1960

Films from the 1960s

Breathless (1960)

In the early 1960s, a movie — like this week’s Breathless — that pushed the boundaries and aesthetics of cinema had a much easier time breaking through.

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Breathless (1960)

Where to watch: Just Watch

With the availability of high-quality filmmaking technology — think 4K cameras (or mobile phones), digital audio recorders, small but bright LED lights, fast computers with editing software — you’d think that anyone with a modest amount of talent, skill, and interest would be making movies. Maybe they are and the market is just too saturated and they are sidetracked with YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, Tik-Tok, and such.

It’s a good thing director Jean-Luc Godard faced a different media environment.

From the opening dedicated to Monogram Pictures, the low-end studio that churned out low-budget films of action and adventure, to constant references throughout Breathless (a young woman hawking Cahiers du Cinéma on the street, movie stills of Humphrey Bogart, cinema visits, the cameo by Jean-Pierre Melville and mention of Bob Montagné, and the multiple iris shots), Godard’s love of the movies is obvious.

Shoot the Piano Player

French New Wave films are an area that I’ve woefully overlooked.

While I’ve seen a handful — La Jetée, Bob le Flambeur, Alphaville, and (thanks to film club) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg — I haven’t seen the essential movies.

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Shoot the Piano Player

Where to watch: Just Watch

(Curiously, one list of New Wave films included François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451. I love the movie, but don’t consider it New Wave.)

So much has been written about the New Wave and Shoot the Piano Player that it doesn’t make sense to rehash things. But a few thoughts came to mind while watching the movie and an accompanying interview with Truffaut from 1965.

During the chase at the end of the movie, one of the gangsters, Momo (played by Claude Mansard), twirls his pistol before firing a fatal shot. It’s incongruous with the seriousness of the scene.