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February 26, 2019 (XXXVIII:5) Jean-Luc Godard: BREATHLESS/À BOUT DE SOUFFLE (1960, 90 min.)

DIRECTED BY Jean-Luc Godard WRITING François Truffaut and (original scenario), Jean-Luc Godard (screenplay) PRODUCER MUSIC Martial Solal CINEMATOGRAPHY Cécile Decugis

CAST Jean ...Patricia Franchini Jean-Paul Belmondo...Michel Poiccard / Laszlo Kovacs Daniel Boulanger...Police Inspector Vital Henri-Jacques Huet...Antonio Berrutti Roger Hanin...Carl Zubart Van Doude...Himself Claude Mansard...Claudius Mansard play of shot-reverse shot' used in many productions” Liliane Dreyfus...Liliane / Minouche (as Liliane David) (NewWaveFilm.com). In the article, Godard “praised the use of Michel Fabre...Police Inspector #2 shot-reverse shot as crucial to conveying a character’s mental Jean-Pierre Melville...Parvulesco the Writer point of view and their inner life.” In 1956, after returning to Jean-Luc Godard...The Snitch from and making his first two films, Godard Richard Balducci...Tolmatchoff returned to find that Cahiers du cinema, led by Francois Truffaut, André S. Labarthe...Journalist at Orly had become the leading film publication in . Godard François Moreuil...Journalist at Orly would once again join the fray of French film enthusiasts championing the techniques of Hollywood like JEAN-LUC GODARD (b. December 3, 1930 in Paris, France) Hitchcock and Hawks, contributing articles “on some of his once said “All great fiction films tend toward documentary, just favorite auteurs such as and ” and as all great documentaries tend toward fiction.” Godard began his continuing “his theoretical debate with André Bazin” who film career with a short, which he directed, wrote, edited, acted “continued to commend the long take for its approximation to in, and did cinematography for. The 1955 film was entitled A physical reality.” Contra Bazin, “Godard praised editing for Flirtatious Woman‡‡, an adaptation of the Guy de Maupassant rendering the subjective essence of reality,” maintaining that a story "Le Signe" (“The Signal”), was shot on 16mm in Geneva, “well-edited film. . .was more truthful to life than the using money Godard earned from selling the documentary uninterrupted scene – rather than portraying a close (1958) that he had directed, written, and representation of reality, it seemed to provide the experience of edited on the job as a construction worker in Switzerland. In reality itself” (NewWaveFilm.com). Throughout his career, he these early film efforts, we see Godard’s lived philosophy, has been invested in every multiple facets of film production, integrating art and labor, understanding how the two intermingle frequently occupying the role of writer and editor to many of the and are inseparable, much in the same way as his expressed sense films he has directed, also, at times, acting, producing, and, even of the interrelations of fiction films and documentary. Before he occasionally, doing his own cinematography. Godard’s primary began making films, he devoted energy to studying and writing mode of film production is a combination of writing and film for Andre Bazin’s journal Cahiers du cinema. In 1952, directing. In, perhaps his most iconic period of filmmaking, Godard published an article that “amounted to a kind of personal starting with Breathless*** in 1960 and ending with 1967’s theoretical manifesto, as well as a counter argument to an earlier Weekend,* Godard directed and wrote, and often acted in his article written by Bazin in which the critic attacked the 'obsolete films. During this period, Godard made such Godard: BREATHLESS—2 classics as * (1961), Contempt*** (1963), has 95 writing credits, 45 acting credits, and 22 producing Band of Outsiders*** (1964), Alphaville* (1965), Masculin credits. These are some of the other films he directed: Charlotte Féminin* (1966), and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her*** and Her Boyfriend† (1960 Short), Vivre Sa Vie** (1962), Le (1967). In a line perhaps pointing to the paradox of the rising Petit Soldat*** (1963), Les Carabiniers* (1963), Une Femme in the late , Masculin Féminin famously suggests Mariée*** (1964), * (1965), Made in U.S.A*** it "could [also] be called The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola.” (1966), A Film Like Any Other§§ (1968), Love and Anger* It is arguable that it is with 1967’s “exhilarating and provocative” (1969), Le Gai Savoir*** (1969), Le Vent d'Est (1970)†, ,* a film that floods the viewer with images of “Marx Struggle in ** (1971), Vladimir et Rosa‡‡ (1971), Numéro and Mao, modernist paintings, political slogans and an engraving deux* (1975), ‡‡‡ (1976), Every Man for from Alice in Wonderland,” in a loose narrative about “five Himself‡ (1980), First Name: †††† (1983), Hail university students. . .who spend their summer vacation in Paris. Mary*(1985), King Lear§§§ (1987), Puissance de la parole* . .studying political texts [and] delivering lectures to each other, (1988 Short), Germany Year 90 Nine Zero* (1991), JLG/JLG: Godard begins a shift to the overtly political. Weekend had Self-Portrait in December‡ (1994 Documentary), 2 x 50 Years of provocatively and cryptically “concluded with the statements French Cinema†† (1995 TV Movie documentary), Histoire(s) du 'end of story' and 'end of cinema.'” Godard “had come to the cinéma†† (1989-1999 TV Mini-Series documentary), The Old conclusion that the world as it was had to change and as the Place** (2000 Documentary), In Praise of Love* (2001), commercial film industry was part of that world” he saw needing Moments choisis des histoire(s) du cinéma**** (2004 change (NewWaveFilm.com). This might have suggested Documentary), and Ecce Homo**** (2006 Short). Godard’s withdrawal from cinema; however, at this point, he *Writer increased his output. This conviction likely played a role in the **Writer, editor hardline stance he helped lead in protest of the 1968 Cannes Film ***Writer, actor Festival. After “most of the filmmakers in competition withdrew ****Writer, editor, producer their films and , , Monica Vitti, and †Writer, editor, actor Terence Young resigned from the jury,” Godard argued that ††Editor “instead of showing festival films, the forum should be used to †††Writer, editor, cinematographer, producer screen militant films and documentary footage of the [protests] ††††Actor taking place.” Further, “When the festival administration decided ‡Editor, producer that a screening of Saura’s Peppermint Frappé would go ‡‡Writer, editor, cinematographer, actor ahead as planned, Godard, Truffaut and Saura himself jumped up ‡‡‡Writer, producer on the stage and held onto the curtain to prevent it from opening” ‡‡‡‡Writer, actor, cinematographer, producer (NewWaveFilm.com). This period saw Godard increasingly §Editor, actor turning to the documentary in films such as * §§Writer, editor, cinematographer (1967), Sympathy for the Devil* (1968), Cinétracts (1968), See §§§Writer, editor, actor, producer You at Mao* (1970), Pravda** (1970), and 1 P.M.