The French New Wave is often referred to as one of the most influential movements in the history of cinema. The term was first used by a group of French film critics and cinephiles associated with the magazine Cahiers du cinéma in the late 1950s and 1960s. The New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of the literary period pieces being made in France and written by novelists, their spirit of iconoclasm , the desire to shoot more current social issues on location, and their intention of experimenting with the film form. For example, The film "Breathless" written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard about a wandering criminal who steals a car and shoots and kills a police man and then ends up with an American girlfriend. Breathless was one of the earliest, most influential examples of French New Wave cinema. At the time, the film attracted much attention for its bold visual style, which included unconventional use of jump cuts .
