A New Historical Analysis
of A Bout de Souffle:
A film by Jean Luc Godard
by Tao Ruspoli
November 3, 1994
A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), Jean Luc Godard’s first film (1960), has a relatively simple story: A man steals a car in Marseilles and drives it to Paris. On his way, Michel is stopped for speeding and shoots a police man. In Paris, he needs to collect some money from a friend and meet an American girl who he seems to like. One third of the movie is shot in Patricia’s hotel room, while Michel tries to convince her to sleep with him and to run away with him to Italy. He convinces her of the former, but when the latter becomes a definite possibility, she turns him in to the police. Instead of running away, he decides to wait for the police and go to prison. However, when the police arrives, a friend of Michel’s throws him a gun in a last attempt to save him. The police panics and shoots him. The film is shot in black and white with a hand held camera.
New historical criticism requires essentially three things: that the work of art be seen within its broad historical context; that the creation be seen as inseparable from other works, even in other mediums; and, finally, that the critic understands that he himself, and therefore his analysis, is not unaffected by history. Although Breathless may be amusing to watch without attempting any sort of analysis, its status as a masterpiece can only be understood through a careful analysis of its historical context. However, we cannot limit our understanding of history merely to the events that took place in a particular era. We must, especially in analyzing a film like Breathless, attempt to understand both the philosophical trends and the cinematographic styles prevalent in the Europe of 1960.
There are four interrelated facts about Godard and his film that make a new historical outlook ideal. First, Godard was extremely aware of his medium’s connection to other modes of expression, especially literature, philosophy and painting; and his style included a conscious attempt to demonstrate this interconnectedness. In an interview in 1962, he said, "For me, the continuity of all the different forms of expression is very important."Second, although Breathless represents an extreme rejection of accepted methods of cinematography, Godard recognized his place in the evolution of film style, and even his departure from the norm is a manifestation of an awareness of that norm. Third, Godard’s choice of story incorporates his love for American "film Noir" and it reflects an overt recognition of its influence on French cinema. Finally, Breathless clearly demonstrates an existential outlook on man’s condition after the death of God and the advent of nihilism, as described by Friedrich Nietzsche. A new historicist approach is necessary in proving the above hypotheses, for it is necessary, first, to analyze the auteur’s own writings and those of his contemporary critics, second, to understand the history of film style, and, finally, all this only makes sense with a study of the existential tendencies present in western culture as they have evolved in the last century.
"The cinema is not a craft. It is an art . . . One is always alone on the set as before the blank page." Godard saw himself as an author and wanted to integrate his literary influences into his film. Furthermore, in wanting to break away from the rules of film making, he made his connection with literature as obvious as possible: Breathless is filled with direct quotes from authors like Faulkner, Dylan Thomas and Rainer Maria Rilke, among others. For example, in shot 169, Patricia quotes Wild Palms, "Between Grief and nothing I will take grief". She then asks Michel which he would choose, and he answers, "I’d choose nothingness. . . grief is a compromise. You’ve got to have all or nothing." Godard is able here to show his literary heritage and respond to it through the words of the antihero. He defends himself by saying, "If you want to say something, there is only one solution: say it." Similarly, Godard plays with painting in an unusual way in Breathless. Posters by Paul Klee, Renoir, and Picasso appear around Patricia’s hotel room, and they are mentioned in passing. Godard was the "first to play disrespectfully, because offhandedly, with art." In another scene, Michel and Patricia kiss in a movie theater while Westbound is playing in the background. However, instead of dubbing the original dialogue into French, Godard has the actors reciting poems by Louis Aragon and Guillaume Apollinaire.
Probably the most striking feature of Breathless is its cinematographic style. The lives and thoughts of the characters are echoed by the camera movements and editing innovations Godard has made. Of these, the most important are the jump cut and the quick cut. Godard invented the technique of cutting out a few feet of film in seemingly random places. This "jump cut" produces a rhythmic, unsettling pulse in certain scenes. The "quick cut" is a similar technique in which Godard cuts out short shots that break up the continuity of a given scene. For example, in one scene Michel is seen lying in Patricia’s bed, and in the next he is walking out of the bathroom. This way, Godard forces the viewer to fill in shots with his imagination.
As important, though, is the way Godard reacted to the accepted means his historical conditions provided. Since the beginning of the sound film, directors had been working at perfecting the technique of smooth, exact representation. Steady camera movements and logical progression in sequence editing were viewed as essential to good film making. Godard felt the orthodox rules that stemmed from this ideal had begun to limit the possibilities of the medium. In a statement about Godard, Georges de Beauregard, the producer of Breathless, says, "French cinema was suffocated by conformity. films were made according to a fixed routine." Godard wanted to make "the sort of film where anything goes." However, it must be noted that Godard did not allow himself to be limited by non conformism either. He understood the techniques of past film makers (He was a film critic for ten years before making his first feature), and he did not hesitate to use them where he felt they were necessary or aesthetically pleasing. For example, in possible homage to DW Griffith, Godard uses the iris in two scenes to focus on important but pictorially insignificant events in a shot (This can also be seen as the use of "punctuation marks", another, more subtle cross appropriation of media).