§§§§§ (1971). §§§§Editor, cinematographer Throughout his career, he has often directed promotional shorts §§§§§Writer, cinematographer for some of his feature films, and, on one occasion, he stepped outside of his own work to direct a promotion for ’s heartbreaking Mouchette (1967). In Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963), Godard collaborated on a film also showcasing several Italian auteurs: Ugo Gregoretti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and . 18 of his films incorporated both his writing and editing skills. His most recent output has seen a return to the roles that shaped his iconic 1960s work, primarily writing and directing with occasional acting and editing in films such as * (2010), *** (2014), and † (2018). Barring the fallout from 1968’s controversial Cannes, Godard’s films have been consistently recognized at the festival since the early 1980s when was first nominated for the distinguished Palm d’Or for Sauve la vie (qui peut)* (1981 Documentary). Throughout the decade he was nominated for the Palm d’Or for Passion** (1982), (1985), and Aria (1987). He was again nominated for the Palm d’Or for Nouvelle vague (1990), Éloge de l'amour (2001), Adieu FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT (b. February 6, 1932 in Paris, au langage (2014), and Le livre d'image (2018). Also, at Cannes, France—d. October 21, 1984 (age 52) in Neuilly-sur-Seine, he was nominated for the Un Certain Regard Award for Film Hauts-de-Seine, France) was a French film director, screenwriter, socialisme (2010), and he won the Jury Prize for Adieu au producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of langage (2014) and the Special Award and Palme d'Or Spéciale the founders of the French New Wave. He was nominated for for Le livre d'image (2018). At the 2011 , he Oscars for Best Writing for Les quatre cents coups* (1959, The won an Honorary Award “For passion. For confrontation. For a 400 Blows) and for Best Writing and Best Director for La nuit new kind of cinema.” He was not present for the ceremony. He américaine (1973). He won the OCIC Award and Best Director Godard: BREATHLESS—3 awards and was nominated for the Palm d’Or for Les quatre Honorary Golden Palm at the 2011 . He has cents coups (1959) and was nominated, again, for the Palm d’Or acted in 91 films, and he has also produced 23 films. These are for La peau douce* (1964). He directed 28 films, acted in 16 some of the films he has acted in: À pied, à cheval et en voiture films, wrote for 36 films, and he produced 17 films. These are (1957), Youthful Sinners (1958), Un drôle de dimanche (1958), some of the other films he directed: (1955 Short), An Angel on Wheels (1959), Breathless* (1960), Classe Tous (1960), (1962), Fahrenheit Risques (1960), Seven Days... Seven Nights (1960), Trapped by 451 (1966), (1968), (1968), Fear (1960), Love and the Frenchwoman (1960), Two Women (1969), * (1970), Bed & (1960), A Woman Is a Woman* (1961), Léon Morin, Priest Board* (1970), * (1971), A Gorgeous Girl (1961), Riviera-Story (1961), (1963), The Shortest Like Me* (1972), Day for Night* (1973), The Story of Adele H* Day (1963), (1964), Backfire (1964), Pierrot (1975), Small Change* (1976), The Man Who Loved Women* le Fou* (1965), Is Paris Burning? (1966), The Thief of Paris (1977), The Green Room* (1978), Love on the Run (1979), The (1967), Casino Royale (1967), Mississippi Mermaid (1969), God Last Metro (1980), (1981), and Chose Paris (1969), Borsalino (1970), The Burglars (1971), (1983). He also acted in Le coup du berger ... (1974), The Night Caller (1975), Incorrigible (1975), (1956 Short), La sonate à Kreutzer (1956), The Army Game Body of My Enemy (1976), The Professional (1981), Cyrano de (1960), Golpes (1962 Short), and Close Encounters of the Third Bergerac (1990 TV Movie), One Hundred and One Nights Kind (1977). (1995), Les Misérables (1995), Désiré (1996), Peut-être (1999), *Actor Actors (2000), (2000), and Un homme et son chien (2008). RAOUL COUTARD (b. September 16, 1924 in Paris, France— *Directed by Jean-Luc Godard d. November 8, 2016 (age 92) in Labenne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France) was an award-winning cinematographer and director DANIEL BOULANGER (b. January 24, 1922 in Compiègne, who worked with Godard in his iconic 1960s period from 1960- Oise, France—d. September 27, 2014 (age 92) in Paris, France) 1967. He won at Cannes for Best First Work for Hoa-Binh was an actor and writer. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best (1970) and for Technical Grand Prize his cinematography for Writing for L'homme de Rio (1964). He wrote for 46 films Godard’s Passion (1982). He did cinematography for 84 films, including The Love Game (1960), The Joker (1960), Danger in such as: The Devil's Pass (1958), Breathless* (1960), Shoot the the Middle East (1960), La récréation (1961), Piano Player (1960), Time Out for Love (1961), Lola (1961), (1961), The Seven Deadly Sins (1962), Swords of Blood (1962), Chronicle of a Summer (1961Documentary), A Woman Is a Le petit garçon de l'ascenseur (1962), People in Luck (1963), Woman* (1961), Jules and Jim (1962), La poupée (1962), Vivre Banana Peel (1963), That Man from Rio (1964), The Deadly Sa Vie* (1962), * (1963), Les Carabiniers* Trap (1971), and Two Men in Town (2014). He acted in 11 films: (1963), Contempt* (1963), Les baisers (1964), Band of Breathless (1960), The Love Game (1960), The Joker (1960), Outsiders* (1964), Une Femme Mariée* (1964), Male Shoot the Piano Player (1960), The Third Lover (1962), King of Companion (1964), The 317th Platoon (1965), Alphaville* Hearts (1966), The Bride Wore Black (1968), Bed & Board (1965), Pierrot le Fou* (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her* (1970), Sortie de secours (1970), And Now My Love (1974), and (1967), The Sailor from Gibraltar (1967), Horizon (1967), La The Discord (1978). Chinoise* (1967), Weekend* (1967), The Bride Wore Black (1968), Z (1969), The Confession (1970), The Most Gentle Confessions (1971), A Pain in the Ass (1973), Godard's Passion* (1982), First Name: Carmen* (1983), Dangerous Moves (1984), Blanc de Chine (1988), Les enfants volants (1991), La vie crevée (1992), The Birth of Love (1993), and Wild Innocence (2001). *Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

