Ninth Post- Jean-Luc Godard and Breathless

 Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsKkFIsus1I&t=120s 

Jean-Luc Godard portrayed his film Breathless in a laid-back light. Godard’s main character, Michel, portrayed by Jean-Paul Belmondo, is a criminal on-the-run in Paris. The clip from Moving Pictures depicts Michel driving on an open-road and is shown through an over-the-shoulder shot. Michel states “Nothing [is] like the countryside” as the camera pans to an extreme wide shot of the countryside and view out of the car’s passenger window. He further asserts his liking of France, and, while wearing a hat and smoking a cigarette, stares into the camera and proclaims: “If you don’t like the shore, if you don’t like the mountains, if you don’t like the city, then get stuffed!” (“Get stuffed” conveys a sense of anger and can be used to tell someone to go away). Never one to turn down an engagement with a woman, Michel then approaches two hitchhiking girls on the side of the road and confides in the camera he will “charge a kiss a mile.” Despite the remark, Michel passes the two women by and continues to drive. The camera reverts to the over-the-shoulder shot, allowing us to see the steering wheel Michel is behind and the road ahead. Michel discovers a gun in a compartment and begins pretending to shoot the gun.

Godard frames Michel pointing the gun to the passenger’s side window. The passenger-side window shot is followed by a shot of the outdoors and gunshot noises. Viewers never see Michel pull the trigger or the direction of the shot. Trees and gun noises are the only elements in the shot, resulting in the viewer having to draw inferences about the object of Michel’s shooting. Michel, driving a stolen car, can be seen becoming more and more impatient as roadwork and slow drivers are impeding his progress. As he makes a move to pass a truck, police officers on motorcycles begin chasing him. He drives down a side road and loses one officer, with the other officer eventually approaching Michel as he stops down a little way on the side road. Michel, framed in a jump cut, is seen with the gun in his hand as the cop says, “Hold it right here.” We see a close-up of the side of Michel’s face, followed by a close-up of the gun in Michel’s hand. The gun goes off, but we only hear the noise. Godard intentionally eliminates the viewer’s ability to see who Michel was shooting and the direction of the shot. Following the shot of the gun in Michel’s hand (and gun noise), the camera shot is of a man falling backwards into trees. Michel can then be seen running across an open field, signaling Godard is letting us interpret how the shooting played out without showing all the details. Michel meets Patricia (portrayed by Jean Seberg), an American woman selling copies of the Herald Tribune in the streets of Paris (Heller). She and Michele fall in love and the love reaches a point of her believing he is the father of her soon-to-be-child. Love turns into reality as Patricia learns Michel is on the run from the police. She turns Michel into the police.

Breathless was filmed in the streets of Paris. No sound studio or elaborate outdoor set design built for a few weeks or months was necessary. Cameras were hand-held, and lighting was natural from the shooting locations in Paris. Godard utilized the spontaneity of everyday life (Heller). Michel and Patricia can be seen smoking cigarettes, discussing philosophy, and not taking a care to the fact Michel could be taken into custody by the police (Collins). Breathless featured a small film crew and equipment lineup. Godard created the idea for a scene the same day as the scene was shot and would use notes he took to sketch the set design (Heller). Evidenced by the hand-held cameras, shifts and shakes occur when Michel and Patricia are in Patricia’s room. The two are seen washing up, discussing music, and teasing each other- all everyday activities common between two people romantically involved (Heller).

As Sophie Collins explained in Breathless: How Jean-Luc Godard’s Movie Changed Cinema Forever, Godard arrived as a leader in the French New Wave film style. Elements such as handheld cameras, little-known professional actors, and natural lighting and location shots all appeared in Breathless (Collins). Camera movements and techniques took priority over the plotline. Jump cuts, continuous shots with a portion of the middle frames cut out so the beginning and end frames are juxtaposed together without the intent to match, were a staple of the movement and a staple of Godard. He believed in speeding up the action, only filming necessary shots to keep the plot in motion.

Citations: 

Collins, Sophia. “Breathless: How Jean-Luc Godard’s Movie Changed Cinema Forever.” MovieWeb, 30 May 2022. https://movieweb.com/breathless-jean-luc-godard-movie-changed-cinema/. Accessed 01 Apr. 2023.

Heller, Nathan. “Go See Breathless.” Slate, 08 Jun. 2010. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/06/how-jean-luc-godard-s-breathless-reinvented-the-movies.html. Accessed 01 Apr. 2023.