Influence of politique des in the making of 400 Blows and Breathless

Table of Contents 1. Introduction ...... 2

2. Returning to the origins of “la politique des auteurs” ...... 2

3. Truffaut’s 400 Blows ...... 4

4. Godard’s Breathless ...... 7

5. Conclusion ...... 9

References ...... 11

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1. Introduction “La politique des auteurs” is a style of film critique created in the time of 1950s , by the “Cahiers group” consisting of Eric Rohmer, , Francois Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard. The “Cahiers group” sought to bring about cinematic transformations, to articulate their own distinctive aesthetic characteristics with the potential of destabilising the French critical establishment and their established cinematic ideologies (Godard, 1986, pp. 195). The “Cahiers group” promoted their idea of cinema as art in two ways, the first through the polemical criticism in their film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, and the second through engaging in the art of filmmaking itself.

As a concept which is embraced and demonstrated through the practice of filmmaking itself, it is evident that the politique des auteurs would have influenced the ways in which directors conducted the filmmaking process itself. This essay seeks to adopt the “Cahiers group’s” vision of the to analyse the ways and extent through which politique des auteurs informed filmmaking practices of New Wave directors, in particular how the concept came to influence the auteur’s creation of a cinematic language and art for personal expression through the mise-en-scène. The essay will focus on two directors and their works, namely 400 Blows by Truffaut and Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard.

The essay will comprise three sections, the first introducing the genesis and purpose of politique des auteurs to justify this essay’s adoption of the concept as a political struggle for authorship. The second section will discuss how politique des auteurs influenced Truffaut’s making of 400 Blows while the third will focus on Godard’s Breathless.

2. Returning to the origins of “la politique des auteurs” Politique des auteurs draws inspiration from the early work of and André Bazin. In Astruc’s (1948, pp. 31) article “The birth of a new avant-garde: la caméra-stylo”, Astruc calls for filmmakers to use film as a “means of personal expression” by using the camera to depict their worldviews. Astruc (1948, pp. 32) draws a parallel between a filmmaker and a writer or painter, attributing the role of the filmmaker to one who develops a language of cinema to rival the depth of the written word, that the director should be a cinematic artist using

2 the mise-en-scène as cinematic expression on screen, a style which he named caméra-stylo (camera-pen).

Bazin (1957) advanced Astruc’s (1948) camera pen filmmaking style, positioning the auteur as a director who instils life into film, and that the film should be a representation and expression of the director’s vision on a personal level. Bazin, (1957, pp. 255-258) describes an auteur as “choosing the personal factor in artistic creation as a standard of reference, and then of assuming that it continues and even progresses from one film to the next”, albeit cautioning against making judgements of films based solely on an auteur perspective for it runs into the danger of an emerging “aesthetic personality cult” and “the negation of the film to the benefit of praise of its auteur”. Techniques promoted by Bazin (1957) include the use of long takes and a mise-en-scène instead of the montage to establish an ethical relationship between the spectator and the filmmaker.

The term politique des auteurs first emerged in the cinematic lexicon through the work of Francois Truffaut (1954) in his essay A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema. Truffaut (1954) adopted the ideologies of Astruc (1948) and Bazin (1957) to argue that the tools presented to the director were akin to that of an author’s pen, enabling the director to articulate his/her vision. An auteur is one with a distinctive style and theme that would be recognisable across all his/her films, elevating the status of the director to one above the screenwriter (Truffaut, 1954).

The guiding principles of politique des auteurs demonstrates it to be a politics based around authorship enacted through the creation of an aesthetic language. Politque des auteurs was a political manifesto embodied by the director, expressed through Truffaut’s (1954) “look[ing] through a camera eye-piece”, the cinema which Godard considered to be “magic” on screen. The political aspect came to be diluted as politique des auteurs evolved through the years, such as in the 1960s when scientific legitimacy was used to give the concept an objective approach rather than a romantic subjectivity of the 1950s, and in the introduction of the spectator-screen concept in which Barthes (1968) argues that all meaning is produced by the reader, pronouncing the auteur dead and the “birth of the reader”.

