Michel wants to be as tough as the stars in the movies he loves. He practices facial expressions in the mirror, wears a cap, and is never, ever seen without a cigarette, removing one from his mouth only to insert another. So omnipresent is this cigarette that Godard is only kidding us a little when Michel's dying breath is smoky. But Belmondo at 26 still had a little of the adolescent in him, and the first time we see him, his hat and even his cigarette seem too big for his face.
Her Patricia is the great mystery of the movie. Michel we can more or less read at sight: He postures as a gangster, maintains a cool facade, is frightened underneath. His character is a performance that functions to hide his anxiety. But what about Patricia? Somehow it is never as important as it should be that she thinks she is pregnant, and that Michel is the father. She receives astonishing items of information about Michel that he is a killer, that he is married, that he has more than one name. Even her betrayal of him turns out to be not about Michel, and not about right and wrong, but only a test she sets for herself to determine if she loves him or not. It is remarkable that the reviews of this movie do not describe her as a monster--more evil, because she's less deluded, than Michel.
There's hardly a moldier cliché in the movie lover's handbook than to claim that a film is "about film itself," but in moments like this, Godard foregrounds the medium without succumbing to empty flourish. He doesn't weld style and substance so much as insist that style itself is a kind of substance, one that is suggestive and complex in its own right. Certainly, this spirit animates Belmondo and Seberg's performances. The actors do not inhabit characters so much as occupy a middle ground where play-acting and fan ardor replace the embodiment of set emotions and personality traits. Patricia and Belmondo's Michel Poiccard both do some pretty questionable things throughout Breathless (he steals a car and shoots a cop; she turns him in for personal expediency), but these actions as revealing or even important to who Michel and Patricia really are. They are the acts of the hard-boiled loners and femme fatales from which Michel and Patricia and most importantly, Godard finds their animating spirit, and to recreate their world of violence and betrayal is more a matter of aesthetic reliability than moral uncertainty. What is remarkable is how compelling their performances end up being, grounded.
It is the carefree enjoyment of the acting or possibly the directing that sweeps you up in this strangely told tale of two tragic lovers. One thing that makes films such as Breathless alien to American audiences – beyond the subtitles, of course – is the rejection of plot as the principal means of conveying information. Yes, the plot is there but it is unsuccessful to look for resolution to the questions of the films in it and to do so results in absurdity. Breathless, for all that it represents, is certainly not absurd. While style is the point, it certainly is not to the detriment of substance. Godard has a lot to say and it goes beyond the fresh boundaries of film theory.
In one key manner, Godard is a cinema classicist and that is in his devotion to the human figure, particularly the face. In Jean Seberg he had a ravishingly beautiful woman whose charming innocence was almost as captivating as her charisma. Similarly, the casual confidence of Jean-Paul Belmondo is essential for the success of the film. Despite his complete lack of morals his dashing charm wins over both Patricia and the viewers. So, if the dictionary definition of visual art is correct – that it is the arrangement of colors, forms, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. Then Breathless certainly complies. Godard, despite his concealed cinematic agenda, clearly understood the power of the medium to present enchanting imagery.
As films and films genres evolve, they tend towards greater self-consciousness. Films become increasingly aware of their own conventions, in large part because the audiences do, too. What separates Breathless is its great leap forward in terms of self-consciousness, Lacanian psychoanalysis. And there is a sense of self awareness along with the realism of shooting in natural conditions, shapes the meta-message of the film as well. The characters look at themselves in mirrors and windows, adjusting their appearance and practicing expressions. They are aware of their being observed.
Godard, an outsider to the film industry at the time, had an immense reserve of knowledge stored up from years of going to the theaters in Paris. With Breathless, he self-consciously set out to make a gangster film, knowing all the rules and conventions of that genre, as well as all the previous examples. As a result, the film has a nearly endless list of references to Hollywood cinema, French cinema, and high and low culture in general. The film is a massive inter textual body which acknowledges that it is an artistic creation in conversation with a body of other creations. It uses the general Hollywood pattern to create something entirely new. Breathless started the trend of young filmmakers looking to classical Hollywood for inspiration. Godard’s project of (re)interpreting Hollywood, starting with Breathless, proved to inspire the visions of directors as wide-ranging as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, the Coen Brothers and of course Quentin Tarentino (whose company is named after one of Godard’s films).
Godard set out to very purposely break the rules of classical cinema, from its production norms to its stylistic grammar; it is the beginning of deconstruction in film industries. Godard’s overall style for Breathless involves the exploration of sound- to- image relations and their obvious construction and even disruption of the fictional events. Nearly every scene lays out a complex approach to narrative style. The narrator manipulates information on the micro level of individual jump cuts and musical interventions, as well as in larger scene to scene juxtapositions.
