Through extensive research it is clear that many critics would agree, New Wave of French films has been unsatisfactory, although more than a few respectable films emerged from it. With the appearance of 1960s Breathless, there came a film (for it’s time) that is new, aesthetically and ethically. In a clean, yet rebellious way, Godard makes the statement, ‘Anything is possible when it comes to cinema, that there is no limit to the possibilities of film form.’ Godard understood the rules and clichés of cinema and had the guts to fool around around with them. Godard split ways from classic cinema to make a film that was at the peak of cinematic innovation, while simultaneously paying homage to those past films much like many artists were doing during that time. He innovated countless conventions and posed a scandalous new view for the time. Godard would continue to make great films, but it was Breathless that changed cinema indefinitely.
With a brief overview of Godard and his film Breathless it will be clear why his motion picture is timeless and made such an impact on film. Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris, France in 1930. Jean-Luc had three siblings that his prosperous French-Swiss parents raised primarily in Switzerland. With his success being established mostly as a French film director, screenwriter and film critic Godard is often recognized with the 1960s French film movement ‘New Wave’. Similar to his ‘New Wave’ contemporaries, Godard disapproved of conventional French cinema's ‘Tradition of Quality’’ , which "emphasized craft over innovation, privileged established directors over new directors, and preferred the great works of the past to experimentation." To defy this tradition, he and like-minded critics decided ...
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...s": At 50, Godard's film still asks how something this bad can be so good. American Scholar [serial online]. Spring2009 2009;78(2):110. Available from: MasterFILE Premier, Ipswich, MA. Accessed February 23, 2014.
Kauffmann, Stanley. "Adventures of an Anti-Hero." New Republic 144, no. 7 (February 13, 1961): 20-21. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2014).
¬––"Letterboxd — Your life in film." 'Breathless' review by Gustav • Letterboxd. http://letterboxd.com/gustavr/film/breathless/ (accessed February 25, 2014).
Romney, JonathanSaunders, Frances Stonor. "Breathless, again." New Statesman 129, no. 4494 (July 10, 2000): 43. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed February 23, 2014).
––"The Cinemaniacs." The Cinemaniacs. http://thecinemaniacs15.com/2012/11/07/a-breath-of-fresh-air-godards-breathless/ (accessed February 25, 2014).
In the piece “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” Jean Luc-Comolli and Jean Narboni define the critic's job as the discernment of “which films, books and magazines allow the ideology a free, unhampered passage, transmit it with crystal clarity, serve as its chosen language” and which films “attempt to make it turn back and reflect itself, intercept it, make it visible by revealing its mechanisms, by blocking them” (753). Through their examination, seven film categories are outlined. Clue falls into the “E” category, which is defined as “films which seem at first sight to belong firmly within the ideology and to be completely under its sway, but which turn out to be so only in an ambiguous manner” (75...
Campbell, Patty. “Radical Monster.” The Horn Book Magazine. Boston: Nov/Dec 1999. Vol. 75, Iss. 6; pg. 769.
1959 was an exciting year in the history of filmmaking. An extraordinary conjunction of talent throughout the globe exists. In France, Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, and Resnais all directed their first films, thus establishing the French New Wave. In Italy, Fellini created the elegant La Dolce Vita, and Antonioni gave us L’avventura. Most importantly, though, in America, famed British director Alfred Hitchcock gave us the classic thriller North by Northwest, the father of the modern action film.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968.
Breathless is in many ways the antithesis of the classical Hollywood cinema; the changes have a direct effect on the relationship the film has with the viewer. Classical Hollywood cinema includes standards such as continuity editing, highly motivated, character-driven stories and a coherent narrative structure. Breathless defies these elements of traditional filmmaking, instead defining what we know as French New Wave.
Canadian filmmaker and cinephile, Guy Maddin once said, “I do feel a bit like Dracula in Winnipeg. I’m safe, but can travel abroad and suck up all sorts of ideas from other filmmakers… Then I can come back here and hoard these tropes and cinematic devices.” Here, Maddin addresses his filmmaking saying that he takes aspects from different film styles and appropriates them into his own work. In The Saddest Music in the World (2003), Maddin uses a combination of French Surrealist filmmaking and classical American Hollywood cinema, specifically melodrama, to create his own style. In an article by William Beard, Steven Shaviro talks about Maddin’s filmmaking, and he links Surrealism and melodrama together saying, “Maddin’s films are driven by a tension between romantic excess [melodrama] on the one hand and absurdist humour [Surrealism] on the other.” In regards to The Saddest Music in the World, the relationship between Surrealism and melodrama is not one of tension, as Shaviro suggests, but one of cooperation. This paper will analyze two films by filmmakers Maddin was familiar with —Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali on the Surrealist side, and All That Heaven Allows (1955) by Douglas Sirk on the melodrama side—to showcase the important elements of each, concluding with an analysis of The Saddest Music in the World in conjunction with both film styles. Ultimately, it will be shown how Guy Maddin combines French Surrealist cinema and Hollywood melodrama in The Saddest Music in the World, to create his own unique film style.