Hayward (2006, pp. 31-38) writes that the concept of the auteur has been subjected to various changes through structuralism, post structuralism and post modernism, and has now returned

3 to be part of the cinematic language. As Dudley (2000, pp. 29) announces that “we are permitted to mention, even to discuss the auteur again”, this essay seeks to return to the critical paradigm of the “Cahiers group”.

This article finds alignment with Marie’s (2003, pp. 28) perspective that films made by the ‘Cahiers group’ of young directors between 1958 to 1964 marked the beginning of coherence in critical thinking and cinematic style. Marie (2003, pp. 70-71) defined a list of creative production strategies and aesthetic styles characteristic of the paradigm of politique des auteurs, namely (1) auteur director as scenarist,, (2) improvisation in the conceptualisation of dialogues, sequences and acting, (3) shooting in natural settings is preferred, with avoidance of artificial sets in studios, (4) use of small crew, (5) the director chooses “direct sound” recording in the filming process over post synchronisation, (6) non-professionals as actors, and (7) newbie professionals preferred and directed with more flexibility than traditional productions.

In the following sections, the author returns to the concept of politique des auteurs as a political struggle over authorship (directorship) to examine the extent to which 400 Blows and Breathless reflected or departed from the aesthetic values of politique des auteurs defined by Marie (2003).

3. Truffaut’s 400 Blows Truffaut’s (1954) work demarcated a strong boundary between (1) the supporters of cinematic authorship and (2) those in favour of the established mode of French commercial cinema with its Tradition of Quality whereby novels were translated into film scripts by studio writers for the production of a work of “psychological realism”. Truffaut (1954) positioned the director as the author of the film, stating that “there are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors”, and that great directors are identifiable by the distinct style and themes in their films. Truffaut (1954) criticised directors who abide by a scriptwriter’s script and limit their inputs to that of adding pictures and actors to be technicians and “metteurs-en-scène”, those with technical competency but lacking in a personal cinematic style.

Truffaut expressed his dislike for psychological realism which distorts realistic portrayal, one which “lock” characters “in a close world […] instead of letting us see them for themselves, with our own eyes. The artist cannot always dominate his work”. The above ideologies are to

4 a large extent reflected in Truffaut’s making of 400 Blows released in 1959, which won the Cannes Film Festival Award for best director and enabled the intellectual strivings of New Wave directors to gain a foothold in mainstream cinema.

400 Blows is set in post-war , about a 12-year-old boy, Antoine Doinel, who lives in a small flat with his stepfather and his mother, both of whom are poor and relatively inattentive to his needs. Antoine’s family problems were made more unbearable by a domineering teacher at school. Misunderstood as a troublemaker by both his parents and teacher, Antoine’s only escape was to run away, visit the cinema and fairground with his one friend, Rene.

Truffaut’s commitment to a highly personal cinema is evident in 400 Blows, which was an autobiographical film portraying Truffaut’s personal, troubled childhood experiences in which he was neglected by parents who were absorbed in their personal interests, had a few minor arrests in his adolescent years, was deserted from the army and eventually discharged for being “medically” unfit to serve (Turner, 1984). In the film, Antoine was sent to a reformatory school by his stepfather for stealing a typewriter, a scenario which is reflective of Truffaut’s own life as his own father sent him to a centre for delinquents for stealing money to set up a cinema club. In practicing self-reflexivity in 400 Blows, Truffaut shows the integration of life and cinema, that in using his lived experience of childhood to inform his filmmaking, he is able to give life to the work, to create a work which speaks to spectators about their own childhoods.

400 Blows portrays the reality of everyday life, speaking of the ordinary experiences of disadvantaged or neglected youths, using familiar language and emotions to allow for a personal expression of the turbulent and complex nature of childhood. Truffaut demonstrates children to be prisoners in a world created and managed by adults, as they are subjected to the pleasures and punishment inflicted by and through the institutional rules set by adults. Insdorf (1995, pp. 145) comments on Truffaut’s use of a first person singular as such: “in speaking of himself, he seems to be speaking of us”.

