This paper would be dedicated to the assessment of the Breathless (1960) by Jean-Luc Godard. This movie depicts the story of wandering criminal and his girlfriend. This movie would be analyzed from the perspective of the contemporary socio-historic trends. The framework of this film was used by Godard for representation of the set of the urgent themes, as they were perceived by the director, and which have stayed relevant for the further generations.
The core ideas of existentialism were represented in this movie – for instance, evident absurdity of life and importance of individual rules in context of generally-accepted social dogmas and postulates. Death was depicted as a general and common event, which was usually perceived by society with some rate of indifference. This trend was evident after the World War II - when millions of people have died and these numbers were perceived as international statistic rather than personal grief of each particular family.
One more theme, which may be traced in this movie, is impossibility of love between Patricia and Michel. This theme may be traced from the scene in the long hotel room. More than 30% of the movie depicts this place - when two lovers joke, discuss some contemporary issues and events, but at the same time, there is a lack of mutual understanding between them.
In addition, this movie has the youthful exuberance, which is felt from the work of the leading actors. The style, attitude and the form of communication epitomize the lifestyle and values of the new generation of young people. It is claimed by the cinematography exerts that this movie represents the spirit of its time and thus, after the ‘Breathless’ was released, cinema was perceived as such form of the art, which represents ‘the moment’
The ‘Breathless’ has got an immediate success. Also, it has won the annual Jean Vigo Prize, which was usually issued only for those movies, which were done with a spirit of independency - both in terms of cinematographic style and in context of the plot. Critics and experts have stated that ‘Breathless’ has represented the generation gap between the contemporary ‘old cinema’ and ‘new cinema’ – as the social norms and values have significantly shifted from their previous state and the generation, which has suffered from the World War II, has significantly changed in their everyday life, behaviors and attitude towards life in general (newwavefilm.com 1).
For the generation, living in the 21st century, this move still represents the set of urgent topics and thus, it remains ‘fresh’ after more than 50 years from its release. The ‘Breathless’ is the masterpiece of Jean-Luc Godard, as it has made the great contribution for integration of currently dominating notion of pop culture into the everyday life of people all over the world. The casual fatalism of this movie will never become outdated, for instance, when the cigarette smoke is accompanied by the French speech. This movie may be perceived as the source of modish pleasure – almost every male wants to be in the role of Jean-Paul Belmondo, while majority of ladies want to share bad with him, as well as the New York Herald Tribunet-shirt of Jean Seberg is still in trend (Connolly 1).
Works cited
Connolly, M. Breathless. 2010 <http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/breathless>
newwavefilm.com. Breathless. 2015 <http://www.newwavefilm.com/french-new-wave-encyclopedia/breathless.shtml>
