KHI September Movie of the Month: Breathless (1960)

[wu tang goku]

Because this place needs some spicin' up, a little more culture, and because I love movies. We all need to see better movies. In time this could possibly be a tradition we all look forward to, and one that will have plenty of contributors.

As the inaugural film, 1960's Jean Luc-Godard's Breathless.


aka "Breathless," it is not about a delicious baked good you silly

Starring Jean-Paul Delmondo and Jean Seberg, this movie brought the world the birth of the informal French New Wave (this is a link) movement in French cinema, as well as the very first of what we call "modern" film. This is probably one of the most influential films ever.


Michel and one of the abundant cigarettes he blazes throughout the film

The story starts with Michel as he steals a vehicle and drives away. He finds a gun in the car, murders one of his pursuing police officers, and finds sanctuary with Patricia, an American Journalist for the New York Herald Tribune. Michel constantly tries to seduce Patricia and to get her to flee to Italy with him.


cough cough

The film also has kind of a legendary story in its production. Godard wrote every scene the morning he was to shoot it. The revolutionary use of jump-cuts were an afterthought. Many scenes were ad-libbed (more of a new thing in those days). Several shots lasted INSANELY long (a few minutes), and there were no extras hired, so this is neat when you get to the street scenes. Later films of the age would adopt a more personal, experimental style. The jump-cuts add a lot of charm to scenes that would be bland otherwise, and makes the narrative a bit jagged and still fresh even today. Characters speaking to the camera was also a new thing. Symmetrical spatial uniformity was also kaput hooey to this film. Also, if you look in the picture above, the rough-ish look of the shots and the clouds of smoke give the film a sort of whimsy.


Patricia Franchini: Do you know William Faulkner?
Michel Poiccard: No. Who's he? Have you slept with him?

The characters themselves are the feature point of the film. Michel idolizes Hollywood tough-guys like Humphrey Bogart, and emulates his iconic ways as portrayed in his films. Tough gangster on the outside, scared on the inside. Patricia is the more complex of the two; the enigma. Near the end of the film a big question is if she's actually more evil than Michel, as she is less deluded. She tells Michel she is pregnant with his child, just to test herself to see if she loves him or not.

Anyway, pick this up. Torrent it, Amazon it, whatever. This film is as important to cinema as Welles' Citizen Kane and Griffith's Birth of a Nation.

[Silh]

Would talking a bit about Pierrot le fou be acceptable? I watched it last month and since it features the same lead actor and director, I'd like to know what you think of that compared to this.

[wu tang goku]

yeh thats cool. honestly Godard is especially hard to write about since the only way for his movies to "make sense" is to get into his world. really all you can do is describe the scene, and sometimes that wont happen either.

Breathless, like other b&w Godard films tend to emphasize interpersonal relationship, i havent seen pierrot le fou, but if there were a breaking point i think that'd be it. his color films seems to go to american culture and politics.

[Square Ninja]

haven't seen it but want to

also: is this actually something the staff agreed upon or what, the "movie of the month thing?"

[Silh]

Spoilers – Typical KHI discussion about a movie and why I consented to this idea…

OP: Hey, I just saw a commercial for ____________.

<YouTube video and half-assed synopsis (also called a link to a Wikipedia article) goes here>

Anyone else gonna go see this?
Contributor 1: This looks bomb//
Contributor 2: I love _________'s work. Gonna see this when it comes out, definitely.
SuperEclipse: <news here>
Massive Attack: this movie is looking pretty pretentious so far.
Daniel Faraday: You're going to die alone. Did you know that?

More shitty commentary ensues with inactivity following thereafter. A few weeks later…

Contributor 3: So what's the general consensus, everyone? Has anyone seen it?
Contributor 2: I'd tell you but I don't think I'll be seeing this anytime soon, so I might just wait for it to come out on DVD.
Contributor 1: I changed my mind, the more I watch the trailer the more this movie looks boring

I also blame the Alice in Wonderland thread.

Originally Posted by wu tang goku

yeh thats cool. honestly Godard is especially hard to write about since the only way for his movies to "make sense" is to get into his world. really all you can do is describe the scene, and sometimes that wont happen either.

Breathless, like other b&w Godard films tend to emphasize interpersonal relationship, i havent seen pierrot le fou, but if there were a breaking point i think that'd be it. his color films seems to go to american culture and politics.

Yeah, after my first sit-through of Pierrot le fou, I just sat there dumbfounded wondering what it meant. It seems that Godard's plots in his films don't really matter, and I had a hard time adjusting to that because I'm so used to having a definite plot to look back on. Anyway, I picked up a faint misogynic theme from Pierrot which I could be wrong about.

Spoilers

man finds his paradise, woman grows bored of it so she drags him away from it and ruins everything

I'll give it another watch one day, along with this.

Another reason I mentioned Pierrot was because Breathless sounded like it for a bit– both films follow a man who runs away with a woman and live a life of crime.

[wu tang goku]

i basically told em i'm doing it and i dont give a fuck

they (ty) said ok

scenes and a trailer:

[Massive Attack]

i might watch tomorrow or something. i've only seen 'my life to live' and 'le mépris', both of which i really enjoyed. any other suggestions for nouvelle vague? i've also seen 400 blows, which isn't godard, but yeah.

Originally Posted by Silh

Massive Attack: this movie is looking pretty pretentious so far.

pretty sure i only (used to) say that sort of thing in music

[Silh]

all in jest good sir

part of it anyway

[wu tang goku]

cool look what i found

Breathless ( bout de souffle), 1960, Jean Luc Godard, Google Video

[Square Ninja]

Originally Posted by wu tang goku

cool look what i found

Breathless ( bout de souffle), 1960, Jean Luc Godard, Google Video

ballin'

will watch sometime

[wu tang goku]

bump

well you know. just cuz

[wu tang goku]

ok if anybody wants to discuss the next one catch me on junes sometime soon

[Massive Attack]

lol watchin now

michel is such a badass.

EDIT: that was great. it's interesting how michel and patricia are sort of the opposites of their national stereotypes... patricia is an american who is artsy and sophisticated; she seems like your stereotypical french character. whereas michel - a frenchman - is pretty much a thug who as you said, idolises Hollywood tough guys like Humphrey Bogart. they're both interested in each other's cultures, which makes them almost completely different...

[wu tang goku]

identity is another thing yes. michel is pretty much made in likeness to american films (Godard loved and watched american cinema), which makes patricia the character not living in a fantasy world and maybe less "american." she also works and lives while michel cant seem to get sex with her out of his head and does what he wants

theres plenty of humor but my favorite joke would probably have to be that the only two times a gun shows up in Michel's hands (rather accidently both times) someone dies

glad you liked it man brofist

[Massive Attack]

also digging the brian blessed dawg