Apart from playing Antoine’s alter-ego to inject realism, the value which Truffaut attributes to cinema as a an experimental visual medium to invoke and portray self-awareness, rather than one tied into a scripted, predictable plot and dialogue is also evident in his use of mise-en-scène to give expression to Antoine’s perspective. Truffaut’s depiction of childhood is sensitive to the characteristic behaviours of children, and portrays a non-sentimental view of them, thereby

5 giving respect to children’s experiences and acknowledges their difficulties. For example, Turner (1984, pp. 77) quotes Michelle Manceau’s review that “‘Truffaut’s child’s heart is still alive,’ enabling him to deal with delinquents without preaching a tract”.

In particular, Truffaut portrays the emotional characteristics of children. Truffaut gives flexibility to Jean-Pierre Léaud who plays Antoine to improvise and depict the character, as he was selected from out of 60 boys for his anti-social, rebellious personality which matches the character Truffaut seeks to portray. Truffaut gives voice to the rebellious child in Jean-Pierre Léaud to inject realism into the portrayal of childhood, encouraging the actor to use his own words and style rather than adhere to the script. In so doing, Truffaut is able to fulfil his objective of not “depict[ing] adolescence from the usual viewpoint of sentimental nostalgia, but […] to show it as the painful experience that it is” (Insdorf, 2014).

Truffaut gives legitimacy to Antoine’s emotions through the use of single shots to build his scenes, such as in the interview with the psychologist which is filmed from the psychologist’s perspective, a move which objectivises the psychologist to that of camera and sound. Similarly, a single shot was used when Antoine was driven through the city in the prisoner van, with the camera filming Antoine’s viewpoint surveying the cityscape, then switching back and forth to close-ups of Antoine seen crying through bars, using the screening effect of the bars to portray Antione’s loss of freedom and his weeping over such a loss.

On location shooting is also used as Truffaut engages the urban milieu to instil a contextual realism into his film, shooting the exteriors of his childhood streets along Rue Des Martyrs and in the Rue Navarin in Paris to narrate Antoine’s childhood environment and circumstances. Apart from street scenes, particular attention is also given to the interiors of apartments. Truffaut depicts the everyday activities of Antoine’s family within the cramped apartment interiors of the home, using Antoine’s sleeping bag in the passageway, flushed up close to the door and adjacent to the kitchen to emphasise the small living quarters.

Spatial limitations is further emphasised in the detailed shooting of daily activities within the setting of Antoine’s home, with Antoine hinging the door half open against his sleeping bag, climbing across his bed to take the garbage out, and his mother doing the same as she was entering after a late night out. Movements across and through Antoine’s sleeping quarters reinforce the constraints Antoine experiences, with his space often invaded upon. Antoine’s

6 poverty is also emphasised through a juxtaposition against René’s living space, with panning shots through the huge house showing gigantic sculptural pieces and generous hiding places.

In using the natural urban milieu to depict a spatial contrast, Truffaut is able to explain Antoine’s running away from the confines of his home to a freer environment, which is that of Rene’s home. Antoine’s quest for freedom, which is a key message of the film, is also demonstrated through the long tracking take of Antoine escaping from his detention centre and running towards the beach and the open sea. Lightweight cameras are evidently being used in this scene to create a fluid motion whereby the camera becomes the active viewer of the action, following the movement of Antoine through space to narrate his quest towards liberation.

Truffaut freeze-frames the film as Antoine runs towards the edge of the water and looks back at the camera with a look of uncertainty. The close-up shot of Antoine invites the audience into his world to question what they are watching, to experience emotional and intellectual revelation through connecting with the realism of Antoine’s life, the uncertainty and lack of an ending. In so doing, Truffaut disrupts the convention of mainstream narrative which often provides a resolution.

