I. à bout de souffle (1960)

     Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (À bout de souffle) is one of the leading films that marked the beginning of the mid-20th century cinematic style, the French New Wave. Directed by Godard, based on the original story written by François Truffaut (another influential director of French New Wave), Breathless tells a story of crime and an ill-fated love in Paris. The film opens with Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and a woman who as it appears are trying to steal a car. This action propels the entire film, in the way a McGuffin contributes to the film noir's narrative. Michel hopes to meet up with Patricia (Jean Serberg), an American studying at the Sorbonne whom he met only once before, to convince her to accompany him to Italy. 
    The film is unconventional in its cinematography, following a nontraditional narrative and achieving an overall discontinuous effect through the use of hand-held cameras, informal frames, and at times improvisational acting. Traditional cinematic techniques like the 180° line are disregarded intentionally. Philosophical, psychological and political ideology are often infused within character dialogue and/or the spoken thoughts of characters, serving as social commentary expressed by the auteur Godard—and the French New Wave group of artists as a collective. Though the film is different than films prior to this point, it undeniably maintains aspects of traditional film-making and narrative as well as references to classic films and art of the past. These nods to convention illustrate Godard's knowledge of them but explains his intentional disregard of established ways through the details of the film.
     In its form and narrative, Breathless represents experimental and independent film making during the 1960's. The use of jump-cuts as an editing tool to shift from one scene to another scene later in time and often unrelated contributed to the film's overall radical style. Also employed radically is the mixing of what the viewer knows as part of the sound of the film's world, with what is meant to be heard by only the viewer. In one particular scene Michel drives a stolen car, meanwhile giving a monologue of plans for his recent future. Jump-cut editing here suggests that he is traveling forward in space and time down the road, however, his monologue remains uninterrupted from cut to cut, shifting the viewer's understanding of sound in the film, and bringing to the viewer's consciousnesses the process of film making and ultimately the constructed reality of film.
     Breathless sends a nod to film noir in its theme of the criminal protagonist, love that was doomed to begin with, and even so far as references to Humphrey Bogart's film persona through Michel's mannerisms. In one instance Michel walks past the movie theater and sees a photo of Bogart encased in a glass window. In this one scene it becomes clear to the viewer that any similarities between Michel and film noir characters is intentional, and could quite possibly be the driving force behind Michel's every decision. Here I deduce that Godard is paying homage to not only classic American cinema but cinema in general, as Godard recognizes it as being a heavy influence on post-modern society and culture. Though what makes Godard and the French New Wave influential to their peers and future directors is the disruptive style in which they display narrative, leaving it up to the viewer to piece it all together.