaville" is based on the contrast of white and black. The picture has a positive ending, at the end the word "FIN" will appear in white letters in the lower right corner on a black background. F. Truffaut's film "Fahrenheit 451" can be called a triumph of the light, fiery element.

The film "Fahrenheit 451" was shot in 1966. Difficulties arose during the filming of the film: as soon as Ray Bradbury ceded the rights to the film adaptation, F. Truffaut became convinced that he would never find the funds to finance this film in France. He confessed: "The American producer Lewis Allen approached me with a proposal to make "The Day of the Locusts" based on the novel by Nathaniel West; and I put forward the idea of "Fahrenheit 451" instead. He agreed on the condition that the film be shot in England, in English" ^{[23, p. 262]}. According to F. Truffaut's own assurance, the film "Fahrenheit 451" owes several very intense situations to the novel, since every incident is important in film adaptations. It is especially important "not to lose sight of the main idea for which the book was chosen" ^{[23, p. 216]}.

451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature of paper combustion. The action in the film, as in the novel, takes place in the distant future. We are talking about a society in which reading books is prohibited by law, and firefighters burn them. Sometime in the past, firefighters put out fires rather than burning them. "Books are garbage," says Guy Montag, an exemplary firefighter. F. Truffaut has raised one of the most pressing and pressing issues ― the displacement of book culture by screen culture. In Godard's Alphaville, there is no talk of books at all.

The displacement of book culture by screen culture is a problem of our time, which was addressed by Marshall McLuhan and Umberto Eco-friendly, and yet it remains relevant in the context of the development of electronic technologies. Both the book and the screen are human inventions. M. McLuhan called the book print culture the "Gutenberg galaxy" ^{[9, p. 19]}. Printing technology, like any technology, in his opinion, leads to a change in the human environment. Therefore, he believed that the term "galaxy" should be replaced by the term "environment", which is changing under the influence of technology. The technological environment should not be considered as a passive container of people, it is created by active processes that change both humanity and the technologies created by it. The press has created a new medium ― the public, that is, the audience. Currently, we are witnessing one of the most important historical transformations ― the rapid transition "from the mechanical technology of the wheel to the technology of electronic circuits" ^{[9, p. 19]}.

M. McLuhan associates the decline of the "Gutenberg galaxy" with the invention of such means of communication as the telegraph and telephone and attributes it to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. McLuhan considers the means of communication as an extension of the human body in space and divides them into hot and cold. The radio is a hot means of communication, the telephone is a cold one, since in this case the ear receives a meager amount of information. M. McLuhan also defines photography, cinema and television as means of communication. At the same time, cinema and photography are hot means of communication, television is cold. In his opinion, a cold means of communication largely involves the viewer, while a hot one does not. What is the difference between photography and television? According to M. McLuhan, photography "isolates individual moments of time" ^{[9, p. 240]}, but a television camera does not do this. M. McLuhan considers printing to be a hot means of communication. The message of printing and book printing is a message about repeatability. With the birth of printing, the principle of removable letters revealed a means of mechanizing manual work. The prototype of removable printed letters was an engraving. A cold means of communication, such as hieroglyphic or ideographic writing, is very different in its effects from such a hot and explosive intermediary as the phonetic alphabet: "The alphabet gave primacy in the word to the visual component, reducing all other sensory facts of the spoken word to this form. This helps to explain why woodcut and even photography were so warmly welcomed in the written world" ^{[9, p. 240]}.

M. McLuhan sees a connection between cinema and book culture due to the fact that screenplay plays a significant role in cinema. N.A. Khrenov, following M. McLuhan, states: "Cinema is indeed a continuation of written and printed codes, preserving the principle of linearity and consistency, as evidenced by the commitment of cinema to the plot principle of organization. But if we consider that in the twentieth century, under the influence of electronic technology, the entire culture is radically rebuilt, then this loyalty of cinema to the Gutenberg principle of organizing discourse turns out to be only a barrier to mastering a new cultural code.... This is the nature of the contradiction that arose in the twentieth century in cinematic communication" ^{[25, p. 39]}.

Television, according to M. McLuhan, dealt a powerful blow to cinema, national magazines, and comics. "The close-up that is used in movies to produce shock is quite common on television. And if a glossy photo the size of a television screen would show a dozen faces in adequate detail, then a dozen faces on a television screen are just vaguely outlined outlines" ^{[10, p. 405]}. Anyone whose appearance openly declares his role and status is not suitable for television, and vice versa, anyone who looks "as if he could simultaneously be a teacher, a doctor, a businessman, or anyone else is suitable for television" ^{[9, p. 423]}. In cinema, on the contrary, we need people who definitely look like "types" ^{[9, p. 423]}.

