Breathless – French New Wave 

Breathless is a film directed by Jean Luc – Godard in 1960. It is a film which was part of the French New Wave film movement. The film was filmed in Paris on sight. This was because breathless had a low budget, around £15,000, which is an extremely low budget for a film. Continuing with this theme

The idea of film Noir is a big idea in this film. From the black and white film reel, to the stereotype of a chain-smoking man in a suit and fedora. Both contribute to the Film Noir style. This film set the standards for Film Noir in the future, any other Noir Film you see will almost seem like or make references to this film. For instance, films such as Blade runner and a Touch of Evil depict dark world

Use of Soviet Montage in Strike 

‘Strike’ is Sergi Eisenstein’s first full-length film, released in 1925. ‘Strike’ is a silent film about the workers at a factor

As well as that, Eisenstein uses Montage in order to show multiple events that are occurring at the same time. For instance, when the workers are revolting against the factory, the shots we are shown keep switching between two of the workers having a fight with one of the owners, while we are also shown all the workers running out of the factory and becoming free. 

Cinematography and editing are presented in Breathless, (1960) by Jean-Luc Godard, by using multiple techniques. This includes jump cuts and making scenes longer than standard. Godard creates this unconventional timing in the scene where the characters, Michal and Patricia, are driving in the car and several jump cuts are used.

These jump cuts are inconsistent and appears to be unconnected and random. This creates the Brechtian technique, used in theatre, which reminds the audience of the fact they’re watching a movie. This was also used in the scene where Patricia waits in the taxi while Michal gets out to speak to a man. The usual way of presenting this scene would be to have the camera follow Michal and allow the audience to hear the conversation however instead, Godard had the camera remain inside the taxi and have the conversation appear as a mix of ambient noises to show it from the perspective of Patricia because she, nor the audience, can hear what’s going on.

The “pointless” jump shots were unusual because although Michal was continuously talking, and Patricia hadn’t changed positioned, the jump shots still persisted. It is strange due to the purpose of jump shots being to cut to the next scene, although the scene still took place normally. By disconnecting the audience from the film, it allows them to understand it better and observe from better outlook. By being emotionally involved in a film, you allow your emotions to distract you from the real message behind the story. By feeling what the character’s feel, your reliable outsider’s perspective is gone. Another reason for these random jump cuts was because Godard was told to make the film a bit shorter.

Due to audience’s during “The Golden Age of Hollywood” becoming used to films ending with the protagonists having a happy ending, Breathless stood out even more because of Michal’s death, showing the opposite of what you would expect out of the film. Another way that Breathless was so different was that, due to a low budget, they replaced the idea of a constructed set with a real street in Paris in the final scene. These features, among others, were all reasons as to how French New Wave changed cinema.

Strike (1925, dir. Serge Eisenstein) is a silent film. It was created during the rise of the soviet union and tells the story of one of the workers. The way he does this is by featuring different soviet montage techniques. This includes Metric Editing which is a technique in which lengths of shots make the tempo of the scene. This is used at the start of the film where this strike was being organised

To increase the tempo of the scene, he quickly cuts between the factory worker’s faces with only a second in the shot for the audience to process what’s happening. This is barely any time at all, which only speeds up the scene and creates a sense of chaos and panic and gives the audience a sense of urgency; which correlates to what the workers are feeling.

To allow the audience to understand each of the characters, Strike uses the intellectual method of editing when the agents are being introduced. In this scene, it cuts from pictures of animals, to the pictures of their faces, and then reveals their code names. This creates an understanding as to why they were named after the animals they were. He fades the animals’ faces into the characters to make the comparison obvious, and then traits that the character has that the animal also has will seem more noticeable to the audience.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920, dir. Robert Weine) was created in Germany by a film studio known as Decla. It is a well-known silent horror film that influences many other films, including some in modern day cinema as well as film noir in the 1950’s-60’s.

In this scene, you are able to see where these strips of light have been painted on the floor. It was made in the period of German Expressionism which allows this to show the genre of the film. One feature that is shown is the Distorted Landscapes, which is prominent in this shot. The set appears disoriented due to the slanted window which, again, accentuates the context of German Expressionism, however this could be viewed as a foreshadowing of the fact that this story was told by a mental patient with a disoriented mind. This warped appearance allows the audience to see things through the mind of the mental patient. This twist ending was what made The Cabinet of Dr Caligari a cinematic breakthrough, due to the unreliable narrator and the plot-twist.

In this film, an “Iris Wipe” is frequently used which is an editing effect that typically closes the iris of a camera and then slides a piece of card over it to make the shot cut to black. This technique was used in the shot where Francis tells the story about the fair. In this flashback scene, the iris cut shows the audience that it is a flashback scene and creates a surreal like feeling to the scene to make sure that the audience is aware that it’s a memory. This film had no outside shots and was produced entirely on made up sets which means that they used artificial lighting. This led to them painting strips onto the sets of light and dark in order to present shadows and contrast.

The characters’ emotions had to be cleverly expressed, due to the fact they couldn’t talk, and also highly detailed. Weine found a way to show how each character was feeling, in this film, by the use of makeup. When Cesare is first exposed to the audience, his dramatic makeup is emphasised in the close-up where he is first revealed. The dark eyes and lips establish him as the villain, and create a creepy feel to the audience. The Mise-en-scene in this film was used as expression in order to create emotions that can’t be presented through speech to the audience.