Godard signals from the beginning that Breathless will provide highly overt marks of narration, acknowledging that this is all a fictional construct. For instance while Michel is driving to Paris, he not only outlines his character’s goals, also hums continuously during jump cuts of the road ahead of him. This macro level disruption foregrounds a narrative sound that is continuous, but an image that is discontinuous. Breathless reminds viewers that sound is recorded and edited separately from the image, and final print can accommodate what would be impossible in the “real” or profilmic world.
This is a movie about cinema that goes far beyond the level of inter textual reference to Bogart and film noir, referring now to the filmmaking apparatus as well. As Michel drives, he even addresses the camera/spectator directly. But once he breaks the traffic rules, the disorienting editing and confused sound track assault the viewer with fast-paced pandemonium. In the eight shots that make up the seventeen second initial chase, a police whistle sounds as the car crosses the center line; the editing gets more discontinuous, with short, jarring takes; and music increases in volume and intensity, mixing clumsily with engine noise, a horn, and even squealing tires on the dirt road. During the disorienting montage of the chase, his car changes the screen direction repeatedly; traveling right to left, then left to right, and back again this is all further complicated by rapid pans from inside his car and jump cuts.
Once on the dirt road there is a short respite as Michel opens his hood, but then, in pass, but soon returns. Suddenly, the camera work and editing seem to leap into action along with Michel as the ducks into his car. Next is the voice of the police officer proclaim
“don’t move or I’ll shot” but accompanying camera shot wanders down Michel’s head to his arm. Michel is standing upright now, facing screen right, even though the police officer was last seen to the left. There is no reestablishing shot, and sound track is silent for a moment, providing no clue as to what happened in the small gap. Next there is jump cut as the camera follows along Michel’s arm to his revolver and cuts into an even tighter shot of gun itself, and then, bang, to the falling officer. The series of camera shots overtly resembles a comic strip, with variously posed elements of a conflict. But the final one is of Michel running across a field, with the music again rising loudly before dissolving into the more lyrical theme music as the image fades to black and mysteriously fades up on Michel getting ride in Paris
The important sequence reveals the narrator’s manipulation of the narration on small and large levels. During the chase, the disjointed montage provides images that do not easily line up. It is unclear how long this chase took, how Michel go far enough in front of the motor cycles to turn off the highway unseen, or where exactly the doomed officer was in relation to Michel. The larger leap, of course, is how Michel managed to escape to Paris. It is a disorient film style that nonetheless preserves its film noir milieu while violating classical narrative norms. The editing, camera work, and sound track, and sound track complicate the narrative events, often denying the viewer access to everything from tiny bits of information to large portion of the action.
Throughout Breathless, Godard’s playfully overt manipulation of the viewer’s comprehension becomes a consistent strategy. For instance, at the end of the nearly three-minute long shot sequence of Michel finding Patricia selling papers and chatting with her, he exits after making plans to meet her later, when suddenly Patricia runs off screen in pursuit of him. During the entire sequence, the camera has been in low position, but now loud music blares, narrative sound is eliminated, and the camera cuts to high angle shot looking down on Patricia as she runs in the opposite screen direction. She stops Michel at a newsstand and seems to tell him something, perhaps changing the location of their meeting, and he walks off. This transition is a condensed version of the car chase: there is unexpected violation of screen direction, and the sudden music is exactly the same as that in the scene in which Michel runs across the field after shooting the officer. Moreover, after three minutes of hearing spontaneous discussions, the viewer does not hear how the conversation ends. Michel walks of, refuses to buy a cahiers du cinema, sees a man killed, reads in the newspaper about his murder of highway patrol officer, and enters the travel agency, where the camera, again in the low cart level position, tracks around to follow him during his conversation with the travel agent, mirroring the earlier scene’s shot sequence.
Godard’s narrative style emphasizes the unpredictability of the story construction, creates permanent uncertainty, and calls the viewer’s attention abruptly to the labor of signification. Throughout Breathless, whether in the conversation in Patricia’s apartment, or when Michel steals a car while Patricia waits, or when Michel and Patricia dodge into a movie theater to hide, every shot and sequence plays with micro-and macro-level interruption that challenge our expectations as well as the conventions of narrative cinema.