Following the scientist M. McLuhan, who released his classic text "Understanding Media" in 1964, many figures of the world cinema of the 1960s and 1970s saw television as a danger. Television led the viewer to a loss of individuality, to "massing". This problem was seen even earlier, in 1953, by the American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury in his novel Fahrenheit 451. It is to this literary basis that Francois Truffaut, one of the leaders of the "French new wave", turns to film adaptation. He commented on this in an interview in 1964: "I was fascinated by the very idea of the book, even before I read it, and I wanted to make it into a movie. I was told, “This is a society where reading is forbidden; books are to be burned, but some people memorize books to save them.” This idea seemed wonderful to me" ^{[9, p. 216]}.

According to the plot of the film and the book, firefighters break into houses with a search, their goal is to find books. Guy Montag knows how to search well, he knows the hidden places: behind the lampshade, and most importantly ― behind the TV screen. This is how people have learned to disguise bookcases, as televisions have become firmly embedded in human life. These shots are symbolic. F. Truffaut, with an artist's instinct, seems to foresee a change in the book culture of the screen in the near future. Of course, R. Bradbury's novel is dedicated to this, but F. Truffaut manages to translate this idea into a visual image. In R. Bradbury's novel, Montag and his wife Mildred have three televisions in their apartment. Mildred dreams of a fourth: "If we put up a fourth wall, this room would no longer be just ours. All kinds of extraordinary, busy people would live in it." In F. Truffaut's film, this issue is solved somewhat differently, he foresaw modern home cinemas. The film shows one big screen. Montag's wife dreams of a second TV: "The more TVs you have, the bigger your family."

The burning of books in the film is reminiscent of the burning of heretics in the Middle Ages. Firefighters' costumes resemble inquisitors' costumes. In the Middle Ages, in addition to heretics, books were burned, and this is not the only case in history. Books were burned in antiquity, at the dawn of Christianity, during the Renaissance under Savonarola, by the Nazis in Germany (here there is the sacralization of a single book "Mein Kampf" by A. Hitler and the destruction of books by "non-Aryan" authors). Books were also burned by the Bolsheviks in the USSR. And not only by the Bolsheviks. V.A. Gilyarovsky, who admired the firefighters of pre-revolutionary Russia, wrote that they "burned books prohibited by censorship" ^{[6, p. 168]}. However, this privilege was granted only to the firefighters of the Sushchevskaya unit. For this purpose, they used a huge lattice furnace, similar to a cage, "in which Pugachev was taken to execution" ^{[6, p. 168]}, she was "pulled out, doused with kerosene books and papers and burned in the presence of the authorities" ^{[6, p. 168]}. Almost like in F. Truffaut's film and R. Bradbury's novel.

Guy Montag is an exemplary firefighter who burns books during the day and watches TV in the evening, but two fateful meetings happen in his life. Alone with Clarissa, the girl living next door, who is Montag's "alter ego." The other is with a woman who burned herself and her books during a firefighter raid. Montag decides to read the book. During another search, he secretly takes the book with him. Montag's antagonist is his boss, Fire Chief Beatty, who has read many books throughout his life and has come to the conclusion that the only way to happiness is to "make everyone the same." To do this, all the books must be burned. Beatty wears a patch on her chest with the image of a salamander, the spirit of fire. When did firefighters start burning books? The charters of firefighters indicate that since the era of the "civil war" in America, that is, in the second half of the 19th century. They consider Benjamin Franklin to be the first firefighter. Many of Bradbury's ideas echo those of M. McLuhan, who links the invention of new technologies with the acceleration of the pace of life. R. Bradbury puts similar thoughts into Beatty's mouth. In the 19th century, according to Beatty, the pace of life was slow ― "horses, carriages." In the twentieth century, the pace of life is accelerating, but the real heyday comes with the introduction of photography. "And then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, cinema, radio, television. And very soon everything began to be produced on a massive scale." What happens to books? Books are being reduced in volume, and abridged editions are being released. "The classics are being reduced to a fifteen-minute radio broadcast. Then even more: one column of text that can be skimmed in two minutes, then another: ten to twenty lines for an encyclopedic dictionary...". In schools, the duration of education is shortened, discipline is falling, philosophy, history, and languages are being abolished. Work comes to the fore in people's lives, and after work― entertainment, sports, and games come to the fore. If there are books, then there are pictures, as well as comics and erotic magazines. Many of R. Bradbury's ideas turned out to be "prophetic." Schools produce more runners and athletes, racing drivers, and much fewer artists. The word "intellectual" becomes an expletive. "We should all be the same. Not free and equal from birth, as stated in the constitution, but simply we must all become the same. Let people become like two drops of water, then everyone will be happy, because there will be no giants, next to whom others will feel their insignificance. Here! And a book is a loaded gun in a neighbor's house. Burn her!"