JEAN SEBERG (b. November 13, 1938 in Marshalltown, —d. August 30, 1979 (age 40) in Paris, France) was an American actress who lived half her life in France. Her performance in Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film Breathless immortalized her as an icon of French New Wave cinema. She acted in 35 films, including: (1957), Bonjour Tristesse (1958), The Mouse That Roared (1959), Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960), Time Out for Love (1961), Congo vivo (1962), Backfire (1964), Lilith (1964), Diamonds Are Brittle (1965), A Fine Madness (1966), Paint Your Wagon (1969), Airport (1970), JEAN-PIERRE MELVILLE (b. October 20, 1917 in Paris, Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! (1971), The Assassination (1972), La France—d. August 2, 1973 (age 55) in Paris, France) was a corrupción de Chris Miller (1973), and The Wild Duck (1976). French filmmaker. While with the during World War II, he adopted the nom de guerre Melville as a tribute JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO (b. April 9, 1933 in Neuilly-sur- to his favorite American author Herman Melville. He kept it as Seine, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France], France), who his stage name once the war was over. Spiritual father of the acted in several of Godard’s iconic 1960s films, was awarded an French New Wave, he influenced the new generation of Godard: BREATHLESS—4 filmmakers in Asia (John Woo, Ringo Lam, Johnnie To), in (Nouvelle Vague) rejection of what they called ‘Le Cinema de Europe (Aki Kaurismäki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder), and in Papa’ (Dad’s Cinema). The most patently radical Godardian style America (Michael Mann, Walter Hill, , was the incessant use of the , a sudden temporal ellipsis William Friedkin, ). He directed 14 films, 13 of even in the middle of a dialogue take. That’s standard practice which he also wrote: 24 heures de la vie d'un clown (1946 now but at the time it broke every dictate of the conventional Short), Le Silence de la Mer (1949), Les Enfants Terribles filmmaking manual. In fact this technique was a little more (1950), When You Read This Letter (1953 director only), Bob le accidental than political. The film, loosely (with a minimal and Flambeur (1956), Two Men in Manhattan (1959), Léon Morin, constantly changing shooting script) based on a ‘crime on the Priest (1961), Le Doulos (1963), Magnet of Doom (1963), Le run’ storyline by François Truffaut, ended up as a rough cut of Deuxième Souffle (1966), Le Samouraï (1967), around two hours long – more the length of the despised (1969), (1970), and (1972). He acted in blockbusters then and now. To be considered a commercial 9 films: Les drames du Bois de Boulogne (1948 Short), Orpheus product the movie needed to lose about 30 minutes, so rather (1950), (1956), Girl in His Pocket (1957), Two than cut out whole scenes or sequences, Godard elected to trim Men in Manhattan (1959), Breathless (1960), within the scene, creating the jagged cutting style still so beloved (1962), Le combat dans l'île (1962), and Bluebeard (1963). of action filmmakers. Godard just went at the film with the scissors, cutting out anything he thought boring and as a result the whole movie does indeed feel rather ‘breathless’, each scene seeming to rush jerkily to a finish, with barely enough time to make full sense. Who would have ever guessed that what is now a cinematic cliché (at its most excessive in the late ’60s and the ’70s) could have had so practical a raison d’etre? The film also vibrates with onscreen references to popular culture and the affects of the media in ways that anticipate later theorists of the postmodern. It draws, albeit unconsciously, on Marshall McLuhan’s contemporary ideas on the ‘Global Village’ and Roland Barthes’ work on the dominance of culturally produced signs in society. Belmondo’s character is literally obsessed with Bogart’s poster and screen persona, and constantly checks out his style against cinema posters of ‘Bogey’ as well as imitating his gestures in numerous mirrors. Belmondo is excellent, and classically existential (rather like Mersault in Camus’ The Outsider) as the feckless young hood who steals a car, kills a motorbike cop, and chases after some money that is owed him for robberies past so he and his Jonathan Dawson : À Bout de souffle (Senses of Cinema) casually picked up yank chick (Seberg with a cropped head look Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature still looks like it’s that became existential de rigeur for years) can get to Italy. He’s breaking a whole lot of rules 40 years on. Basically it’s a classic always, like Pierrot le fou (also played by Belmondo) in chase movie. The action is set off when a young hood Michel Godard’s 1965 movie, dreaming of the Last Score and the big Poiccard (his alias is Laszlo Kovacs – in tribute to the great escape to that foreign, safer land. There’s always a mythical, cinematographer of the same name), who adores Humphrey semi-mystical Other, Better Place in Godard’s earlier movies. Bogart (the screen persona, that is), kills a cop and goes on the Godard probably lives there now. run with a young American girl, the iconic Patricia Franchini, Other cultural references and film in-jokes swarm played by . 26-year-old Jean-Paul Belmondo’s throughout Breathless: admired cult stylist, the film director performance as the hood marks the real beginning to an Jean-Pierre Melville, appears as a celebrity novelist being extraordinary career as the biggest French star since Jean Gabin. interviewed; Daniel Boulanger appears as the police inspector. Godard made the film for the equivalent of 100,000 Jean-Louis Richard and appear, and there are Australian dollars and dedicated it to Monogram Pictures as a also bit appearances by Godard, as an informer, by Truffaut, and tribute to cheap American gangster movies of his own youth – Chabrol (who also acted as supervising producer). films that seemed to young auteurs like Jean-Luc to offer so And of course there are many legends about the actual much more than the more elegant, well wrought and polite studio shoot including the use of wheelchairs as camera dollies. products of France of the ’40s and ’50s. Renowned cinematographer Raoul Coutard’s legendary ability in À bout de souffle began in this way. I had written the hand holding heavy 35mm cameras in long takes also comes to first scene (Jean Seberg on the Champs Elysees) and for the rest the fore. Coutard’s amazing work, predating Garret Brown’s I had a pile of notes for each scene. I said to myself, this is invention of Steadicam, can be seen at its best in ’s terrible, I stopped everything. Then I thought: in a single day… short contribution to the compilation film Paris Vu Par (1965). one should be able to complete about a dozen takes. Only instead This begins with a hand-held shot that traverses many rooms, an of planning ahead I shall invent at the last minute! (Godard in elevator, and street, and runs for a full 20 minutes! Milne, 172-3) Finally there was the matter of the film stock which was