“The enthusiasm that runs throughout Nouvelles Femmes transcends any agenda, restoring to these great films some of the freshness and excitement they created on first release.”
            —The Wall Street Journal  (in Best of Summer Reading)

“Engaging, well-researched cultural history.... Film historian Knudson looks at French cinema, with a focus on female actors, writers, and directors who shaped, and were shaped by, the artistic revolution known as the New Wave…. In the 1950s, influenced by Hollywood movies that featured feisty, strong-willed women, New Wave directors created movies that reflected the tensions and realities of women’s lives. Some New Wave films introduced young free spirits rejecting social strictures; others, multifaceted, mature women facing the complexities of their lives…. Drawing liberally on interviews, Knudson allows her large cast of characters to speak candidly and perceptively about their lives and work.”

―Kirkus Reviews

For some of us, the French New Wave is always on our minds. The movement that brought us films like Breathless will grab even more film fans when Richard Linklater’s forthcoming Cannes favorite, Nouvelle Vague, has its obligatory short theatrical run before arriving on Netflix. For those looking to pregame, I recommend checking out Nouvelles Femmes: Modern Women of the French New Wave and Their Enduring Contribution to Cinema by Ericka Knudson. “Nouvelles Femmes is the story of the French New Wave through the lens of the many women, both iconic and lesser known, at its center,” Knudson writes. This means chapters devoted to the likes of Anna Karina, Jean Seberg, and Jeanne Moreau, but also Macha Méril, Haydée Politoff, and Françoise Fabian. 

—The Film Stage (Recommended New Books on Filmmaking)