Before watching
I’ve not seen Breathless before. Jean-Luc Godard films are always fun to watch, because at their core are usually fun, confident, sexy women who approach most situations in unusual ways. From this film I can expect two things: that I’ll have immense fun watching it, and that I’ll get an incredible amount of quotes to dissect.
After watching
French films rarely serve you any lessons on a plate. Expectedly, this was also a random story full of imperfect characters, where two flawed humans were trying to get each other one the same page about their relationship. It was an immensely fun film to watch.
Thoughts | Lessons | Reminders
Before I begin, I’ll say I got a lot fewer quotes out of this picture than I expected, because I forgot what dialogue is like in Godard’s films. There is a way to convey people’s beliefs and convictions in one long, complete sentence, explaining the conviction explicitly, and there is a way to convey them through series of short, seemingly meaningless statements, sprinkled throughout the film, with many things left unsaid. Godard definitely belongs to the second category, because his characters talk about the silliest things while representing a lot more than what they say.
“I don’t know if i’m unhappy because I’m not free, or if I’m not free because I’m not happy.”
I’d go with the second one, because everything stems from not feeling happy. Happiness is a hard concept to achieve because there’s many things that we think might make us happy, but in fact this feeling comes from internal assurance that you’re happy with what you’ve got, no matter what you’ve got.
Lessons for me: Be grateful for what you have -> love what you have. Do things that you want to love until you love them, but don’t assume that happiness is something you need to work for externally – it’s all in the thinking. Develop positive thinking patterns about what you already have.
“I’d like to think about something, but I can’t seem to.”
I feel like that most of the time, hence this blog where I make myself think about very specific things that I subject myself to. I feel like it’s a generally exhausting task – coming up with ideas without any inspiration. I’m very bad at improvisation and on-the-spot ideas.
Lesson for me: Start practising coming up with random ideas.
“A woman’s all half-measures. It gets me down.”
I can’t think of very many things that I would have an extreme opinion on. And I do think it’s a classically female trait, but it’s because biologically women are weaker and hence need to be more agreeable to survive. So I’ve found that indeed I lean more towards open-mindedness (almost so as not to offend anyone, however I’ve learnt to love it and prefer it to extreme views set in stone), which can certainly be annoying for someone who just needs to get an answer out of me.
Lesson for me: As I said, I don’t find not being able to make my mind up a massive issue, as it gives me flexibility to approach any topic with readiness to take in new information. I do find that often, however, I do make my mind up and don’t speak up – so as not to offend or upset anyone –, and it is making me miserable when I end up having to suffer unpleasant consequences. There is a lesson in having the confidence to share my views or opinions when I do have them.
“I told you, the worst flaw is cowardice.”
Again, I find cowardice a female trait due to biological implications. But me being born into the a culture different from my family’s, I think that growing up, cowardice has kept me safe in the sense of me not offending anyone. And it’s a nice cosy feeling – not having to put yourself out there and risk rejection. Until you realise you’re becoming stale and not really moving forward.
Lesson for me: Do things that scare you, push yourself into uncomfortable situations… Grow again.
“Are you scared?” “It’s too late to be scared.”
I think this is the only way I don’t get scared – when there’s no room for it left. If I have any chance of getting out of an uncomfortable situation, I’ll get out of it, but once one of my feet is in it, I’ll go all in.
Reminder for me: Do this more often: don’t leave yourself any ways out.
In conclusion
Breathless was such a fun intro back into Godard! MUBI is having his special on, so I’m sure I’ll be back trying to decode something from the misleading quotes pretty soon again!
Until the next time,
Jake
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