In the end Breathless kills Michel in a manner fitting the overall noir themes as well as the film’s ongoing narrative inventiveness. First, Patricia tries to explain her betrayal to Michel, during which the camera tracks around the room with her, then moves in the opposite direction as Michel makes a sort of reply, treating them as if they were two satellites in opposed orbits. Next Michel runs out to the street. Michel’s conversation with his friend Berruti is composed from a jumble of editing devise. Further, the police arrive, but there is no establishing shot showing the pursued Michel and the firing police. Godard has assembled the basic pieces of genre film: Michel is the doomed romantic hero, deep film noir but Patricia is the betraying femme fatale; and the malicious police detectives arrive to gloat. The pieces are there, but it the craft of the puzzle master that finally impress the viewer rather than any internal logic of character, theme, or closure.
Even today, Breathless confuses and disorients, but since so many of its stylistic innovations have been appropriated by new films, TV advertisements, and music videos, it might be difficult to understand just how shocking it was upon its release. With few exceptions, in 1960 all of the narrative films from Hollywood or France audiences had seen were pretty much shot and edited the same way, until Breathless. The most amazing formal element is the film’s jump cuts in many cases the transitions from one shot to another do not respect classical rules that even now our eyes are habituated to, and so there is a perceived gap in space and/or time between shots. In plain terms, it seems like there is something missing between two shots that would clarify the action. Godard uses jump cuts to such an extent that in the opening sequence, for example, it is not even clear exactly what happened without a second look.
To some, this sequence and others might appear unprofessional, as if Godard did not know what he was doing. But he did after all by several accounts had seen thousands of films by that point and had written about different editing practices and the jump cuts were his attack on the classical system and his way of showing that movies could be made differently. As a critic himself, Godard built films with the idea of introspection of the work inspire in the nature of how it was made. For the uninitiated it’s almost as if there has been a mistake. In fact, the technique is suggestive of watching old films that have had damaged parts of film removed. You make the mental jump to “fill in the gap” but you are reminded that you are the observer of the film at the same time. Yet, as much as Godard is pioneering the use of devices such as the jump cut he was also restore outdated ones like the iris in. It is used twice and both times at critical points. “I consider my Breathless as being the end of old cinema. Destroying all the old principles rather than creating something new.”(Godard, Breathless.166) And more than that, the jump-cuts, along with other elements (such as the music that cuts in and out abruptly), were the start of Godard’s efforts to produce a more critical spectator, because these devices require us to think more.
Beyond the use of jump cuts, Breathless contains a wealth of innovations that break classical rules. The other important aspect of Breathless – it’s as much about cool as anything. In fact, it is probably more important as the peak of 60s cool than the groundbreaking technical achievement it represented. Senberg’s neck, the airy wafts of smoke, the sleek look of the cars (usually American); Breathless is a film in love with style and stylishness. In terms of film theory though, Breathless was a brick being thrown through the clear glass house of the existing convention. There is an overflow of pop culture from the first scene which is of a pin up girl portrait on the back of a newspaper Michel is holding. A running commentary of movie posters, electronic signs and newspaper comics streams throughout the film just under the level of the action but just above the viewer’s awareness. This imagery shapes the view of the film as surely as the soundtrack.
When Breathless was made, there was a set of production norms that all French films followed (with some variation, the same is true of Hollywood at that time). Everything from the script, the size of crews, the type of lights and film stock, and the general working methods of filmmakers were dictated by a strict set of rules that came from union regulations and plain tradition. In France’s film industry at that time, the director was faced with a host of technicians, rules, and regulations that subordinated his or her position and control over the production of the film (Doucht. Jean. French new wave. 293). Godard hunted all of these things and did what he wanted. To get rid of an excessive crew, he and his cinematographer Raoul Coutard used sensitive film stock meant for photography, so little or no artificial lights were required. They could shoot outside on the streets and in real interiors, free from the threat of a studio. The entire film was shot silent and post-synchronized, and this allowed Godard to avoid a sound crew.
In addition, since the performers were not actually being recorded, they did not need to memorize or speak their lines perfectly, and this allowed Godard to write the script as he went because the proper lines were recorded in post-production. Godard worked at irregular intervals; if he did not have material for a day of shooting, he called it off. In short, Breathless was Godard is offended on the classic rules and his stubborn claim that he could make the film he wanted how he wanted. “To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body. Both go together, they cannot be separated.” (Godard. Jean- Luc Godard interview.143.)
