Breathless - Amber Merrell

Watching Breathless, I was immediately aware of how the movie focused so heavily on sexual themes. This is definitely in defiance of traditional cinematic values as well as the American movie system. The movie code prevented American film from becoming too sexually explicit. In this movie, however, Godard is very open and obvious with sexual material. The leading male, Michel, makes numerous comments about women’s bodies and what he would like to do to them. He also flipped up a girl’s skirt on the street. Michel makes countless advances towards Patricia and asks her throughout the movie if she will have sex with him. Godard even goes as far as showing Michel and Patricia roll around under the covers on Patricia’s bed.

All of these accounts of overt sexual themes show that Godard was unafraid of pushing the limits of traditional film. His focus on sexuality may also be an attempt at portraying reality. Sex is very prominent in human culture, though it can often be considered taboo. Sexual exploration and exploitation were also common means of expression and revolt for young adults in the 1960’s. Thus Godard uses sex to illustrate realism in the time period.

Beyond the sexual themes, I also found the editing style to be quite interesting. Many parts of the film are very choppy because of the numerous jump cuts used. These cuts are used within scenes so that it seems to cut seconds, minutes, or hours out of the scenes. This can be very disorienting and unexpected to the viewer. This choppy style does not follow with traditional, conventional film making. To me, Godard seems to use these cuts to illustrate the way in which we go about our lives. There are many times when it seems that I have lost minutes or hours out of my day. There are also times that I cannot recall how I have spent my time. This is the way of life for many people in the modern world and Godard shows this in a literal sense with his editing technique.