Breathless was instantly hailed as a truly revolutionary in fact painstakingly hand-joined rolls of a very fast Ilford black movie and the logical outcome of the French New Wave and white still camera stock along with short ends of other Godard: BREATHLESS—5 stocks. This produced the grainy ‘naturalistic’ effect that Ken pretends to be tougher than he is, and Patricia (Jean Seberg), an Russell – and later just about everyone else – was to borrow for American who peddles the Paris edition of the New York Herald- his social ‘realist’ documentaries. Just about everything that Tribune while waiting to enroll at the Sorbonne. Do they know looks different about Breathless became the signifiers of what they're doing? Both of the important killings in the movie alternative, radical, almost immediately. occur because Michel accidentally comes into possession of Nothing, until Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) came someone else's gun; Patricia's involvement with him seems along three decades later, ever quite shook up film style as much inspired in equal parts by affection, sex and fascination with his as Breathless did in 1960. gangster persona. Perhaps no movie will ever break the ‘rules’ so Michel wants to be as tough as the stars in the movies effectively and so influentially again. he loves. He practices facial expressions in the mirror, wears a References fedora, and is never, ever seen without a cigarette, removing one Dixon, Wheeler Winston, The Films of Jean-Luc from his mouth only to insert another. So omnipresent is this Godard, New York: SUNY, 1997 cigarette that Godard is only kidding us a little when Michel's Milne, Tom, (translated) Godard on Godard, London: dying breath is smoky. But Belmondo at 26 still had a little of the Secker and Warburg, 1972 adolescent in him, and the first time we see him, his hat and even Williams, Alan, Republic of Images: a History of his cigarette seem too big for his face. He was "hypnotically French Filmmaking. London: Harvard University, 1992 ugly," Bosley Crowther wrote in his agitated New York Times review, but that did not prevent him from becoming the biggest French star between Jean Gabin and Gerard Depardieu. Seberg was restarting her career after its disastrous launch in America. Otto Preminger staged a famous talent search for the star of his "Saint Joan" (1957), and cast an inexperienced 18-year-old Marshalltown, Iowa, girl; Seberg received terrible reviews, not entirely deserved, and more bad notices for "Bonjour Tristesse" (1958), which Preminger made next to prove himself right. She fled to Europe, where she was only 21 when Godard cast her for "Breathless." Her Patricia is the great enigma 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 persona is a performance that functions to conceal his desperation. 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 startling items of information about Michel (that he is a killer, that he is married, that he has more than one name) with “Breathless” such apparent detachment that we study that perfectly molded gamin face and wonder what she can possibly be thinking. Even When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when her betrayal of him turns out to be not about Michel, and not we should have talked about each other. -- Michel to about right and wrong, but only a test she sets for herself to Patricia determine if she loves him or not. It is remarkable that the reviews of this movie do not describe her as a monster--more Modern movies begin here, with Jean-Luc Godard's evil, because she's less deluded, than Michel. "Breathless" in 1960. No debut film since "" in 1942 The filming of "Breathless" has gathered about it a body has been as influential. It is dutifully repeated that Godard's of legend. It was one of the key films of the French New Wave, technique of "jump cuts" is the great breakthrough, but startling which rejected the well-made traditional French cinema and as they were, they were actually an afterthought, and what is embraced a rougher, more experimental personal style. Many of most revolutionary about the movie is its headlong pacing, its the New Wave directors began as critics for the anti- cool detachment, its dismissal of authority, and the way its establishment magazine Cahiers du Cinema. The credits for narcissistic young heroes are obsessed with themselves and "Breathless" are a New Wave roll call, including not only oblivious to the larger society. Godard's direction but an original story by Francois Truffaut There is a direct line through "Breathless" to "Bonnie (Godard famously wrote each day's shooting script in the and Clyde," "Badlands" and the youth upheaval of the late 1960s. morning). Claude Chabrol is production designer and technical The movie was a crucial influence during Hollywood's 1967- adviser, the writer Pierre Boulanger plays the police inspector, 1974 golden age. You cannot even begin to count the characters and there are small roles for Truffaut and Godard himself (as the played by Pacino, Beatty, Nicholson, Penn, who are directly informer). Everyone was at the party; the assistant director was descended from Jean-Paul Belmondo's insouciant killer Michel. Pierre Rissient, who wears so many hats he is most simply "Breathless" remains a living movie that retains the described as knowing more people in the cinema than any other power to surprise and involve us after all these years. What single person. fascinates above all is the naivete and amorality of these two Jean-Pierre Melville, whose own crime movies in the young characters: Michel, a car thief who idolizes Bogart and 1950s pointed the way to the New Wave, plays the writer Godard: BREATHLESS—6 interviewed by Patricia at Orly, where he expounds on life and "Breathless" that "sordid is really a mild word for its pile-up of sex ("Two things are important in life. For men, women. For gross indecencies." The jump cuts to him were "pictorial women, money"). Melville's "Bob le Flambeur" (1955) is cacophony." referenced when we meet the man who informed on Bob, or Yet Crowther conceded, "It is no cliche," and the film's when Michel tells a friend, "Bob the gambler would have cashed bold originality in style, characters and tone made a certain kind my check." of genteel Hollywood movie quickly obsolete. Godard went on to One inside joke in the film is always mentioned, but is become the most famous innovator of the 1960s, although he lost not really there. Michel's alias is "Laszlo Kovacs," and countless the way later, with increasingly mannered experiments. Here in writers inform us this is a reference to the legendary Hungarian one quick, sure move, knowing somehow just what he wanted cinematographer. In fact, Godard had not met Kovacs at the time, and how to obtain it, he achieved a turning point in the