In F. Truffaut's film, there are no long dialogues with the philosophical arguments of Brandmaster Beatty, which abound in R. Bradbury's novel, and in which a modern picture of the world is seen. By the time the film was made, they were not so relevant and in tune with the present. The novel features the figure of Professor Faber, who is absent from F. Truffaut's film. Faber, in his own words, was "one of the innocent, one of those who could raise their voices when no one wanted to listen to the "guilty" anymore," that is, one of those who resigned themselves to burning books.

Screen culture is displacing the "Gutenberg galaxy." M. McLuhan, speaking about the transition from wheel technology to electronic circuit technology, noted that the appearance of the wheel led to the creation of new vehicles, ranging from wheeled carts to cars, bicycles, airplanes, which led to an acceleration of the pace of people's lives. R. Bradbury put the phrase into Clarissa's mouth: "... cars are rushing along the roads at such a speed that the advertisements had to be lengthened, otherwise no one would be able to read them." Faber's thoughts are in tune with her, that people have a lot of free time, but what do they spend it on? "Either you're driving at a hundred miles an hour in a car, so you can't think about anything else but the danger that threatens you, or you're killing time playing a game, or you're sitting in a room with a four-wall TV, and you know, you can't argue with it.". The wheel technology, according to M. McLuhan, found its application in a movie projector, then in a movie camera.: "The wheel, which was born as an extended leg, made a huge evolutionary leap into the cinema" ^{[10, p. 232]}. Faber believes that the book has been replaced by a television screen. Four-wall screens have become a "reality": "Here they are in front of you, they are visible, they are three-dimensional, and they tell you what you should think, they hammer it into your head. Well, it starts to seem to you that it's right what they say. You start to believe that it's the right thing to do. You are so quickly led to the given conclusions that your mind does not have time to be outraged and exclaim: “Why, this is pure nonsense!”». Books don't have the same reality as TV, because you can close a book at any moment. The TV, according to Faber, "crushes you like clay and shapes you at will." Therefore, Faber's living room consists of four ordinary plastered walls.

Montag's acquaintance with Faber does not leave him indifferent. He hatches a plan: to set fire to the houses of firefighters by throwing books at them, but this does not arouse Faber's approval. It remains to attract as many caring people as possible, but writers, historians, and linguists are either dead or very old. There are still actors who have not played in plays by Shakespeare, Pirandello, Shaw and others for a long time, because these plays "reflect life too faithfully." You can create a school and teach people to read and think again, but Faber believes that the point is not just to pick up a book, but that "the whole culture is dead." People stopped reading on their own. According to Faber, book burnings are just circus performances staged by firefighters. People stopped reading books and became insensitive. TV, although it engages completely, does not make a person more sensitive. R. Bradbury's book and F. Truffaut's film feature an episode in which Montag comes home and finds his wife and her friends watching TV. He begins to read Matthew Arnold's poem "The Shore of Dover" to them, after which they begin to cry. A literary work causes a flight of fancy, does not give a ready-made image, forces a person to complete it. Television, on the other hand, imposes a ready-made image, while the person does not do any internal work.

People like Montag have to make a moral choice. Having stolen the book and read it, Montag becomes no longer the same person he was before: "Montag now felt that two people were trapped in him: first, Montag himself, who did not understand anything, did not even understand the depth of his ignorance, only vaguely guessed about it, and secondly- secondly, this old man who was talking to him now was talking all the time while the pneumatic train was madly rushing him from one end of the sleeping city to the other.... They'll be together, Montag and Faber, fire and water, and then one day, when everything gets mixed up, boils over, and settles down, there'll be no more fire or water, but wine. From two substances that are so different from each other, a new, third one is created." During another arson attack, Montag burns down the firefighters, including Beatty. Now he has to go into hiding. On Faber's advice, he makes his way along the river into the forest, where he meets people who keep books in their memory, having memorized them. They also burn books, but so that firefighters will never find them in their possession. "There are thousands of us on the roads and abandoned railway tracks today, we look like tramps, but we have entire storages of books in our heads." And Montag will become one of them by learning the Book of Ecclesiastes. The image of the book in R. Bradbury's novel, according to A.V. Shcherbitko, "goes back to its prototype ― the Book of Books, the Bible, making the person reading the bearer of the highest spiritual culture" ^{[26, p. 59]}.

