I haven't seen enough of the recently departed French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's work to give him any kind of authoritative or comprehensive tribute, but somewhere along the way I did catch 1960's Breathless, a Gallic take on the young-lovers/criminals-on-the-run movie, a genre that goes back to at least 1941's High Sierra. In fact, in Breathless, actor Jean-Paul Belmondo's character Michel consciously patterns himself after Sierra's leading man, Humphrey Bogart. That's Belmondo on the far right. The young woman with the pixie haircut standing next to him is American actress Jean Seberg. Hollywood had been trying for the previous few years to make her a star, without much luck. One of those Hollywood attempts, Bonjour Tristesse, with David Niven and Deborah Kerr, was actually shot in France. While there, Seberg met a citizen of that country, got married, and stayed behind, though she continued acting. Godard cast Seberg as Patricia, quite appropriately an American emigre in Breathless, which finally, and deservedly, made her a star. As for Godard, that's the guy on (again quite appropriately) the left, holding a script in one hand and pushing the wheelchair with the other. Godard had been a film critic who decided he'd like to make films himself. After a few well-received shorts, he got the chance to do a screenplay written (the first draft, anyway) by fellow film critic, and future filmmaker, Francois Truffaut. Though both Truffaut and Godard meant Breathless to be a kind of tribute to Hollywood crime movies (1948's They Live by Night, directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Farley Granger, may have been another influence) Godard decided to film it documentary-style, which meant everything shot on location, bare minimum lighting, and a hand-held camera. The latter brings us to the fellow in the wheelchair, cinematographer Raoul Coutard. While it would be nice to say that Godard is giving a disabled person a chance to work in the French film industry, that's not what's going on at all. Godard didn't want the whole film to be herky-jerky, especially during tracking shots (an extended scene done in a single take), which is what you would get with a hand-held camera no matter how steady the hand holding it. Normally, this would mean mounting the camera on a dolly, but Godard thought that might be too time-consuming, so he just had Coutard play invalid instead. Godard is said to have been a committed Marxist, and since Coutard was his employee, let's hope the chair was at least comfy.
Makes you want to run out and get a copy of the Herald Tribune, huh? But you might have to go online.
Ohhhhh, Jean-Paul Belmondo...
ReplyDeleteLike the Frenchmen, eh, Mitchell? Sorry to have to report that Belmondo died this past September at age 88.
DeleteHi, Kirk!
ReplyDeleteThanks for reporting the death at age 91 of French - Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s. I'm pretty sure I studied Godard and his 1960 film Breathless in my college film history course, because that scene you posted looks familiar. I love the long tracking shots along the avenue and the view from above as Patricia runs and kisses Michel as he was leaving. Cathy O'Donnell is one of my favorite actresses, and I have in my DVD collection that notable noir she made with Farley Granger and Nicholas Ray, They Live by Night. I would also like to mention that I have on DVD the late Marsha Hunt's 1942 crime film Kid Glove Killer and her 1946 noir Raw Deal. Thanks for mentioning Marsha who passed away a month prior to her 105th birthday. It strikes me how much Jean Seberg resembled Mia Farrow in the Breathless scene and in screen caps and publicity stills I just glanced through. Jean had a short and troubled life. She was hounded, probed and attacked by the FBI for her support of the Black Panthers, lost a newborn baby and died young at the age of 40 of an apparent suicide.
Thanks again for this interesting tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, one of the most influential French filmmakers of the post-war years who revolutionized the art through a variety of experimental techniques.
Enjoy the rest of your week, good buddy Kirk!
Shady, I'd be interested in hearing what they told you about Breathless in that college film history course. From what I've read the general viewpoint is that the French directors of that era like Godard and Truffaut tended to take certain types of Hollywood films that they liked and intellectualize them. So, for instance, Humphrey Bogart, and Humphrey Bogart's screenwriters and directors, didn't know or care anything about Existentialist philosophy. Yet if one definition of existentialism is that an individual should define themselves rather than be defined by society, then movies Bogart movies made after 1940 fits the bill (as would movies made by John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, really, any big movie star from the 1930s, '40s, and '50s--hell, after watching him in the period pieces Casanova's Big Night and The Princess and the Pirate, I'd even throw the out-of-time BOB HOPE in there.) But while that may make sense to me after it's been pointed out, it's not something I would have figured out on my own. What I like about Breathless is how Godard took a kind of derivative Hollywood potboiler and, by shooting it documentary-style, made it a slice-of-life look at the French underworld. And of course, Seberg and Belmondo are very good in it.
DeleteI'm glad you mentioned Cathy O'Donnell. I myself didn't mention her because, while I thought there was an off-chance people would recognize the names of Nicholas Ray and Farley Granger, I thought O'Donnell would be TOTALLY obscure at this point. One scene toward the end of They Live by Night that sticks with with me--Spoiler Alert in case anyone else is reading this--is how O'Donnell's character runs after and then crouches over her fallen lover, and then looks up at the law enforcement officers intruding on her moment of grief. Haunting.
Again, RIP Marsha Hunt. I just haven't seen her in enough things to do a really good post about her.
Jean Seberg's first film was Saint Joan, where she played Joan of Arc, and I guess that's where the pixie look came from. By the time she did Airport, she had switched to a rather boring-looking combed-back bouffant that, in 1970, was already out of style. Her trend-setting days were over.
As for the FBI, read and then google my response to Mike.
Great reply, good buddy! I also followed the link you gave Mike to Exhibit A. FYI - my current post expires first thing tomorrow morning in case you'd like to visit. Thanks!
DeleteYou would think the FBI would have better things to do than harass Jean Seberg.
ReplyDeleteMike, the FBI's view of Seberg:
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Seberg#/media/File:FBI_vs._Jean_Seberg1.jpg
RIP. He certainly was ahead of his time.
ReplyDeleteVery influential filmmaker, Ananka. Wish I could have done a more comprehensive post, but I was afraid I'd just end up copying what other people said about him (read my response to Shady) and I try as much as possible for this blog to be in my own words.
DeleteI haven't seen the original Breathless, but only the one with Richard Gere. I liked it.
ReplyDeleteJM, in the original Breathless the main character patterns himself after Humphrey Bogart. In the remake he patterns himself after the Silver Surfer. What a difference 20 years makes!
DeleteNice post thank you Jason
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Jason
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