cinema and the reference is to the character Belmondo played in just as surely as Griffith did with "The Birth of a Nation" and Chabrol's "A Double Tour" (1959). In a film with so many Welles with "Citizen Kane." references to the past of the cinema, it is amusing to find a coincidental reference to its future. Godard's key collaborator on the film was the cinematographer Raoul Coutard, who worked with him many times, notably on "Weekend" (1968). It was only Coutard's fourth film, and his methods became legend: How when they could not afford tracks for a tracking shot, he held the camera and had himself pushed in a wheelchair. How he achieved a grainy look that influenced many other fiction films that wanted to seem realistic. How he scorned fancy lighting. How he used hand-held techniques even before lightweight cameras were available. How he timed one shot of Belmondo so that the streetlights on the Champs Elysses came on behind him. There is a lovely backlit shot of Belmondo in bed and Seberg sitting beside the bed, both smoking, the light from the window enveloping them in a cloud. That's from a long scene that's alive with freshness and spontaneity. Patricia returns home to find Michel in her bed, and they talk, flirt, smoke, fight, finally make love. She quotes Faulkner: "Between grief and nothing, I will take grief." Michel says he would choose nothing; "grief is a compromise." She poses in front of a Renoir poster of a young girl, and asks who is prettier. Michel sits below a Picasso poster of a man holding a mask. Throughout this long scene, perplexingly, they both throw their discarded cigarettes out the window. In this scene and throughout the film, Godard uses jump Norman N. Holland: “Jean-Luc Godard, À Bout de cuts--cuts within continuous movement or dialogue, with no Souffle/Breathless” (1960) (A Shapter Focus) attempt made to make them match. The technique "was a little This is a hard film to think about, because it is so more accidental than political," writes the Australian critic dense; so many things are going on in it. But as in any good film, Jonathan Dawson. The finished film was 30 minutes too long, the opening shot tells it all—or much of it. Even the dedication, and "rather than cut out whole scenes or sequences, Godard not to a person but to Monogram pictures!, has put us into elected to trim within the scene, creating the jagged cutting style Godard-world. The media are the fact, not persons, even trashy still so beloved of action filmmakers. Godard just went at the media like the Monogram B-movies. They are, in a word Godard film with the scissors, cutting out anything he thought boring." hallows, cinéma. The technique adds charm to a scene where the two The first thing we see is a girlie comic (themes: drive through Paris in a stolen convertible, and there is a series of media as fact; sex). The paper slips down to reveal Michel closeup cuts over her shoulder as Michel describes her. When the Poiccard, a petty hoodlum (Jean-Paul Belmondo in the role that two lovers, fleeing the police, sneak into a movie, it is a scene made him a star). “Après tout,” he says, "je suis con.” After all, directly quoted in "Bonnie and Clyde"--which, we recall, both I’m an asshole. But, of course, he doesn’t mean that. Or does he? Godard and Truffaut were once to direct. In each case, the His dying words echo the sentiment. dialogue reflects the action; Bonnie and Clyde hear "we're in the This is really the first of many instances where words money," and Michel and Patricia hear dialogue about a woman lie or don’t mean anything. Then, “Il faut,” I must—must what? "covering up for a cheap parasite." He rubs his thumb across his lips, a gesture he has copied from The movie had a sensational reception; it is safe to say and the first instance of many in which an the cinema was permanently changed. Young directors saw it and outer action, particularly one from media, defines the inner had abandoned their notions of the traditional studio film before person. As things develop, Michel steals whatever he has, cars, they left the theater. Crowther of the Times, who was later to money, girls. He has nothing of his own except an uncashable notoriously despise its descendant "Bonnie and Clyde," said of Godard: BREATHLESS—7 check (cashable only with a fictional character from another America, in the person of Patricia, will pay him back. And, as it film). turns out, because she wants to study at the Sorbonne and pursue What drives Michel, what makes him race from her career, she wants him just to go off to Italy and leave her to Paris (casually shooting a cop on the way) is his alone. She enlists the police in her cause, and Michel dies. This wish to bed an American girl, Patricia Franchini. Godard states is, of course, classic stuff: the femme fatale is more the motive in his typical outside-in way: “I wanted to see if I’d dangerous than the killer. be glad to see you again.” Throughout, the film raises questions As Michel drives his stolen American car from about intention and Marseilles to Paris, he talks to us, identity, normally we think and this is another of Godard’s ideas: of intention as determining that the crucial relationship in a action, but movie is not between the characters in Breathless it’s the other (Michel’s easily dumped Marseilles way round. As Patricia girlfriend, Michel’s elusive debtors, says, “Because I am mean Patricia’s betraying Michel) but to you, it means that I don’t between what is on the screen and love you.” And Michel: us, the audience. This is the “C’est normal. Squealers relationship stated in the last shot of squeal, burglars burgle, the film. Patricia/America stares out lovers love.” A person’s at us, having betrayed her lover, intentions are defined by having misunderstood his last words, actions; a person’s nature is and having taken over Michel’s defined by outside in, not Bogart gesture. Then she turns her inside out. And the outside back on us—the movie is over. is what appears on the Godard says he makes screen—cinéma. essays. “I consider myself an Patricia is essayist, producing essays in the played by Jean Seberg, form of novels or novels in the form quintessentially American, of essays, only instead of writing, I from Marshalltown, Iowa. film them.” In that same interview he (Critics would speak of her has said that his essays for the “corn-fed beauty.”) This legendary film magazine, Cahiers du was to be, sadly, her one great role. And Godard loudly labels Cinéma, were in fact film making. In other words, in his movies her as American. She hawks the New York Herald-Tribune, he is not telling a story; he is making statements. indeed wears its name on her chest. She speaks error-ridden In Breathless, this idea translates into Godard’s French with an American accent and often