4. Godard’s Breathless Breathless is Godard’s first feature film, about a wandering criminal Michel and his American girlfriend Patricia who sells the New York Herald Tribune on the streets. Michel steals a car in Marseilles, goes on the run, shoots a pursuing policeman dead, and hides out in Patricia’s apartment while trying to find his debtor so he can escape to Italy. However, as the authorities close in on Michel, Patricia eventually betrays him, leading to him being shot dead in the streets.

Similar to Truffaut, Godard’s work was self-reflexive and dealt with the question of authenticity. Yet, instead of being an autobiography like Truffaut’s work, Godard sought to create a documentary which is reflective of his lived environment and the people around him. The lead characters were modelled after the lives of individuals whom Godard were acquainted with, such as Michel Portail and screenwriter Paul Gegauff who were used to model the character of Michel Poiccard in the film, and journalist Beverly Lynette who was Patricia. Instead of using an actor as his alter-ego such as in Truffaut, Godard makes a cameo appearance in the film which contributed to the death of Michel. Through his self-appearance, Godard

7 changed the ending of the film from that first drafted by Truffaut which depicted Michel’s successful attempt to flee to Italy with Patricia. In his cameo, Godard positions himself in the conflict between conventional noir depictions versus the New Wave ideologies, in the end choosing to abide by the Hollywood system which was strongly critiqued by the “Cahiers group” to let the hero die. In using an unconventional cameo technique to demonstrate abidance to conventionality, Godard seeks to destabilise the traditional through creating crossroads between both genres.

Through depicting Michel’s life, Godard employs intertextuality in the form of references and quotations, setting the scene to give credit to the influencers who inspired his works, such as in (1) Michel’s gazing at Humphrey Bogart and imitating his tics, (2) Patricia’s quotation of Faulkner in the bedroom scene, (3) the use of Renoir’s poster of a young girl and Picasso’s poster of a man holding a mask, (4) the Aldrich film poster which Michel passed by on the streets, (5) Budd Boetticher’s film Westbound which both Michel and Patricia watched at the theatre, and (6) the use of a soundtrack of Otto Preminger’s Whirlpool. Godard demonstrates his assimilation of Brechtian techniques, giving new resonance to literary authorities through the use of music and scenes to connect existing references with new contexts and paradigms.

Demonstrating techniques of New Wave cinema, Godard created the entire film on a hand-held camera with almost no lighting and no synchronised sound recording, making it easier for on- site shooting on the side streets and boulevards of Paris (Begery, 2002, pp. 200). Where lighting was used, it was largely for mood setting, such as in the scene of Michel in bed with Patricia sitting on the bedside. Godard used backlighting, together with light from the window to show both characters enveloped in a cloud from their cigarettes, expressing the intimacy of the scene within the private quarters of the room. Another instance of creative use of lightning is when Godard engaged the natural elements of the site, filming Michel on Champs Elysees in the instance when the streetlights came on behind him, giving context to the urban milieu in which the scene was set.

The work was also highly improvised as the shooting script was only about four pages in length. Godard wrote dialogues for scenes the night before shooting to make them spontaneous, going through the dialogues in the morning with the lead actors before the shooting was done. Improvisation was particularly evident in the bedroom scene, as the dialogue between Michel and Patricia was smooth flowing and natural, the argument giving an organic, spontaneous and

8 unrehearsed feel, enabling Godard to realistically portray the narcissism of youthfulness in his self-obsessed characters who are oblivious to the real world.

Jump cuts used in the scene were not premediated, and was only added during post-production editing. Jump cuts was used in the long bedroom scene to accentuate the spontaneity of the dialogue as well as emphasise the insignificance of the couple’s banter, displaying a lack of continuity with randomised cuts made to the long scene. Jump cuts was also employed when Michel and Patricia drove through Paris in a stolen convertible, montaging a series of seven close-ups of Patricia over her shoulders as Michel describes her admirable attributes in a voice- over recording. The position of Patricia’s head, the amount of sunlight and shade, and the background scene of moving cars and streets were intelligently used to depict the movement of the couple through space.

