Breathless (1960) - Film Review

    It is known by creative industry players that creativity does not have rights or wrongs, thus every product can be perceived uniquely based on what is trying to be said by the artist of the product. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) is a piece of modern art of French cinema which showcased unique portrayal of creative techniques like previous making, Citizen Kane. In this review, the movie will be analyzed based on French New Wave techniques.

   

   French New Wave is a filmmaking technique with big money production or budget, which is done with adaptations from literature books and fictional tales published. These technique of filmmaking initiated in the 1950s’ when filmmakers started making documentary based on facts that occurred. Filmmakers documenting real case scenarios were passionate into commercial films but were unable to reach the mark due to factors like their techniques and content. Furthermore, this technique emphasize on emotions and artistic expressions of the character playing the role in films, preferring visual aesthetics and mise-en-scene. Apart from that, filmmakers of this technique focus on lower and cheaper cost and give freedom to filmmakers in terms of creating new techniques of cinematography and editing, also improve the acting of performers in a film product.

  

  To speak about Breathless, this film is about Michel Poiccard, a sociopathic small time petty-thug, who steals cars and make money from it. His way of living is then tested with a motorcycle policeman faced, who gets killed by him. His act makes him one of the most wanted criminal in town, which then forces him to leave the town. He then meets Patricia Franchini, an aspiring young journalist and restarts his relationship with her. Following the incident, he hides at Patricia’s, trying to make enough money to led them both to Italy. Somehow his efforts get backlashed when his girlfriend finds out about him being wanted by the authorities as she starts doubting and questioning her feelings for him.

   In terms of the theory application in the film, most identifiable technique would be the natural source used to make the film. For example, natural lighting and real environment sound design applied. Most scenes in this movie can be observed using the same technique, one of it is during Michel and Patricia’s meet in the street which impacts the quality of dialogue due to the ambiance collected. In conjunction to that, jumpcuts being used in the film may be a technique of French New Wave theory. For example, when he drives his car, we could observe the cuts not being consistent. Also, the independent filmmaking method doesn’t emphasize on continuity. For example, when Patricia is being investigated, she doesn’t wear sunglasses but then wears it in another shot. This also explains that personal authorship is being applied in the film. Besides that, in terms of portrayal of delivering emotions and providing personal artistic expressions, the long takes of a scene consisting of long dialogues explain that real scenario and actual delivery of dialogue based on characterization is applied. This allow the audiences to feel and engage with the characters in film better. For instance, the scene where Michel and Patricia spend their time in her apartment. The same dialogue used simply explains that Godard wanted them to be as per character. Longshot or known as long takes has been applied in the film. It may not be new at the current filmmaking trend but it is considered unique back then if handheld technique is applied in filmmaking. Example of long take in the film can be observed in the last scene when Patricia confesses her feelings to Michel in the studio.

  

  This approach of filmmaking is definitely a revolution in cinema back in the 1960s. The creativity in techniques applied back then is considered dominant film technique of the current era. The similarity of postmodernism of what is wrong is considered right based on cliché film aspects should be looked up to. To provide personal thoughts, with better budget backing the filmmaker and a better literature adaptation in terms of the screenplay, the film would have been more interesting and entertaining. Regardless the issues, Jean Luc-Godard definitely deserves applause for his creativity and brilliance visually. At the same time, Raoul Coutard does deserve credits for his brilliance in terms of cinematography. Along that, actors, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg playing Michel and Patricia deserves recognition for delivering the character well and engaging with their audiences throughout the film. The importance of actors may be emphasized in the film since the film is character based. This comes to explain that character based films need proper delivering and performance by the actors to ensure expression and emotions are delivered precisely so audiences will not lose their attention and misperceive the message transmitted by the filmmakers.

References;

Robert Ebert (July, 2003) Great Movie Breatheless 1960. Retrieved from ; https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-breathless-1960