asks the meanings of camera constantly calling attention to itself, circling, irising out, French words. (Further instances of words as inadequate showing passersby gawking at the camera, Michel’s speaking to compared to cinéma.) the camera, and of course the celebrated jump cuts. These were Patricia is in Paris to study at the Sorbonne and almost accidental. Godard filmed 30 minutes too much, and to pursue a career as a journalist. She plans ahead, meets her shorten the film he chose to cut into scenes instead of cutting commitments, and calculates consequences. She embodies whole scenes. These jump cuts, slicing into the normal another of Godard’s themes: France vs. America. As late as 1971 presentation of time, made the film, his cinematographer said, Parisians would stop my wife or me on the sidewalk to thank us “more electric.” And they put Godard on the map. for what America did in World War II. But by 1960 the French Pictures, looks, cinéma, are what count. It is a Left had come to detest America in her role as superpower: newspaper picture that traps Michel, and it is Godard himself greed, duplicity, wars, fanatical anti-communism, U.S. who shows up in the film to see it and tell the cops. He irises that involvement in French Indo-China, and so on. shot out to make sure we see what he is doing. By contrast words In this film, impulsivity is good; Patricia’s planning become mere jabber. There is the journalist Van Doude (played and scheming is not. Contrast the jazzy piano theme for Michel by himself), trying put the make on Patricia by telling her how he with the Hollywood-y strings for Patricia. Or her shaky French forgot that some girl had said she would sleep with him. Surely a with his fast, slurred slang. And Godard echoed that theme in his doubtful tactic. Or the sex-obsessed interview with the novelist impulsive method of planning his film: he would write the Parvulesco (played by Jean-Pierre Melville, godfather to dialogue in the morning and film it in the afternoon, often calling the nouvelle vague). These talkers demonstrate word sex instead out lines or actions to the actors while shooting or dubbing. (All of the 25-minute foreplay in Patricia’s room, body to body, the dialogue had to be dubbed post-production, because the image to image. cheap Cameflex camera he was using was so noisy.) Words don’t work. Indeed, Godard’s 2014 film (3-D, Michel embodies impulsivity. As the first scene goes no less) is titled, Adieu au Langage or Goodbye to on, he and his current girlfriend (sex again) signal each other, Language. Words produce paradoxes and contradictions: “I’d and—his first act in the film— he steals the big American car of like to think of something nice but I can’t.” “The French always an American army officer. Hah! So much for the vaunted say it’s all the same when it isn’t.” “I want to become American military might. But little does Michel know how immortal—and then die.” The last words of the film are Godard: BREATHLESS—8 problematic. The death- “French New Wave” (Wikipedia) dealing police inspector New Wave (French: La Nouvelle with the life-giving name Vague) is a French film movement Vital (writer Daniel which emerged in the 1950s and Boulanger) lies to Patricia. 1960s. It is a form of European art Michel’s last words were, cinema, and is often referred to as one “I am really nauseating of the most influential movements in (dégueulasse). Patricia asks the history of cinema. New Wave what he said, and Vital filmmakers were linked by their self- says, “He said you are conscious rejection of the traditional nauseating.” What is not a film conventions then dominating lie is Patricia’s image on France, and by a spirit of iconoclasm. the screen and her taking Common features of the New Wave over Michel’s Bogart- included radical experimentation with gesture. The editing, visual style, and narrative, as tragedy Breathless portrays well as engagement with the social is that the old way of and political upheavals of the era. making movies, planning, The term was first used by a group of scheming, the bourgeois values triumphing over amorality, in French film critics and cinephiles associated with the short, classical Hollywood style in the person of Patricia, wins magazine in the late 1950s and 1960s, who out. But happily that didn’t happen. Godard’s radical methods rejected the Tradition de qualité ("Tradition of Quality") of won out. Otherwise we would never have had classics mainstream French cinema, which "emphasized craft over like Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1969), The Graduate (Nichols, innovation, privileged established directors over new directors, 1967), Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969), Midnight and preferred the great works of the past to Cowboy (Schlesinger, 1969), and many another. experimentation." This was apparent in a manifesto-like What then was—is—so radical about Breathless? written by François Truffaut in 1953, Une certaine tendance du Godard is insisting that we look at the film as itself the fact, that cinéma français, where he denounced the adaptation of safe we not look through the film to some story that it represents, literary works into unimaginative films, calling them le cinéma some story behind the screen, as it were. “Why do I need a de papa. story?,” said Godard. “I don’t make films. I make cinema.” He Using portable equipment and requiring little or no set does have stories, to be sure, usually about ill-fated love and up time, the New Wave way of filmmaking presented a death, as with the references to Romeo and Juliet in this film. But documentary style. The films exhibited direct sounds on film it’s not a normal narrative; it has a 25-minute dialogue in the stock that required less light. Filming techniques included middle discussing whether the anti-hero and anti-heroine will fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes. The have sex. Story is not important, just as Michel and Patricia combination of objective realism, subjective realism, and ignore the consequences or morality of what they do. What is authorial commentary created a narrative ambiguity in the sense important is what’s on the screen. That is the fait, the fact, and that questions that arise in a film are not answered in the end. French helps us here: faitis also the past participle of faire. It is what is made, done—what Godard made, not the words, not the Origins of the movement idea (which happened to be by Truffaut), not some fictional 's manifesto "The Birth of a New story. It is whatever we see on screen (including plain text like Avant-Garde: The Camera-Stylo", published in L'Écran on 30 the dedication, a device Godard will use again and again in his March 1948, outlined some of the ideas that were later expanded later films). upon by