JONATHAN BAUMBACH
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mu rder him in return as a form of symbolic deterrence. The uninten–
ti ona l effec t of thi s code was to p redi cate the o utcome o f certain films in
advance and to crea te in the conscio usness of the filmgoer a race o f
doomed antiheroes and a vision o f a mechanicall y moralistic universe.
Breath less
is the secret life o f the
fi lm nair
(a self-subverting genre a t its
bes t) made manifes t, the film of oil r filmgoing fantas ies.
Breat hless,
then , is the reconstituted fantasy of Godard 's filmgo–
ing, and is a t once homage to and parody o f the Ameri can action film
and poeti c transforma ti on of it. In the gangs ter film , we tended to root,
despi te o urselves, for the surviva l o f the doomed antihero, lamenting
the mischance tha t set him wrong. In
Breathless,
the antihero , Michel,
becomes the rebel we imagine ourse lves, a man living hi s idea of
freedom without the compromi se of civilized constraint, a figure o f
ultima te romantic integrity. Humphrey Bogart is his icon. In one o f
the film 's characteristi call y se lf-conscious moments, Mi chel stops to
admire a poster o f Bogart in
Th e Harder They Fall
and imagines
himse lf as Bogart, rubbing his thumb across his lips in identifica tion.
Michel' s self-willed a udacity parall els the film 's method so tha t we
experi ence MichellBelmondo as an agency o f Godard, the filmmaker as
outl aw, the oUll aw as a rtist. Altho ugh romanticized, Michel is never
trea ted sentimenta ll y. He is a character in a fiction , Godard is a t pa ins
to keep us aware, and no t a rea l person. His death a t the end is
exhil ara ting ra ther than sad or, perhaps , something of bo th . Goda rd is
a di alectician , moving between abstraction a t one pole and realism a t
the other.
It
is the energy and visio n o f
Breathless
and no t the outcome
of its narra ti ve tha t moves us.
Before
Breathless,
cutting had been u sed in films for the most part
as a puta ti vely invisible seam, a smoo thing over of transitions so as to
spare us the bumps. The jump-cuttin g of
B reathless
crea tes di sruption ,
calls attenti on
to
shifts in time and pl ace, to the film as film . By
showing us hi s iconocl as ti c craft , Godard humanizes the techno logy of
filmmaking.
Breathless
asserts the personality of the filmmaker who
appears in it himself in the ironi c role of an informer-the author
betray ing the cha racter tha t represents him. I can think of no o ther
serious film tha t lets us get as cl ose
to
process. Pa radoxicall y, while
Breat hless
is an exceptio nall y naked work, or seeming ly naked , it is a t
the same time mys teri o us and opaque. Goda rd gives away the trick of
his tricks without undermining the magic of his a rt.
T he film 's main di sguise is in its narra tive which may cause some
problems, whi ch in fact has ca used problems, fo r those viewers (and
reviewers) who believe tha t serio us art needs to dea l with demonstrabl y
