Breathless Initial Opinions

Breathless is a French New Wave film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and written by Francois Truffaut. The film is about a French car thief who kills a cop, meets up with an American ex-lover who turns him in, and dies by a gunshot wound to the back. The film’s main character, Michel, is not very likable. He steals from his friends, treats the girl he loves poorly and he’s a murderer to boot. It may have been a mark of the era that the man was so misogynistic, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it. The scene where Michel is trying to get Patricia to sleep with him got stale very quickly.

However, it is clear that there is immense symbolism and artistry to be conveyed in some of the scenes. For example, when Patricia and Michel talk independently of each other without acknowledging what the other is saying, conveys symbolically the main conflict in their relationship; that is very clever.

The tempo of the music seemed to match the tone of the scene and may be stylistic attribute of French New Wave films. The breaking of the 180 line rule, though intentional, is confusing to the placement of things as an audience member. The shots that continued following a character when they went from one scene to another is much more effective than cutting to footage in a new scene because it gave a clear sense of the journey that an actual person would have to take to get from one place to another. The same thing is true with the overhead shots that followed a characters motion. Both were greatly appreciated.

Movie that Influenced Me

              A movie that influenced me was "The Wind Rises" by Hayao Miyazaki about Jiro Hirokoshi who built planes for Japan during World War Two. His dream as a child was to pilot planes to get the experience of flying. Unfortunately, because he did not have 20-20 vision, he was denied the chance to accomplish his dream. This setback did not stop him, however. In a dream, he saw Giovanni Battista Caproni, a famous aircraft designer from Italy, who inspired him to take his original dream and mold it to fit his abilities (to be an aircraft designer himself). 

              The film gave the Japanese perspective of World War 2. They felt inferior in the realm of technology to the rest of the modern world. The Germans, the Americans, and the Italians were all preparing for a war that they were not ready for. They were still building planes made of paper and wood! Metal technology was a luxury that they could barely afford. The people of Japan were poor and starving and afraid. The focus of the story, Jiro Hirokoshi felt for the people of Japan. He, in one scene in the film attempted to offer two children on the street some food because their mother couldn't return to feed them until after work. They, in response, ran away from Jiro out of fear.  When Jiro talked to his friend, Kiro Honjo (I think), he responded (paraphrasing by the way) "our very poor country is somehow paying us lots of money to build these planes" Jiro also mentioned in the film when a plane was flying barely too slow for fire fights, he recommended "we could remove the guns"(paraphrasing again).
               It was astounding though, how much the Japanese were suffering during this time. As an American citizen, I had always remembered the Japanese for their attack on Pearl Harbor, and seen them as the instigators of war. Now, I see that the threat of impending doom, both from the war and from starvation in many cases, forced the hand of Japan as a nation.