Breathless (1960)
Synopsis: Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a young hoodlum who models himself after Humphrey Bogart. After stealing a car in Marseille, he heads for Paris, gunning down a cop on the way. Once in the capital he meets up with American student Patricia (Jean Seberg), an aspiring journalist who sells copies of the New York Herald Tribune on the Champs-Elysee. Patricia agrees to hide him while he tries to trace a former associate who owes him money so that he can evade the police dragnet and make a break for Italy. But as the authorities close in, she betrays him, leading to a final shoot out in the street."To make a film all you need is a girl and a gun" - Jean-Luc Godard
Godard approached the story in ways that departed radically from past genre archetypes. His years as a critic, his immersion in both high and low culture, his philosophical explorations, all impacted on his debut feature film. As he said in an interview, the film was the result of “a decade’s worth of making movies in my head.” The fact that he was relatively inexperienced and had little knowledge of the practical aspects of filmmaking proved unimportant. Godard at this point was unknown as a filmmaker, and so Chabrol and Truffaut both said they would work on the movie, so that Godard could direct. Godard's changes to the story actually swayed far from the original idea, he made up a large amount of the dialogue as he shot the film - it was a philosophy of his to capture genuine spontaneous moments. All of the dialogue was dubbed as Godard regularly fed actors lines from behind the camera. This inspired the unique documentary-style of cinematography, it was shot almost entirely hand held while only using available light. This style was adopted by contemporary hollywood, and was used as a tool to make fiction seem more real, by giving the audience a role in the movie. This is clearly evident in Spielberg's 1998 'Saving Private Ryan'. One of the most noticeable techniques Godard utilised in Breathless was the use of jump-cuts, where pieces of were cut out of single shots making the film seem like its jumping in time. This technique was not planned from the beginning, due to the requirement of a shorter run time, instead of cutting whole scenes from the film, Godard chose to cut pieces out of the middle of single shots with various jump-cuts.
Godard was heavily influenced by director Bertolt Brecht, who didn't allow the audience to become immersed in the story by constantly reminding them they were watching a constructed work of fiction. Godard implemented this into his films by calling the audience's attention to things that are meant to be unnoticeable in conventional filmmaking. This was achieved by techniques such as the jump-cuts, characters looking directly into the camera, or even addressing the audience.
The budget for the film was very limited, Breathless was shot on the streets of Paris on-location, without the use of permits or permission. Godard used locations the crew already had access to, and filmed with whatever equipment they had access to. For example, dolly shots were often created by having cinematographer Raoul Coutard sit in a wheelchair and be pushed through the scene.
http://www.newwavefilm.com/french-new-wave-encyclopedia/breathless.shtml [9]
http://www.newwavefilm.com/french-new-wave-encyclopedia/400-blows.shtml [11]
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