Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1960, 90 min.)

The French New Wave began an international revolution in filmmaking influenced, in part, by the post-war Italian Neorealist movement (represented by directors such as de Sica and Rossellini), as well as by the critical environment established by the New Wave directors themselves at André Bazin's influential film journal, Cahiers du Cinéma. The Italian films preferred a kind of gritty recording of life as it was for working class people over the polished bourgeois tales developed in studio environments during the first half of the twentieth century. The Neorealists also eschewed stars in favor of lesser known or nonprofessional actors and shot in the streets instead of on stages. The New Wave directors (Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Chabrol, et al.) adapted this direct cinema to their own ideas of realism in film, shaped by their dissatisfaction with mainstream French studio fare. In addition to critiquing the staid tendencies of their own national cinema, they also praised directors such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Howard Hawks for their unique visual styles that transcended the homogenizing values of the American studio system. The premises of these celebrations of the director as the distinct author of his film became known as the "auteur theory," which is still prominent in contemporary film appreciation. For Godard, in particular, a new cinematic language was imperative for portraying the realities of his generation and of the turbulent political world of the 1960s. Traditional cinema could not say what needed to be said, visually or verbally. For this week's post I'd like you to talk about one element of Breathless that illustrates Godard's attack on traditional cinematic values. Think of this in the context of the chapters we've covered so far (acting, sound, editing, mise en scène, movement, photography—though you might also consider the nature of the film's narrative). Provide an interesting example and talk a bit about what you think Godard's approach might mean, how it disrupts our expectations and what it communicates in a different way than more traditional film language.