Response III- Breathless

I believe Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" to be the most interesting film we have watched so far. In addition to being very entertaining, this film uses innovative editing techniques and seeks to keep the story and the viewer separated by preventing the viewer from psychologically entering the reality of the film.


With this film, Godard really made a name for himself. In many ways, he broke the rules of traditional film making and invented a new style. With Godard's new style "anything goes" in film making.


This film contributed many new, innovative editing techniques to the art of film-making. An example of theses new editing techniques is Godard's use of jump-cuts. While the concept of jump-cuts was not unheard of, Godard's series of jump-cuts appearing one after the other was a relatively unique. Throughout the course of "Breathless" there are several sequences of jump cuts. These jump-cuts seem to appear in scenes when characters ramble. For example, there is one scene when Michel, the main character, is complimenting his love interest on how beautiful she is. He excessively compliments her and when the audience finally catches on to Michel's superfluous compliments, the series of jump-cuts begin to appear. The jump cuts effect was one that made the scene appear to drag on.


Sometimes, the continuity of scenes are disrupted and the events in shots are not linked well with the succeeding ones. I asked myself "wait a minute, how did we get there?" several times during this film. My favorite example of this appears at the end beginning of the movie. After Michel shoots the policeman, we immediately see him running in a field. In the previous scene, there were no scenes in sight. We never see Michel fleeing the scene. With this disruption of continuity, Godard forces us to fill in what happens. With the jump-cut technique and the technique just discussed, Godard succeeds in reminding us that we are watching a movie.


Many films today present events in a logical order and are edited in an orthodoxed fashion. The problem with these films, is they "spoon feed" the audience and allow them to become too engaged in the story. Many feel as if they are in the story. Godard's techniques allow us to stay separated from the story.


In a way, this whole film is about reminding the audience that they are watching a movie. Godard does this not only with his editing techniques but with many elements in the story as well. Michel is something of what I would call a "wannabe" gangster. he reminds me of children today who try to imitate their favorite action heroes. This can be seen as early as the beginning of the film. While Michel is driving in the car, he finds a gun in the glove compartment, aims it at the rear view mirror and pretends to shoot it while saying "POW!" In addition to this, Michel also imitates famous people like Humphrey Bogart. He does this with constant rubbing of his lips.

My favorite scene in this film is when Michel is shot in the back and he runs down the street for a few minutes; as we all know this is impossible in real life. With this scene, the many allusions to the world of cinema, Michel's "wannabe" gangster attitude, and the unique editing techniques, Godard seeks to remind us that we are viewing a film. For this reason, I really enjoyed this film. It is not often that a director intentionally makes a film the way Godard did. It was definitely a nice change.