François Truffaut and the Cahiers du cinéma. It argues Not many directors have been willing to go as far on that "cinema was in the process of becoming a new means of this track, film-not-story, as Godard did in his post-1968 work. expression on the same level as painting and the novel ... a form The most radical directors of today still tell stories: Tim Burton, in which and by which an artist can express his thoughts, Lars von Trier, , Jim Jarmusch—perhaps only however abstract they may be, or translate his obsessions exactly David Lynch and Burmese director Apichatpong Weerasethakul as he does in the contemporary essay or novel. This is why I have followed Godard’s theories about the fait of cinéma at least would like to call this new age of cinema the age of the caméra- part of the way. But Godard is still out there in the lead, as with stylo." his bizarre and challenging Histoire(s) du Cinéma, (1990-98), a Some of the most prominent pioneers among the group, five-hour cinéma making his ideas about twentieth-century film including François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric into images, faits, on the screen. Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and , began as critics Again and again, polls of critics name him as one of for the famous film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. Cahiers co- the three most innovative directors ever, along with Griffith and founder and theorist André Bazin was a prominent source of Welles. His influence has been huge. His films in their strange influence for the movement. By means of criticism and anti-aesthetic way still captivate audiences. He is one of the editorialization, they laid the groundwork for a set of concepts, movies’ immortals, and Breathless is not only his manifesto, but revolutionary at the time, which the American film critic Andrew a great film. Sarris called theory. (The original French La politique des auteurs, translated literally as "The policy of authors".) Bazin Godard: BREATHLESS—9 and , founder and curator of the Cinémathèque New Wave critics and directors studied the work of Française, were the dual father figures of the movement. These western classics and applied new avant garde stylistic direction. men of cinema valued the expression of the director's personal The low-budget approach helped filmmakers get at the essential vision in both the film's style and script art form and find what was, to them, a much more comfortable Truffaut also credits the American director Morris and contemporary form of production. Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Engel and his film Little Fugitive (1953) with helping to start the Hitchcock, , , John Ford, and many French New Wave, when he said "Our French New Wave would other forward-thinking film directors were held up in admiration never have come into being, if it hadn't been for the young while standard Hollywood filmsbound by traditional narrative American Morris Engel who flow were strongly showed us the way to criticized. French New Wave is independent production with influenced by Italian (this) fine movie." Neorealism and classical The auteur theory Hollywood cinema. holds that the director is the In a 1961 interview, Truffaut "author" of his movies, with said that "the 'New Wave' is neither a personal signature visible a movement, nor a school, nor a from film to film. They group, it's a quality" and in praised movies by Jean December 1962 published a list of Renoirand Jean Vigo, and 162 film directors who had made made then-radical cases for their feature film debut since 1959. the artistic distinction and Many of these directors, such as greatness of Hollywood Edmond Agabra and Henri studio directors such Zaphiratos, were not as successful as Orson Welles, John or enduring at the well-known Ford, Alfred members of the New Wave and Hitchcock and Nicholas today would not be considered part Ray. The beginning of the of it. Shortly after Truffaut's New Wave was to some extent an exercise by the Cahiers writers published list appeared, Godard publicly declared that the New in applying this philosophy to the world by directing movies Wave was more exclusive and included only Truffaut, Chabrol, themselves. Rivette, Rohmer and himself, stating that "Cahiers was the Apart from the role that films by Jean Rouch have nucleus" of the movement. Godard also acknowledged played in the movement, Chabrol's (1958) is filmmakers such as Resnais, Astruc, Varda and Demy as traditionally (but debatably) credited as the first New Wave esteemed contemporaries, but said that they represented "their feature. Truffaut, with (1959) and Godard, own fund of culture" and were separate from the New Wave. with Breathless (1960) had unexpected international successes, Many of the directors associated with the New Wave both critical and financial, that turned the world's attention to the continued to make films into the 21st century. activities of the New Wave and enabled the movement to flourish. Part of their technique was to portray characters not Film techniques readily labeled as protagonists in the classic sense of audience The movies featured unprecedented methods of identification. expression, such as long tracking shots (like the famous traffic The auteurs of this era owe their popularity to the jam sequence in Godard's 1967 film Week End). Also, these support they received with their youthful audience. Most of these movies featured existential themes, such as stressing the directors were born in the 1930s and grew up in Paris, relating to individual and the acceptance of the absurdity of human how their viewers might be experiencing life. With high existence. Filled with irony and sarcasm, the films also tend to concentration in fashion, urban professional life, and all-night reference other films. parties, the life of France's youth was being exquisitely captured. Many of the French New Wave films were produced on The French New Wave was popular roughly between tight budgets; often shot in a friend's apartment or yard, using the 1958 and 1964, although New Wave work existed as late as director's friends as the cast and crew. Directors were also forced 1973. The socio-economic forces at play shortly after World War to improvise with equipment (for example, using a shopping cart II strongly influenced the movement. Politically and financially for tracking shots.) The cost of film was also a major concern; drained, France tended to fall back on the old popular pre-war thus, efforts to save film turned into stylistic innovations. For traditions. One such tradition was straight narrative cinema, example, in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (À bout de souffle), specifically classical French film. The movement has its roots in after being told the film was