By now, Breathless innovations make up part of the contemporary grammar of film style. In effect, these features of Breathless have become classical. In breaking the rules, it rewrote the rules. Godard even dedicates the Breathless to Monogram Pictures, a non-operational Hollywood studio that produced low budget films between 1931 and 1953. Until it became connected Artists and moved up the studio feeding chain it’s bread and butter were the “B” movie action fare, particularly western serials. Mostly these were derided as lowbrow but the boys at Cahiers du Cinema looked to them for inspiration. (Monogram_Pictures)
The auteur theory is strongly linked with Godard and the French New Wave. Simply put, the auteur theory is the idea that the film director “writes” his or her film as the author writes his or her novel. The theory – in French called la politique des auteurs but translated to auteur theory by the Village Voice critic Andrew Sarris – was first developed and defended by the group of critics who wrote for the French film journal Cahiers du cinema during the 1950s. These included most of the figures who went on to make New Wave films: François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and of course Godard. These critics and filmmakers to be developed their theory by establishing a canon of cinema based on the directors’ personal stamp on the films. (Doucht. Jean. French new wave. 272-279)
In their various articles and reviews, the Cahiers group elevated the status of many Hollywood figures never-before seriously considered, such as Samuel Fuller, Anthony Mann, and Nicholas Ray, among others. In addition, they praised several European directors, like the Italian neo-realists, Igmar Bergman, Jean Cocteau, and Robert Bresson. At the same time, they dismissed most French filmmakers, in large part because they – the Cahiers group– were about to rebel against that cinema and start something new.
Actually, Godard was not as violent as figures like Truffaut and Chabrol, who wrote a controversial attack on French cinema and its “tradition of quality.” But Breathless was Godard’s controversial move. In breaking all the rules, he stated the role of the director and realized the ideal of the auteur theory. By making his film as he wanted to, Godard exemplified and popularized the idea of films being creations like novels or paintings. This idea was not entirely new in the world of experimental and avant-garde cinema, it was never any other way and to some extent figures like Jean Cocteau and Alfred Hitchcock was considered artists, but Godard showed that commercial narrative films could be personal creations. .
The French New Wave was inflexibly opposed to the harshness of montage as a means of telling the story cinematically. One good reason for this is that the device although it has a long and respectable history – is often done in the badly made manners. It is more often a short-cut that conveys cinematic laziness in telling the story. Breathless takes up the challenge of montage in the long hotel room sequence where Michel and Patricia lie about and talk about nothing. He is desperately trying to get into her pants and ignore the fact he is in love with her. She is stubbornly keeping him out of her pants and denying the fact she is in love with him. The result is those long circular and meaningless conversations where you do everything but say the things you want to say. The conventional approach to this would be a two or three minute montage, Godard spends a full 24 minutes of the film on this section.
There are a number of ways the drama can be interpreted in terms of Godard’s existing conception of film. Michel could be Godard’s stand in. He soaks up popular culture, reading newspapers, listening to the radio, hanging out in cafes and he has fallen in love with the American style represented by Patricia. At one point he threatens to choke her to death if she does not smile. He puts his hands on her throat and she tries to stay composed but she eventually smiles beautifully. Is it Godard trying, and failing, to kill his devotion to American film due to his recognition of its beauty? But the power of Breathless is that it insists you make such speculations. You cannot just glide along and trust the plot to carry you to the end. Perhaps the Michel’s decision at the climax of the film is Godard’s – take the money to make the types of films everyone makes or stay true to his love of the essence of American film. He makes his choice and pays the price. But this is a film so the death is as drawn out and gloriously symbolic as possible.
Another very interesting aspect is that the film actually rolls in two different parts; one being the action taking part and another where only conversation and self analysis of the characters takes place. The way these two different elements are woven together is the art that Jean Luc Godard masters. The first thirty minutes of the film actually revolve around the action taking place in the life of Michel. This part deals with the external conflict the protagonist is facing. The next forty-fifty minutes take place where the protagonist meets his girlfriend and both the characters indulge in soul searching. This sub- plot involving the conversation of Michel and Patricia in room unwinds various characteristics and facets of both the character and that why this part of the film is so important. In a film it is very important to show the character development and the unique thing about Breathless is that it takes place after the action takes place not before the conflict.
The climax of the film is discussed often in various intellectual spaces because of it sheer genius. It is path breaking in the sense that the fearless character of Michel could only have got peace after his death. He does not wanted to run from the police but the circle of confusion comes in to plays in such a terrific manner that Michel is ultimately shot to death out of misunderstanding.
MICHEL: “Makes me want to puke”.
PATRICIA: “What did he say?”
VITAL: “He said you make him want to puke”.
PATRICIA: “What’s that mean, “puke”’? (Breathless)
This conversation actually portrays the sheer disappointment and anger that the character has for Patricia as well as the society. The catharsis of the film is immediately carried out after the climax to provide audience a quality level where they get involved deeply with the character of Michel.
