A Bout de Souffle - Coronavirus Blues (VII)
'Keep your fingers away from your face' is the international mantra of the moment. A man who would certainly struggle with that is Michel in Jean-Luc Godard's breakthrough film A Bout de Souffle. Michel, a small-time gangster on the run, obsessed and channelling Humphrey Bogart, has developed the habit of running his thumb over the top of his lip in honour of his hero (peculiarly, I can't actually find this quirk of Bogie's in any of his films, but I'm more than willing to trust Godard and give him the benefit of the doubt). Of course, that should not detract from any viewing of the film. Yet it’s a strange, unsettling gesture - even before Covid 19's arrival - and one that I find slightly unsavoury.
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| Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel |
Unlike the film itself, which fizzes with an energy that is still modern and unlike anything else from that age. This modernity is summed up by the array of posters, books, records and magazines in the apartment of Patricia, the American student journalist who takes up with Michel. Indeed, I can't think of any films from this time or before that tease out a personality through external cultural references. Whilst we can pare down Michel's inspiration to the sole figure of Bogie, Patricia's touchstones are many. Prints of works by Renoir, Picasso (is that a Fragonard I see next to one of them too?) Paul Klee (a perfect example of his philosophy of 'taking a line for a walk') and Degas occupy the walls of the bedroom and the bathroom; a William Faulkner novel shacks up with other, pulpier, paperbacks; LPs featuring classical recordings by Bach and Mozart are lifted clumsily from their sleeves and placed upon the turntable. It's a young person's room: messy, catholic in its tastes, scrambling around for inspiration and beauty and finding it everywhere. It speaks of one who is all too ready for a quick fling with a charismatic and handsome hoodlum, but who will betray him when things heat up.
Reading up on the making of the film I was struck by the fact that almost all of it had to be dubbed in post-production because of the din that the small but noisy Cameflex camera made. This overlaying of voices immediately made me think of Bait, Mark Jenkins' mesmerising masterpiece from last year. Jenkins used the dubbing technique deliberately in his story of the tensions that arise in a Cornish fishing village between the locals and the middle classes who have bought up properties and spend only a short time every year in residence, and the difficulty of communication between these two groups is captured wonderfully in the murky and slightly disjointed dialogue. You also get some of that in A Bout de Souffle, and the effect is similar, but here it is a studied egocentric artifice that muddies the communication rather than Bait's alienation.
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| Timid Brute, Paul Klee (1938) |
Reading up on the making of the film I was struck by the fact that almost all of it had to be dubbed in post-production because of the din that the small but noisy Cameflex camera made. This overlaying of voices immediately made me think of Bait, Mark Jenkins' mesmerising masterpiece from last year. Jenkins used the dubbing technique deliberately in his story of the tensions that arise in a Cornish fishing village between the locals and the middle classes who have bought up properties and spend only a short time every year in residence, and the difficulty of communication between these two groups is captured wonderfully in the murky and slightly disjointed dialogue. You also get some of that in A Bout de Souffle, and the effect is similar, but here it is a studied egocentric artifice that muddies the communication rather than Bait's alienation.
I think they make a fabulous double-bill, and despite the sixty years between them, they have much in common, above all their quality. By the way, do let me know if you pin down the Bogie tic that Michel adopts? I'm sure it's out there and it would be great to see it confirmed.
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