Crane, Stephen. A Mystery of Heroism. Elements of Literature: 5th Course - Pennsylvania Edition Essentials of American Literature. Holt Rinehart & Winston, 2004. 435-31. Print.
Think about your favorite movie. When watching that movie, was there anything about the style of the movie that makes it your favorite? Have you ever thought about why that movie is just so darn good? The answer is because of the the Auteur. An Auteur is the artists behind the movie. They have and individual style and control over all elements of production, which make their movies exclusively unique. If you could put a finger on who the director of a movie is without even seeing the whole film, then the person that made the movie is most likely an auteur director. They have a unique stamp on each of their movies. This essay will be covering Martin Scorsese, you will soon find out that he is one of the best auteur directors in the film industry. This paper will include, but is not limited to two of his movies, Good Fellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street. We will also cover the details on what makes Martin Scorsese's movies unique, such as the common themes, recurring motifs, and filming practices found in their work. Then on
Bordwell, David. “The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice.” Film Theory and Criticism. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. Oxford University Press, 2009: 649-657.
... movie stars like royalty or mythical gods and goddesses, viewing the drama between great archetypal characters in a personal psychic realm. By considering the statements made and their societal impact from a Marxist perspective, Benjamin’s method is highly effective, as it does not simply consider art in terms of pure aesthetics anymore, but considers art’s place in a society capable of mechanically reproducing and endlessly duplicating film, photography, and digital art. His qualm with losing the aura and mystique of an original work is negated by the cult of movie stars, the adoration of fame, the incorporation of soundtracks which embody a particular time period, cinematographic allusions, and time-capsule-like qualities of a film such as Basquiat, a 90s tribute to the 80s, produced both as a part of and resulting from the art movements and trends it addresses.
Godard creates a unique editing style in Contempt and Breathless through the combination of long takes and jump cuts. Godard’s use of these two editing techniques expresses two separate ideas in regards to an individual’s place in society. In Contempt, Godard’s use of editing illustrates how an individual can exist separate from society. While in Breathless, editing conveys the idea of how society can isolate an individual. The use of jump cuts within Breathless and Contempt was an unconventional technique during the French New Wave and still is today because it violates one of the rules of Classic Hollywood Style.
Although in shambles, It did not take long for film to make a resurgence in France. Domestic production was boosted following the introduction of The Centre National de la Cinématographe, a government organization that provided assistance to the industry in the form of loans and training. Imported films, especially those from America, began flowing into France following its liberation by Allied forces, and moviegoers were suddenly exposed to years of new films they had been previously cut off from all at once. As the market for films began to heat up, French filmmakers were presented with two choices; continue producing films adapted from relatively outdated literary works in the classic French tradition, or imitate the Hollywood Studio system of production, creating big-budget features for an international audience with the assistance of the CNC. These contrasting styles of filmmaking...
Works Cited Campbell, Joesph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 2nd Ed. Bollingen Series XVII.
In 1959- early 1960 five directors released debut feature length films that are widely regarded as heralding the start of the French nouvelle vague or French New Wave. Claude Chabrols Le Beau Serge (The Good Serge, 1959) and Les Cousins (The Cousins, 1959) were released, along with Francois Truffauts Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows, 1959), Jean-Luc Godards A bout de souffle (Breathless, 1960) and Alain Resnais Hiroshima mon amour (Hiroshima my love, 1959). These films were the beginning of a revolution in French cinema. In the following years these directors were to follow up their debuts, while other young directors made their first features, in fact between 1959-63 over 170 French directors made their debut films. These films were very different to anything French and American cinema had ever produced both in film style and film form and would change the shape of cinema to come for years. To understand how and why this nouvelle vague happened we must first look at the historical, social, economical and political aspects of France and the French film industry leading up to the onset of the nouvelle vague.
During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that, examining post classical at which time the relationship between them will become evident. It is my intention to reference films from both movements and also published texts relative to the subject matter. In order to illustrate the structures involved I will be writing about the subjects of genre and genre transformation, the representation of gender, postmodernism and the relationship between style, form and content.