The auteur theory still holds a lot of currency today. From a production standpoint, it continues to inspire filmmakers who want to make personal movies their own way outside of the system. From a critical standpoint, it continues to inform the way in which we think about and understand cinema, in that the director is considered to be the central creative force and the source of form and meaning. (Auteur theory) Godard’s realization of the auteur theory in effect helped legitimize the serious study of films because the way it was made resembled more the writing of a novel or the painting of a painting, rather than the industrial production of a piece of mass culture.
Breathless was not just part of the French New Wave; it was one of its prime movers. Along with François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour, it was one of the movement’s three key films. In brief, the New Wave was a group of films appearing in the late 1950s and 60s; these films constituted a cinema renaissance that broke with classical style, production methods, and themes, and generally showed a new conception of what the director was. These three films announced to the world that something new was happening in cinema, and they started one of the most important periods in film history. The French New Wave proved to be the inspiration for new kinds of cinema around the world in Europe, the United States, Japan, and Brazil, to cite a few examples. Even later movements such as Dogme 95 in Denmark make direct references to the French New Wave.
Perhaps the most essential reason why Breathless remains significant today is that it marks the shift to post-classical cinema that we are still in today. In the 1920s, in France and in the United States, the ways films were made and even their content began to be standardized and by the time sound films came about a set of codes was established. The “classical” cinema is thus roughly films made from this point up until about 1960. Breathless, as a commercial narrative film, departed from this classical period more radically then even most films that came after it. In short, anyone wondering why new movies do not seem like old movies can look to Breathless as the reason
Breathless lived up to Godard’s hope of becoming the standard bearer of New Wave aesthetics. Though he never returned to exploring systematically the jump cut, Godard has managed to investigate a multitude of other cinematic techniques and narrative options throughout his amazingly productive career. His camera revolutionized film language at a time when a few French film critics were just beginning to use new linguistic theories and vocabulary to analyze the cinema. Clearly, Jean Luc Godard jumped ahead of other filmmakers, but also of most film critics. The legacy of Breathless can be seen far beyond the New Wave. It was one of those ideal films whose imprint can be detected in a host of later films, from a variety of traditions.
Selected References
“Auteur theory.” Dlibrary. 21 Feb 2011.Web.13 Jan 2011
Bootne, Ron. “Breath less as an example of French new wave cinema.” Tacomafilmclubannex. 19 Jan. 2010. Web. 26 Jan 2011
Doucht, Jean. France. ‘French new wave.’ edition Hazan. 1998.Print.
“French new wave.” greencine. 27 Sep.2009.Web. 9 Feb 2011
Galenson, David. ‘Old masters and young genious- the two life cycle of artistic creativity.’ Princeton. Princeton university press. 2006. 149-162.Print.
Hannah, David. “French national cinema.” suite101. 23 Jul.2010.Web. 23 Jan 2011
Haris. “Godard & auteur theory.” Fadedrequiem. 6 Nov. 2008.Web. 31 Dec 2010
Karabel, Adam. “Breathless.” associatedcontent. 20 Sep. 2010.Web. 15 Jan 2011
Long, Christopher. “Breathless.” Dvdtown. 26 Sep.2010.Web.Feb 2011
Luc Godard, Jean and David Sterrt. ‘Jean- Luc Godard interview.’ Mississippi. Mississippi University press. 1998.Print.
Luc Godard, Jean and Dudely Andrew. ‘Breathless.’Chapel Hill. Rutgers University press. 1987.Print.
Michelle,Strozykovski. “Film history-French new wave cinema.” suite101. 12 Mar.2008.Web. 27 Dec 2010
“New French wave” 12 Dec. 2010.Web. 11 Feb 2011
P. Nochimoson, Martha. ‘World on film.’U K. Jon voiley and son press. 2010. 23- 69.Print.
Palmes, London. “breathless.” filmschoolrejects. 16 Jun. 2010.Web. 2 Dec 2010
Sterrt, David. ‘The films of Jean- Luc Godard, seeing the invisible.’ Cambridge. Cambridge University press. 1999.Print.
Walia, Shashank. ‘Breathless aclassic blend of technique and aesthetics.” passionforcinema. 23 Oct.2008.Web. 1 Jan 2011
Welmer, Jill. ‘An introduction to film studies.” U K. Routldge. 2003.410-450.Print.
Filmography
Breathless. Dir.Jean-Luc Godard. Pref. Jean- Paul Belmondo. Les Productions Georges De Bauregard.1960. Film
The 400 blows. Dir. Francois Truffaut. Pref. Jean- Pierre Leaud. Les Films Du Carrosse. 1959. Film.
Hiroshima mon amour. Dir. Alain Resnais. Pref. Emmanuelle Riva. Argos Films. 1959. Film.
