Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1959)

INTRODUCTION:

French New Wave was started in 1959's and ended in 1969's, possibly with the Weekend by Jean-Luc Godard. French New Wave film are looking for the truth which focus on a person daily life. So, there's no scripts are using for this kind of film as this is to make the film seems more natural. In addition, French New Wave is challenging the traditions of films which truffaut rejects heavy emphasis on plot and dialogue, preferring visual aesthetics and mise-en-scene. 

THEORY DISCUSSION:

This French New Wave had an independent economic and also used low budget to make the film. Not only this, it rejects the film traditions and the editing of the film usually is a jump cut and it also consists of long take shot. 

SYNOPSIS:

Petty thug Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) considers himself a suave bad guy in the manner of Humphrey Bogart, but panics and impulsively kills a policeman while driving a stolen car. On the lam, he turns to his aspiring journalist girlfriend, Patricia (Jean Seberg), hiding out in her Paris apartment while he tries to pull together enough money to get the pair to Italy. But when Patricia learns that her boyfriend is being investigated for murder, she begins to question her loyalties.  

ANALYSIS:

To be honest, I don't really like this movie because it shows too much long take shots. The above picture is one of the long take shot example in this film. I get bored after watching this long take shot because the entire scene just focused in the same location for long period. I've lost my patient while watching this scene as the shot of the conversation between Michel and Patricia on bed was too long and boring as well.

 

Last but not least, there's also the jump cuts editing in this film too. The above picture show the scene where Patricia sat on Michel's car. This scene show a lot of jump cut which actually made me felt confused on what is happening and I can't get what's the film gonna tell us at the particular scene. It made me felt impatient too as I don't really understand what's going on in this film. 

CONCLUSION:

As a conclusion, this Breathless film is the best film to represent the French New Wave. As what I had mentioned above, I don't really like this film as it keep confusing me and also lost my patient as well. But, I do think that even it's long take shot, I can see the interaction between Michel and Patricia in this film.