Godard, as well as other French auteurs of the time, admired American B movies for their directness and "because, in part, the French cinema of quality against which he railed had consciously differentiated itself from precisely those Hollywood genres like the gangster film." In fact, it was the French who coined the term "film Noir", to describe this American genre. "All my avowed ambitions were to make a normal gangster film," said Godard in an interview. Although "normal" is not the first word that comes to mind viewing Breathless, and it is now categorized as a French New Wave film, the story line is directly and intensely influenced by American films: Michel, the antihero, is an amoral character and his death at the end of the film is inevitable. And, like in the American gangster films of the 1940’s, it is questionable if the death of the gangster is in fact a victory. Moreover, Michel shows overt signs of being influenced by characters such as those played by Humphrey Bogart. He is constantly rubbing his lips with a gesture stolen directly from "Bogey", and at one point he stops and stares at a poster of a Humphrey Bogart film and stares at his hero with idolization. Finally, Breathless is dedicated, half jokingly, to Monogram Pictures, the primary producer of American gangster films.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Breathless is the way the story line and the filming style come together to make a coherent philosophical statement.* The primary question is, why is it that although Michel is an unambitious, untalented, immoral punk, the audience is able to ignore these traits and sympathize with him? The answer lies in the fact that everything Michel does is done with an extraordinary style. He is open, flamboyant, and cheerful and his actions, however meaningless or amoral, reflect this attitude. "You must never break," Michel says to the audience while driving his stolen car in the opening scenes of the film. In another scene, there is a poster which says, "live life dangerously to the end." This reminds one of Nietzsche’s advice as given in the Gay Science, "the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is--to live dangerously. . .Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors. . ." This style possessed by Michel would not be enough if Godard hadn’t shown everyone else in the film as lacking even this. There are basically three types of people in the film: the masses, who are like apathetic, unaware zombies (for example, a man is hit by a car, and people hardly notice; Michel runs down the street after being shot, and hardly a head turns.); there is one attractive hard working character, and Michel takes advantage of her by stealing her money, and there are two serious and committed characters, the police, and they are made to look absolutely ridiculous.
Godard shows us a world that is immoral, senseless and empty. Everything lacks a reason. "Why do you want to make love to me?" asks Patricia in the bedroom scene. "Because you’re beautiful" "but I’m not beautiful" "OK, then because you’re ugly" Michel is the only character who is able to recognize and take advantage of the situation by being amoral and uncommitted with passion and cheerfulness. He is sensitive to his environment. He likes the sun, he likes France, and he is depressed by ugly architecture. Of course he is egotistical, but according to the Nietzschean view of a meaningless world, this is a good thing. "surely, the faith preached so stubbornly and with so much conviction, that egoism is reprehensible, has on the whole harmed egoism (while benefiting, as I shall repeat a hundred times, the herd instincts!) Michel takes advantage of the lack of dictated meaning to create his own meaning and "create poetry from nothingness." He invents his life and his past as he goes along. He claims that his grandfather drove a Rolls, he says he can only stay at the Claridge (a very expensive hotel), he says his father was a clarinetist, among other stories. Michel isn’t caught up in the seriousness of searching for meaning. Furthermore, he is unafraid of the ultimate nothingness: death. The omnipresent end of life just makes his present actions more poignant and intense. And since all has equal seriousness, all is permitted! (recall Godard’s aim in making a film where "anything goes". We now see this was not limited to cinematography.)
The next question is why is Michel so attracted to Patricia. She represents a negative version of himself. Unlike the masses, she is able to recognize the meaninglessness of existence, and this makes her more like Michel than anyone else. However, unlike Michel, she is unable to throw herself into the nothingness. She is Narcissistic instead of egotistical and she is therefore constantly concerned with how she is seen. She runs away from her identity without going towards anything else. For this reason, Michel constantly calls her a coward. Her cowardice comes to a climax when she can’t deal with the possibility of staying with Michel for an extended period of time. She falls in love with him at the moment she learns he’s a murderer, for only then does the impossibility of permanence become evident, and when the escape to Italy seems plausible, she turns him in to the police.
The above interpretation only makes sense with some understanding of the history of continental existential philosophy, so here is a very brief summary: In the 1600’s Pascal recognized the problem of man’s position, our body’s existence is finite and our mind yearns for the infinite. His solution: there must be a God. Next, Kierkegaard searched for a solution that embraced the finite while maintaining Christian beliefs. His solution: an unconditional commitment to a finite cause or person, the incarnation of God into man. Dostoevski attempted to maintain Christian meaning without any belief in the supernatural. His solution: God is the interconnectedness of all things, and we must find meaning in this life through a recognition of this connection. Finally, Nietzsche came along and claimed that all these efforts were futile. We must give up our search for meaning, reason, and eternity and live our lives dangerously, from moment to moment assigning our own impermanent significance to what we do. Breathless is an attempt to show life as it is when one has repudiated a false morality and succeeded in living cheerfully without ultimate reason.
Interestingly, the only people who were able to recognize the presence of this theme in Breathless were the ones who were unable to accept it. Whereas the French reviews of the time recognized the film’s innovative style and rhythm, it was the more conservative moralizing American audience that was shocked into recognizing its moral implications. The New York Times called the film a "pile-up of gross indecencies," and said that it was a "fascinating communication of the savage ways and moods of some of the rootless young people of Europe (and America) today." Temoignage Chretien, a French Christian Magazine, said that "the message of Breathless, intentional or not, is anarchism, Nietzscheism, fatalism: to reject all. But it also reveals in its creator, under the gloss of self-assurance and of paradox, a false "lucidity," which is endearing because it bears witness to a disillusioned love of the world and to a poorly effaced confusion." Today, fortunately or not, we are less easily shocked by the message of present day films with similar immoral themes (Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction come to mind). Who knows, maybe Nietzsche was right. . .