Project Management

The next short project is designed to help you understand the qualities associated with the European new
wave movement and how they helped to influence what became known as the “New Hollywood” in America.
You will re-examine scenes from Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player and Hitchcock’s Psycho. Even though
both films were released in the same year (1960), each is a good example of its respective director’s
approach and filmmaking tradition, and there are interesting similarities and differences between them.
Watch again the scenes from Shoot the Piano Player (Charlie and Léna) and Psycho (Sam and Marion).
You may wish to watch each of them a number of times to better appreciate the spotting of the music and
the structure of the films. Dramatically, there are similarities between the segments—both feature
unconventional love scenes between couples who we are not sure will ever get together, and both use twopart music cues; there are also substantial contrasts—one scene is tender while the other is sensual, for
example, and the orchestration is also quite different.
For each scene, write a paragraph discussing the aspects of the new wave film movement you see or hear.
Refer to the opening section of this lesson (as well as to the first three pages of Chapter 20 in the textbook)
for reference. How do these scenes differ dramatically from a typical love scene we might have seen in
earlier Hollywood films (such as the first scene from Ben-Hur, which we watched in lesson 7). Why do you
think the composer decided to spot the music the way that he did?
Write a third paragraph outlining any specific similarities or differences between the scenes; this may
include the pacing of the action, the atmosphere, or the filmmaking techniques, as well as the
dramatic/emotional function of the music. Do you get the sense that Truffaut and Delerue are more
influenced by Hitchcock and Herrmann, or the other way around?