Friday, April 3, 2020
Crime Never Pays?
Michel Poiccard is petty criminal who steals cars like some people speed on the highway. He lies and cheats people close to him, including a girlfriend. He is dangerous when cornered and has murdered a police officer. Yet, at the same time, he is young and glamorous, faithful in his way to Patricia, and in the end willing to pay for his crimes. The film follows some of the rules of a film noir or gangster film. Yet, the film also plays around with those conventions: the police, for example, are incompetent and there is not much tension or excitement in the chase scenes. So what is going on? Is this film saying anything about crime and punishment? Or is it just messing with us?
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I think that Breathless really breaks out of the mold of a noir film with the way the topic is handled and how events play out especially pertaining to the protagonist Michel. While many noir films in the genre focus on the aspects of crime and the hot pursuit of the police on the trail of the criminal, breathless is a much more reflective film. The only major crime takes place at the beginning of the movie with Michel shooting a police officer, and then Michel steals a few cars throughout the length of the film. However, much of the run time takes place focusing on conversations between Michel and Patricia as they rationalize different things pertaining to gender, love and everything in between. These moments serve to humanize Michel throughout the movie and motivate the audience to feel something about his plight as he goes through life, despite the fact he has committed quite a few crime. I think that the reason this film breaks the mold and humanizes Michel so much is so that it can be a critique of a life of crime and the consequences that come with it. While the police are often a few steps behind Michel, he feels trapped in how he moves about, and it is an inevitability that he is caught in the end. This atmosphere allows Godard to get across the idea that even if someone is a decent human being, capable of love and decent acts, crime will swallow them eventually, as can be seen by Michel's unfortunate end. This film, in my eyes, is an overall critique to this life of crime, rather than a glorification of it, and it really reflects on a lot of themes pertaining to this with Michel as such a complex protagonist at the forefront, ultimately leaving the audience unsure as to whether Michel deserved his untimely end, which makes Godard's film more reflective as it stands out in this genre.
ReplyDeleteThroughout this film they portray the twist ones life can take when using crime as a means of living. Michel for most of his life has been avoiding and finding ways around the law which instills a mindset of being above the law and structure that everybody else abides by. When this is the case anybody can come across as confident cool and collected because he has most likely survived worse situations than what he is currently experiencing. Additionally it goes to show how getting away with crime only leads to being forced into hiding, and truly never being able to reach ones full potential as a contributing member of society. Due to this I feel that this film is showing that even if one can get away with a crime, they will most certainly pay the price in the long run, such as Michel did later in the film.
ReplyDeleteThe film Breathless focuses on how crime doesn’t pay by following the downfall of Michel. The film does not appear to have a happy ending for our lead. He spends the entire film avoiding the police and trying to find the man who owes him money so he and his kinda girlfriend Patricia can escape to Rome, only to be shot by the police after she gives up his location. He does, however, deserve a lot of what came to him. He’s a horrible person who even tells the audience as much. He steals cars and kills a police officer at the beginning of the film. He breaks into Patricia’s room by taking her key without asking and when she arrives immediately asks for sex. The film demonstrates a sense of karma by having all of Michel’s wrong doings come back to get him in the end by having the police kill him. However, the film takes an existential point of view on this ending. While it may appear to be the saddest ending for us as the viewer, being killed is a happier ending for Michel than the alternative of being arrested. Michel is the type of person who will always be on the run. Laying low and living a life with Patricia is impossible. The movie makes it clear that this is a deciding moment. The reason why death is the happier ending for Michel is due to a comment he made earlier about how between death and nothing he chooses death. The movie takes his side in showing that the most important part of life is living, so between wasting away in a jail cell and dying in the streets in an overblown action scene, the latter is more preferable.
ReplyDeleteKatelyn Shakir
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