Breathless: French New Wave Cinema and Acting

Breathless: French New Wave Cinema and Acting Technique

Traditionally, acting has always been regarded as a 'craft.' Acting in the theater requires understanding certain modes of presentation such as breath and movement, to communicate the actor's intention to the audience. Film, however, is often called a director's medium, because the director can select what snapshots of life he or she wishes to show to the viewer. Film is also a more intimate, visual format, and demands more 'naturalness' on the part of actors to seem realistic. The French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard took this to a new level in his 1959 film Breathless. Godard uses seemingly nonprofessional acting to convey a sense of 'realism' to the story, based on a true life crime, even while he highlights the artfulness of the filmmaking involved using jump cuts and shaky, handheld amateurish camera techniques. The central protagonist models his life upon American film stars. The plot of the film centers on the actors' emulation of other actors. Breathless is a film about acting and about filmmaking more than it is a work of 'true crime' cinema.

When Godard was casting Breathless, it is said that he selected Jean Seberg to play the American love interest primarily because she had only appeared in two 'flops' in America, Saint Joan and Bonjour Tristesse (Hitchman & McNett 2012). Seberg's unpolished and amateurish French and her slight stiffness on camera are used to convey her naivete, as she grows increasingly infatuated with Michel and his embodiment of a 'tough guy' persona. This is the paradox of the central relationship of Breathless. An American becomes infatuated with a Frenchman who is infatuated with American cinema, specifically Humphrey Bogart gangster films.

When Seberg's Patricia learns of Michel's crimes, the actress' face is utterly expressionless and dispassionate. Is this acting or a lack of acting? It is impossible to tell, but by simply focusing the camera on her empty face, Godard conveys his point that human life may simply be an empty shell, and we strive to emulate what we consider 'the real world' on the screen rather than truly feel deeper emotions. Reality for Godard is about surfaces and the fact that Seberg is very evidently 'acting' and is inexperienced in French underlines the lack of true emotion her character feels for Michel. The final scene depicts Patricia asking what a specific French phrase means, rather than a cry of emotion or any real sentiment for her former, dying lover.

Michel is shown self-consciously wearing a fedora like Bogart throughout the film. He is a petty thief but this is less due to his desire for financial gain than his desire to 'be someone.' Michel is shown as posturing, creating his identity rather than living it. Even the murder is unplanned and haphazard, and more the result of Michel accidentally getting a gun, rather than by conscious design. Patricia's attempt to 'be French' makes her the perfect match for Michel.