too long and he must cut it down to rebellion against the reliance on past forms (often adapted from one hour and a half he decided (on the suggestion of Jean-Pierre traditional novelistic structures), criticizing in particular the way Melville) to remove several scenes from the feature using jump these forms could force the audience to submit to a cuts, as they were filmed in one long take. Parts that did not work dictatorial plot-line. They were especially against the French were simply cut from the middle of the take, a practical decision "cinema of quality", the type of high-minded, literary period and also a purposeful stylistic one. films held in esteem at French film festivals, often regarded as The cinematic stylings of French New Wave brought a "untouchable" by criticism. fresh look to cinema with improvised dialogue, rapid changes of Godard: BREATHLESS—10 scene, and shots that broke the common 180° axis of camera 60s documentary boom, Godard achieved an off-the-cuff, free- movement. In many films of the French New Wave, the camera form documentary feel that felt totally new and invigorating in was used not to mesmerize the audience with elaborate narrative 1960. He also shattered notions of high culture and low, proving and illusory images, but rather to play with audience that you could infuse seedy B-movie trash with Apollinaire and expectations. Godard was arguably the movement's most The Wild Palms, Shakespeare and teddy bears, Dovzhenko and influential figure; his method of film-making, often used to shock Frank Tashlin. And nothing was ever the same again. and awe audiences out of passivity, was abnormally bold and direct. As a result of his techniques, he is an early example of a director who was accused of having contempt for his audience (something experimental filmmakers in the decades ahead, like Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, would also be charged with). His stylistic approach can be seen as a desperate struggle against the mainstream cinema of the time, or a degrading attack on the viewer's supposed naivety. Either way, the challenging awareness represented by this movement remains in cinema today. Effects that now seem either trite or commonplace, such as a character stepping out of their role in order to address the audience directly, were radically innovative at the time. Classic French cinema adhered to the principles of strong narrative, creating what Godard described as an oppressive and deterministic aesthetic of plot. In contrast, New Wave filmmakers made no attempts to suspend the viewer's disbelief; in fact, they took steps to constantly remind the viewer that a film is just a sequence of moving images, no matter how clever the use of light and shadow. The result is a set of oddly disjointed scenes without attempt at unity; or an actor whose character changes from one scene to the next; or sets in which onlookers accidentally make their way onto camera along with extras, who in fact were hired to do just the same. At the heart of New Wave technique is the issue of money and production value. In the context of social and economic troubles of a post-World War II France, filmmakers sought low-budget alternatives to the usual production methods, and were inspired by the generation of Italian Neorealists before them. Half necessity and half vision, New Wave directors used all that they had available to channel their artistic visions directly Jean Seberg (Wikipedia) to the theatre. Jean Dorothy Seberg (November 13, 1938 – August Finally, the French New Wave, as the European modern 30, 1979) was an American actress who lived half her life in Cinema, is focused on the technique as style itself. A French France. Her performance in Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 New Wave film-maker is first of all an author who shows in its film Breathless immortalized her as an icon of French New film their own eye on the world. On the other hand, the film as Wave cinema. the object of knowledge challenges the usual transitivity on She appeared in 34 films in Hollywood and in Europe, which all the other cinema was based, "undoing its cornerstones: including Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse, Lilith, The Mouse That space and time continuity, narrative and grammatical logics, the Roared, Moment to Moment, A Fine Madness, Paint Your self-evidence of the represented worlds." In this way the film- Wagon, Airport, Macho Callahan, and Gang War in Naples. maker passes "the essay attitude, thinking – in a novelist way – She was also one of the best-known targets of on his own way to do essays." the FBI COINTELPRO project. Her targeting was a well- documented retaliation for her support of the Black Panther John Patterson: “Jean-Luc Godard: a beginner’s guide” (The Party in the 1960s. Guardian) Seberg died at the age of 40 in Paris, with police ruling The revolution starts here. A barely-there sub-Série her death a probable suicide. , Seberg's second Noire plot involving a vain and nihilistic petty criminal (Jean- husband, called a press conference shortly after her death where Paul Belmondo) with a Bogie fetish, and his sometime American he publicly blamed the FBI's campaign against Seberg for her girlfriend (Jean Seberg). He shoots a cop and goes on the run – deteriorating mental health. Gary claimed that Seberg "became sort of – and then gets shot himself. The real revolution is formal, psychotic" after the media reported a false story that the FBI stylistic. Just as the Velvet Underground incorporated the planted about her becoming pregnant with a Black Panther's “accident” of feedback, Godard used the flaws and formal no-nos child in 1970. Romain Gary stated that Seberg had repeatedly of conventional cinema to reinvent cinema. Shooting without attempted suicide on the anniversary of the child's death, August permits, using no real script (dialogue was post-dubbed), and 25. (More on her at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Seberg) liberated by the same new lightweight cameras that powered the Godard: BREATHLESS—11

COMING UP IN THE SPRING 2019 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS (SERIES 38)

Mar 5 Luis Buñuel The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1972 Mar 12 David Lean Dr. Zhivago 1965 Mar 26 Arturo Ripstein Time to Die 1966 Apr 2 Blow-Up 1966 Apr 9 Michael Cimino The Deer Hunter 1978 Apr 16 Terry Jones ’s The Meaning of Life 1983 Apr 23 Stanley Kubrick Eyes Wide Shut 1999 Apr 30 Frederick Wiseman Monrovia, Indiana 2018 May 7 Alfonso Cuarón Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004

CONTACTS:...email Diane Christian: [email protected]…email Bruce Jackson [email protected] the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/ The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News.