Sarris (1967) considers the use of jump cuts to be innovative and to have conveyed the “meaninglessness of the time interval between moral decisions”. An example of the use of jump shots to convey Sarris’ moral characteristics of Godard’s characters is in Michel’s shooting of the policeman, whereby the image of the barrel of Michel’s revolver as he fires off was followed immediately by the policeman falling to the ground. The ellipse was meaningfully used to express the immorality of the action, expressed by Moullet (1960, pp. 35) as such: “because the conduct of characters reflects a series of moral jump cuts, the film will be a series of jump cuts.”

Unlike Truffaut, Godard’s misfits did not attempt to assimilate into social norms, but actively rebelled against the conventions and norms of popular culture and consumerism. Godard gives expression to the rebelliousness of his characters, such as in the use of close-ups of Michel imitating Humphrey Bogart’s behaviour to illustrate his macho, gangster persona. In addition, Godard switches from long-takes and pans to quick cuts and staccato jumps to unsettle the viewer’s perspectives, to illustrate an unpredictable world where accident, change and random coincidences clash with the bourgeois traditions (Dudley, 1987).

5. Conclusion In conclusion, politique des auteurs was a “Cahiers group” politics which considered cinema to be a director’s instrument for personal expression of an aesthetic language. The above

9 perspective has influenced the works of Truffaut and Godard to a large extent, in particular with regards to the creative use of the camera eye-piece to speak as the first person. Through characterisation and the creative use of lighting, acting, camera movements, contextual elements and framing in the mise-en-scène, both Godard and Truffaut authored realism into the self-reflexive works of Breathless and 400 Blows respectively.

10 References Astruc, A. (1948), The birth of a new avant-garde: La caméra-stylo, in Graham, P. and Vincendeau, G. (eds.), The . Critical landmarks, London: BFI Palgrave Macmillan, New Edition, 2009, pp. 31-37.

Barthes, R. (1968), The death of the author, translated by Howard, R., available online at http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/threeEssays.html#barthes, accessed 16th April, 2016.

Bazin, A. (1957), La Politique des auteurs, in Hillier, J. (ed.), Cahiers du Cinema. Volume 1. The 1950s: Neo-realism, Hollywood, New Wave, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 1987, pp. 248- 259.

Begery, B. (2002), Reflections: Twenty-one cinematographers at work, Hollywood: ASC Press.

Dudley, A. (1987), Breathless: Old is new, in Dudley, A. (ed.), Breathless: Jean-Luc Godard, Director, London: Rutgers University Press, pp. 3-20.

Dudley, A. (2000), The unauthorised auteur today, in Stam, R. and Miller, T. (eds.), Film and theory: An anthology, Maiden, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 20-29.

Godard, J. L. (1986), Godard on Godard: Critical Writings, edited and translated by Milne, T., New York: DeCapo.

Hayward, S. (2006), Camera studies: The key concepts, 3rd edition, London and New York: Routledge.

Hess, J. (1974), La politique des auteurs, Part 1. World view as aesthetics, , available online at http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC01folder/auturism1.html, accessed 16th April, 2016.

Insdorf, A. (1995), François Truffaut, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

11 Insdorf, A. (2014), : Close to Home, The Criterion Collection, available online at https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/528-the-400-blows-close-to-home, accessed 19th April, 2016.

Marie, M. (2003), The French New Wave: An Artistic School, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

Moullet, L. (1960), Jean-Luc Godard, Cahiers du Cinema, 106, pp. 35-48.

Saris, A. (1967), Interviews with film directors, New York: Bobbs-Merril.

Truffaut, F. (1954), A Certain Tendency in French Cinema’ (1954), in Graham, P. and Vincendeau, G. (eds.), The French New Wave. Critical Landmarks, London: BFI Palgrave Macmillan, New Edition, 2009, pp. 17-23.

Turner, D. (1984), Made in U.S.A.: The American child in Truffaut’s "400 blows, Literature/Film Quarterly, 12(2), pp. 75-85.

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