Jean-Luc Godard and Bertolt Brecht:
Godard's Criticism, Breathless & Vivre sa Vie

Godard's Film Criticism

10 Best Films of 1957

Bitter Victory (Nicholas Ray)
The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock)
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Frank Tashlin)
Hollywood Or Bust (Frank Tashlin)
Les Trois Font la Paire (Sacha Guitry)
A King in New York (Charlie Chaplin)
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang)
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (Luis Buñuel)
Sawdust and Tinsel (Ingmar Bergman)
Saint Joan (Otto Preminger)

Breathless (1960)

See more Breathless illustrations.

A jump cut -- Patricia in a car with Michel driving.

Shot One Shot Two

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Epic Theatre

Bertolt Brecht issue: Cahiers du cinéma, no. 114 (December 1960). Essays include:

Bertolt Brecht, "La Bosse (scénario)"
Bertolt Brecht, "Sur le système cinématographie" ("The cinematographic system")
Joseph Losey, "L'œil du maître" ("The eye of the master")
Bernard Dort, "Pour une critique brechtienne du cinéma" ("For a Brechtian film critique")
Louis Marcorelles, "D'un art moderne" ("From a modern art")

DRAMATIC THEATRE	EPIC THEATRE
plot	narrative
implicates the spectator in a stage situation	turns the spectator into an observer, but
wears down his capacity for action	arouses his capacity for action
provides him with sensations	forces him to take decisions
experience	picture of the world
the spectator is involved in something	he is made to face something
suggestion	argument
instinctive feelings are preserved	brought to the point of recognition
the spectator is in the thick of it, shares the experience	the spectator stands outside, studies
the human being is taken for granted	the human being is the object of the inquiry
he is unalterable	he is alterable and able to alter
eyes on the finish	eyes on the course
one scene makes another	each scene for itself
growth	montage
linear development	in curves
evolutionary determinism	jumps
man as fixed point	man as a process
thought determines being	social being determines thought
feeling	reason

Source: Bertolt Brecht, "The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre," in Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and trans. John Willett (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964), 37.

Counter Cinema

"DEADLY SINS" OF THE CLASSICAL CINEMA	"CARDINAL VIRTUES" OF COUNTER CINEMA
Narrative transitivity	Narrative intransitivity
Identification	Estrangement
Transparency	Foregrounding
Single diegesis	Multiple diegesis
Closure	Aperture
Pleasure	Un-pleasure
Fiction	Reality