Breathless Task

The Shining

Breathless (1960 , directed by Jean Luc – Godard ) challenged the established conventions of editing by employing jump cuts which help  to remind the audience that they were watching a movie which was unheard of at the time and Godard employed the technique because the New Wave movement was concerned with challenging the established conventions of films due to the Algerian war and the way that the French establishment treated the youth and this was a reaction to that oppression and the way this film was edited was a deliberate act of subversion against the established norms of the film world.

Breathless challenges the established rules about narrative because the characters have long conversations about trivial things that seemingly don’t contribute anything to the story and this subversive as the established rules of cinema say that every piece of dialogue should contribute to the story. Furthermore , the trivial dialogue slows down the pace of the film and it is nice for the audience to be able to relax and enjoy the film and it creates a high amount of verisimilitude because the film would be reflecting something that people actually do in real life.

Furthermore , The black and white cinematography helps the film to create it’s own distinctive tone for while it is a thriller  and this may be a conscious allusion to films like the Maltese Falcon ( 1941 , directed by John Huston) which stars Humphrey Bogart who is someone who is alluded to in the film  , the tone can be remarkably upbeat at times and  this can sometimes border on being comedic and this makes the choice to film in black and white , seem like a conscious one that was made in order to challenge established tropes in the cinematic medium.

Finally , Breathless challenges the norms of film by using all of the aforementioned techniques in order to draw the attention of the audience to the fact that they are watching a film and this is not supposed to happen as films are supposed to serve as an escape to another reality , but Breathless is realistic and it creates a sense that  the film could be happening and it does not  provide the audience with an escape , instead it holds a mirror up  to our world.

Strike (1925, directed by Sergei Eisenstein ) uses many versions of montage in order to convey its message to the audience.

The type of montage that is present most often is intellectual montage which combines two unrelated images to create a new meaning and this is used when Eisenstein inter cuts images of  the government men with animals and this helps the audience to immediately creates a negative connotation in the mind of the audience. For example , at the end of the film , the slaughter of the workers is compared to the slaughter of a cow and this conveys the message that the workers are considered to be less than human.

Right at the beginning of the film Eisenstein uses the tonal method of editing to create an idea of reflection and pensiveness. The workers walk through a puddle on their way to work and this scene is remarkably modern and it shocked me when I first saw it  I thought that it was from a modern film and this proves that Eisenstein was ahead of his time in terms of tonal editing  and almost a century later.

strike-opening

As Strike is a silent film , metric editing like what is displayed in Whiplash ( Damian Chezelle , 2014) will not have that much of an effect as Strike is a silent film and metric editing first developed after the intoduction of sound and this was only two years after strike was released and this shows how films are shaped by technoogical developments.

Moving on , the scenes where the strikers are being killed by the soldiers is a prime exaple of rythmic montage because it combines the dynamics of the action with the need to tell a continuous story and this  also enables the film to tell the stories of multiple characters at once and this gives the audience a sense of the scope of the story  and it helps them to empathise with the characters that you see on screen.

I belive that Eisentsien uses all of the editing techniques that were availible to him at the time in order to make us empathise with a wide range of characters and it gives the audience understanding of the events that are happpening on screen and it aids them in making sense of what occured on screen. Additionally , I was shocked about how modern the film looked due to its use of techniques that are commonplace today and I fond myself being absorbed by the story that was being told.

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) has been regarded as the best movie ever created. It is consistently being used as a comparison and the gold standard of films for many directors, actors, and producers. It has kept it’s novelty for decades after its release which proves that it is extremely well-known and difficult to top.

This film, Citizen Kane, was released by the famous studio “RKO” in 1941. In this time period, it wasn’t as well developed as modern studios are today. However, many films were not produced by large companies at this time, therefore the fact that this movie managed to be produced by a largely known studio already shows that it is significantly better than most movies released in this century. Sound was already introduced to the film- making world along with a start to incorporating in colours using the technicolour process famous to have been used in The Wizard of oz. However, this process was very expensive and so for a long duration film, like Citizen Kane, it was ultimately decided to leave it as black and white. This appeared to be a better choice for the film anyway because the contrast of lighting helped intrigue the viewer and displayed his changes throughout the film in terms of his money, physical health and his personality. The darkness at the end of the film foreshadows his death due to the drastic change of lighting contrast which creates a setting of sadness.

RKO had a beneficial impact on the film’s display and success. Cameras had been improved to create a better developed fluidity within the film in terms of movement. Not many films at the time were able to depend on these types of things. An example of this is during a scene at the beginning of the film, A camera moves from showing the front of a room, moves through a table in which it opens up, and then closes again to show the other side of the room after the camera comes out again. This was an impressive effect which allows the audience to appreciate the film much better compared to many other films. 

Overall, Citizen Kane was a masterpiece due to many reasons but mostly because of its incredibly well used and sophisticated technology and help from its studio system which made it very well-made for its time. Despite the film not being anywhere near as well-developed as films in this day and age, the studio systems still managed to portray a very amazing plot of the famous Charles Foster Kane. Its use of sound mixing, lighting, foreshadowing, and use of cameras lead it to be the most famous movie of all time.