What can I say about this movie? It changed the way film makers and appreciators saw film, and changed attitudes towards editing. I take this on faith from what I have read, but I think that to truly understand what this movie stood for (or more accurately stood against), I need to take a look at some films of the 50's. I also have The 400 Blows(1959) on the shortlist, because I'm interested in the ways that Truffaut and Goddard are different even more than how they are alike.In the meantime I will point out a few things that I noted:
-When Michel pretends to fire his gun while driving, we hear a non-faithful blast of a real gun: a sound representing something that does not happen in the environment of the movie. In the six months that I've been studying movies, this has happened twice on screen. In Malcolm X (1992) Malcolm and Shorty are playing cops and robbers using their hands to gesture gun blasts. However, we hear the non-faithful sound of a real gun blast, as if to foreshadow violence to come. In Mean Streets (1973), Harvey Keitel's character Charlie gestures with his hand and pretends to shoot his girlfriend. We also hear a real gun blast, which was even more jarring because it was an abrupt cut, and there was no change of scene.
So what's with this, is this some sort of film cliche that I'm unaware of? I wonder if it started with Breathless. In the commentary for Malcolm X, Spike Lee makes no mention of it appearing in any other movies, but talks about it as if it were an original idea that evolved from the scene on its own.
-The movie has a pushing and pulling effect with its unique editing. It feels as if the viewer is following the plot through an intense magnifying glass that scans over the course of events, pinching some, and expanding others with a focus that has little priority for the major turning points. When Michel shoots and kills a policeman, or when he sees a deadly car accident, the events are brief and abruptly cut away from. Yet the "in-between" ordinary moments of Michel's getaway are expanded, we see several minutes of essentially pillow talk between Michel and Patricia.
The editing might draw attention to itself, and on the surface has little concern for realism, yet what it ends up depicting are the most natural parts of daily life put to screen. All the while, the typical Hollywood intrigue that Goddard has been known to admire, is reduced to the backdrop.
-Michel's death is rather unusual from what I've seen on film. He receives one shot to the lower back, and rather than keeling over in finality, it is unclear if he has been fatally hit as he tries to make an escape. It always interests me when physical movements of characters happen in odd ways, it makes it seem so much more real. This reminds me of the line "She Fell Funny" from The Departed, except that was more about the character's dialogue than the action.
-I like the music, but I didn't like the way it was used in this film. I can assume that Goddard would rather not manipulate the viewer by changing the music to fit the mood, but still why the constant film noir music that doesn't seem to fit?
I came into this movie expecting not to understand any of it. While the film is enigmatic, after viewing a few modern movies after this viewing, I've began to understand its appeal in hindsight. It's definitely a neat movie, and one I will inevitably return to.
