Film Analysis in 10 Slides
America as Subtext: Jean-Luc Godard’s BREATHLESS (1960)
Homage to Godard
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Background
Classical Hollywood narrative emerged after World War I. Developing further with the advent of sound, it became the characteristic of American cinema till 1960s. After the World War II, Europe came up with the art cinema as a reaction to it. Godard’s cinema drew from both but parodied them, making it difficult to comprehend the story. As a crime film (policier), Breathless is mainly in the classical Hollywood mode but Godard subverts the genre in this debut film.
Synopsis
Based loosely on the true story of Michel Portail and his American journalist girlfriend Beverly Lynette, Breathless revolved around Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg), an American student and aspiring journalist who sells the New York Herald Tribune. The Belmondo character is a criminal whose role model is Humphrey Bogart. Somewhat like the real-life Michel, the screen Michel also steals a car and kills a motorcycle cop who chases him.
Tribute And Subversion of The Crime Film
Godard and his fellow critics of “Cahiers du Cinema” turned filmmakers ushered in the French New Wave. They wrote on classical Hollywood cinema the influence of which on Godard is seen in Breathless. But unlike a typical crime film, Michel is a reluctant criminal. Patricia is not a femme fatale but an ambivalent art film character. Michel is not in a hurry to escape in the end and he is resigned to go to jail.
The Jump Cut
Godard adopted the jump cut from Jean Rouch’s Moi, un noir (1958). Richard Brody has written that the first cut of Breathless was longer by one hour. Jean-Pierre Melville advised Godard to remove unnecessary scenes. Instead of that Godard and editor Cécile Decugis removed all movements within scenes lacking in vigor, resulting in characters within the shot appearing to jump from one position to another in a relatively fixed frame. The classical visual style got subverted.
Press Conference With The Writer
Godard didn’t chop off the press conference scene featuring the writer Parvulesco (Jean-Pierre Melville) despite Melville’s advice for shortening the film. This scene belongs to the art film mode of conveying authorial statement. It sits at odds with the scenes which are in classical narrative mode. Instead of contributing to the action this scene is orthogonal, making the denotative meaning (story) somewhat fuzzy. Such digressions in Godard’s films suggest the style of a collage.
Structure
Finding the meaning in a Godard film may not be easy. In general, the structure is that of a collage put together by Godard the narrator. The concept of collage “has some historical justification, reaching back to Parisian cubism and identifying Godard’s disruption of cinematic unity with Braque’s and Picasso’s experiments in fragmenting the depicted scene.” (David Bordwell) Instead of collage, Bordwell calls the stacking of elements that don’t move the film forward as spatialization of narration.
Riding On Two Modes
Patricia has art works and posters on the walls in her hotel room. She reads from “The Wild Palms” but Michel hasn’t heard of Faulkner. She also mentions “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog” by Dylan Thomas. Michel is insensitive to her when she says she is pregnant. He coaxes her to sleep with him. This scene signifies the clash between the twin modes — of classical narrative and art film — on which Breathless rides.
The Ending
The film is not harsh on Patricia who betrays Michel because she doesn’t want to be in love with him. She conveys it to him hoping that he will escape but Michel doesn’t appear to be in a hurry initially. Michel derives some sympathy by the way he is shot, falls down, makes faces at Patricia and dies. The film’s scheme of going against the illusion of reality gives way in this last scene.
Closing Thoughts
Godard’s films up to 1967 weren’t radical although they were political in varying degrees. Breathless displays fascination for American cinema which is subverted. Michel, invested with a bit of Godard’s attitude, falls in love with an American who betrays him. However in Godard’s first film there doesn’t seem to be conscious engagement with politics. The main subject of the film is Godard himself. There is a strong influence of American cinema on not only Godard but on other new wave filmmakers as well. In that way America and its culture dominated their minds as seen in the subtext of Breathless which is audacious in its narrative and visual style.