Ray Bradbury showed in his novel that the only way to preserve cultural memory lies through oral tradition. In The Gutenberg Galaxy, M. McLuhan identified regions that are audio-tactile, such as India and China. At the same time, M. McLuhan used K. Popper's terminology: "closed" and "open" societies ^[20]. A "closed" society is an oral type of society. Phonetic literacy, penetrating there, "brings very minor changes" ^{[9, p. 53]}. Russia, according to McLuhan, also still tends towards oral societies. He noted that printing originated in China in the 7th-8th centuries, but it did not seek to create uniform products for the market and the price system. It has become an alternative to "prayer wheels" and a visual means of distributing prayer spells, reminiscent in this regard of modern advertising" ^{[9, pp. 76-77]}. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century in Europe made the book the subject of mass consumption. Currently, the book is no longer perceived as a product of mass consumption, it acquires cultural value. In the 1960s, M. McLuhan foresaw this problem and artists such as R. Bradbury and F. Truffaut felt it. F. Truffaut believed that a similar fate awaited cinema, which had lost its magic due to television: "In the old days, the main thing was to entertain the viewer with a variety of situations, scenery, and characters. Nowadays, due to the fatigue and stupor that come after an evening spent in front of the TV, you have to act the other way around" ^{[23, p. 277]}. In his opinion, it is possible to resist television using purely directorial methods. For example, he noted that the films of I. Bergman and R. Bresson are more successful on television than the films of Hitchcock. Why is this happening? "Hitchcock needs the buzz of the audience filling the hall. And finally, since television nightly offers us a jumble of images and sounds, a mixture of all styles, I believe that in contrast to this, it is in our interests to observe unity and simplicity in films" ^{[23, p. 277]}.

On the one hand, television has firmly entered our lives, replacing the cinema. On the other hand, television is one of the ways of film distribution. Many movies can be watched at home on TV, which has many different programs. Television offers a variety of different shows. Many events that were previously artistic are turning into television shows, such as the Eurovision Song Contest ^[16].

Currently, cinema, television, and book culture are being replaced by "global networks" and electronic technologies, which is happening even in Russia, whose culture, according to M. McLuhan, is literary-centric. Russian schoolchildren read very little, and if they do, it's mostly foreign fiction, but the most popular author is Ray Bradbury, and especially his novel Fahrenheit 451, which is symbolic in itself. F. Truffaut's film of the same name is greatly underestimated and unknown to the modern public. In 2018, a new film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 was released in the United States, which has little in common with R. Bradbury's book (directed by Ramin Bharani). The film depicts a totalitarian society in which, along with books, the Internet is banned, a kind of "fragment" of book culture, as it contains "texts". People familiar with the alphabet are called "coals", that is, intended for burning. A group of scientists encoded books in the bird's DNA. Firefighters expose the conspirators. Montag releases the bird, and he himself is killed by fire in a fight with Beatty.

Global networks involve people in a new field ― virtual reality, which is dangerous for people who are spiritually immature. What are global networks? Are they the antipode of book culture or its continuation? U. Eco believed that old computers are tools of writing that return a person to the "Gutenberg galaxy" ^{[28, Electronic resource]}. The television screen, in his opinion, is "a window into the world revealed in images," and the display is "an ideal book where the world is expressed in words and divided into pages" ^{[28, Electronic resource]}. Through the TV, a person receives ready-made images, without the right to critical selection. According to U. Eco, humanity will be divided into two classes: those who watch television and those who look at a computer screen and are able to "select and process information" ^{[28, Electronic resource]}. But the fact is that in order to select and process information, you need to learn how to analyze it. With the help of information technology and the Internet, information can be processed faster, but on the other hand, they are dangerous for people who do not know. Therefore, one cannot but agree with N.B. Mankovskaya that virtual reality is a "terra incognita", the possibilities of which are far from unlimited and not safe for humans ^{[11, p. 333]}.

What do the above–mentioned films by Jean-Godard and F. Truffaut have in common? Both of them are related to the relationship of the word and the image. The image is associated with sensory perception. The word creates an image in the imagination. In the movie Alphaville, in order for images to disappear, words are destroyed. The word generates both book culture and an artistic image, including an on-screen one. The destruction of words leads to the destruction of images. What awaits the book culture? Print, cinema, television, and the Internet are technological environments created by humans, but the technological environment also influences and sometimes manipulates humans. This can be countered only through a conscious choice dictated by morality and cultural tradition. To do this, it is necessary to preserve cultural heritage, including books.

Conclusion

The directors of the French new Wave tried to show the real life of people using the techniques of documentary films. Along with D. Vertov, they considered R. Rossellini to be their teacher. In the cinematography of the artists of the "French new wave" we see the features of the Expressionists, the confrontation of "black" and "white." F. Truffaut's film "Fahrenheit 451" is dominated by the fiery element using the red color, so beloved by the Expressionists.

In addition to depicting real life, the figures of the "French new wave" tend to depict a fantastic reality, which we see in the works of F. Truffaut and J. –L. Godard. The real and the fantastic interact with each other. The global problems of our time are reflected in the depiction of fantastic reality.