Jean-Luc Godard´s Breathless

The character, Sebastien, is not lost within the sea of the millions of people within the Dominican Republic. He fills all of the voids and his individuality carries out the Haitian people’s needs. He is not part of the unknown, he is one who people hear. The characterization of him clearly represents that. Another situation that promotes the motif is when Amabelle is injured in bed and is listening to the, “...people gathered in a group to talk. Taking turns, they exchanged

The play is centered on an actual small bar in Paris. It was frequented by local artists and a popular spot for the community. The bar was owned and tended by Frederic Gerard, aka Freddy in the play. His girlfriend Germaine Pichot and Pablo Picasso were the subjects of the Au Lapin Agile painting by Picasso that was commissioned by Freddy.

In the interview, John Huston explained the function of cuts. Without moving our heads, human eyes will not pick up the information in between looking from one object to another. Basically, your eyes can juxtapose two or more objects. This is a cut. Film Editors use cuts to discard information that doesn’t push the story forward.

In the early 1900’s silent films amazed audiences with images, later talkies impressed with sound, today we have 3D. As technology continues to evolve so too will film genres. Genres, while having some shared characteristics, also differ in terms of stylistic devices used. For instance, the dramatic film “The Notebook” effectively uses color to reinforce theme and has plausible performers as the two main protagonists.

Marie’s predicament lies in loving and caring for her husband and her father whom, on paper, are enemies. Complicating these identities even more, the game introduces Freddie, a man who joins the French army to avenge the death of his wife (who was killed in a German bombing raid). Even though Freddie is French in the eyes of the military, he is ostracized by his comrades (besides Emile) and seems to ‘exists separately’ from

Another interesting use of camera cutting can be found in the in between scene where Cleo is roaming the streets of Paris. She is now becoming the one watching other people rather than being the one watched as she was in the beginning (probably because of her beauty and famous singer status). While she is watching the camera cuts between other people’s conversations and then while she is walking the camera is in essence her point of view. However during this walk, the people passing are watching her as well, thus proving that this is the transition time. The use of cutting between shots of her and shots of all these people passing her not only show this change in who is watching who, but also allows for a sense of time passing. Interspersed with these shots are images of people we have already met, the widow, the boyfriend, the piano player, as well as the images of a monkey resting on a clock and her wig resting on the mirror, these things conveying how the people who know her see her and how she sees herself. This is a genius montage because these two things represent the same thing, how people see her, how she sees people, and how she sees herself, and by interspersing them we see

There are plenty of examples of continuity editing in Eternal sunshine, both temporal and spatial are used. Discontinuity is used throughout the memory erasing scenes with the deliberate use of ellipsis as Joel relives his memories in flashbacks. Some of the shots from Joel’s memories are put together in a montage edit; this is another example of discontinuity editing. There are multiple uses of crosscutting in the film, which is when there are a series of shots that keep cutting back and forth from one shot to another shot, this occurs in a lot of the flashback scenes. Also there are several jump cuts, which brakes the ”continuity edit” as in order to achieve a smooth and non-noticeable cut from one shot to another the camera must move 30 degrees or more to attain the continuity in the movement of shots. But a jump cut is deliberately shot without using the 30-degree rule. Therefore when you put the shots together they make a “jump” affect and it brakes up the continuity of the edit. In this case, Gondry intentionally directed the crosscutting and jump cuts in order to express Joel’s reactions to the procedure. At the beginning of the film the editing picks up a rhythm and runs smoothly, giving a perfect example of continuity editing, but as the film goes on it begins to switch between continuity and discontinuity as the edit balances

Within the final scene of Le Samourï (Melville JP, 1967) we see the protagonist, Jef Costello, in his final battle. As previously mentioned, a crime thriller film noir has a lot of violence and brutality in it. Therefore, the genre convention is met (Morris K, 2012). In the film Un Ballet en Plein Air (Kemp W, 2017) the only scene where someone is killed is in the final scene and this is where all the action occurs. The editor uses a J cut by playing the music from the next shot in the previous shot. This sets the audience up and they have an idea of what is to be expected. In this particular scene pacing and rhythm when editing the different shots were vital because this is what carried the narrative through and didn’t give too much away when watching the film. The audience knew what was about to happen but because of the pacing there was suspense before the final shoot out. In order to create the suspense the editors linger on two medium shots of the subjects. So they would cut from one medium shot to another to prolong the suspense and then cut

Tarantino likes to focus on scenes most directors would cut out of their movie entirely if it was running a little long for example the Hotel scene in Pulp Fiction. In this scene Butch (Bruce Willis) and Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) have lengthy conversations which are exclusively focus the character development of Butch. Tarantino even says “I wanted him to be a bully and a jerk, except that when he’s with his girlfriend, Fabienne, je’s a sweeetheart” (Tarantino & Peary 2013 pg. 50). Tarantino Chooses to film a scene like this over a big action packed scene that the run-of-the-mill director would focus on. A perfect example of this is the boxing match in which Butch literally kills his opponent.

Cuts specifically are the prominent form of transitioning in Clip 3. It is important to use the correct transitions for different situations in film. Cuts provide simple, easy to follow switches between shots that immediately follow one another. Certain effects, such as a dissolve, can imply significant change in the time and space of the storyline.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie (2001) is a film about a quirky girl named Amélie. The film follows her life from a suppressed childhood to an imaginative adulthood. The story gets interesting when Amélie finds a hidden rusted tin box full of treasure. She decides to find and return it to its rightful owner and in the process she becomes a “regular do-gooder.” Seeing the joy she was able to give the owner of the treasure she decides to become a full time altruist and ventures to help those around her.

Though this scene seems irrelevant to the film, it is important on some level. Michel is just an ordinary man, who also happens to be a small time criminal. Unlike Hollywood cinema, there is no obvious defining of the characters. Godard uses a true-to-life person to create more connections between Michel and the audience; while the viewer doesn’t understand the significance of the scene, it is a different way of adding depth to the character.

For instance, 36:40-37:58 Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin are having an emotional conversation. This scene is over a minute long without any cuts made. That created the scene and conversation to be very boring because we are not shown any of the emotion on the characters faces. If there were cuts throughout the conversation, the scene would have been made much more interesting and would have drew in the audience more.

The film’s cinematography is captured in a hand-held like manner, creating a sense of realism. Godard used continuous shots for many of his dialogue scenes, following the main character in his more slow paced, quiet moments, drawing out the mood. Breathless captures the New Wave genre in these methods of breaking Hollywood’s typical rules in film making and its use of documentary style

They knew a lot about film theory and history but not a lot about film production. This allowed them to experiment and try new ways to make films. They also began to break traditional rules in filmmaking.”(Tu) At first audiences were confused by this new style, but now many of the innovative conventions of the French New Wave are normal cinematic devices that we all understand today, like the jump-cut, long take, voice over and handheld location shooting. The 400 Blows, is not a film one is going to understand while watching for the first time, that is where the true beauty lies. As Antoine grows up he will be able to understand his life with a reflective mentality, just as we the viewer will understand the film the more we think about it. The goal of the French New Wave was to have cinema become as worthy of academic study as any other art form. “Existentialism was also a major influence on the French New Wave. French New Wave incorporated working on location as opposed to in the studio. Lightweight hand held cameras were used. Available light was preferred to studio-style lighting and available sound was preferred to extensive audio dubbing. Following characters down streets, cafes and shops were done in the French New Wave just as was in this film 400 Blows. Also long takes like when Antoine was