From: "Bill Flavell" <billflavell3-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: ft-l: Was Breathless "Avante-Garde"?
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 13:43:13 PST



   IMO, the recent comparison of Tarantino (T) and Pulp Fiction (P) with 
Godard (G) and Breathless (B) in a recent post in the avante garde 
thread doesn't "elevate" T and P, but on the contrary, calls into 
question for me the alleged significance of G and B.

   IMO, the only thing "new" about P is the "tone". It has absolutely 
nothing to offer on the level of mise en scene. In other words, it's 
"literary" and just a bunch of pastiche. It's significant that I read an 
interview of T with De Palma, and T claimed Blow-Out was his favorite 
film. De Palma is another pastiche-geek.

   When I browsed through the Criterion Collection version of Breathless 
recently, I was surprised at how UN-innovative it was, and how glib, 
self-congratulatory and "cute" it was also, especially after reading 
some of Godard's criticism, which , to me, is pretty perceptive and 
passionate.

   Was Breathless avante-garde, and compared to what? Surely not 
Battleship Potemkin, Rules of the Game, Citizen Kane, Rome: Open City or 
Bicycle Thieves.

   Here's the Internet Movie Database page for France in 1959:

http://us.imdb.com/M/list?year=1959&&tv=on&&countries=France



   The list includes 400 Blows, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Pickpocket, The 
Lovers, 2 Chabrol titles and a Bunuel. Did B actually contribute more to 
the evolution of film language than these other films?

   I haven't seen any of them except 400 Blows and I was lucky to see B. 
That's the unfortunate state of affairs if you aren't independently 
wealthy enough to hunt the films down, and the critical "priestcraft" 
takes advantage of the situation and gives you their "official" history, 
which is a crock of shit.

   

   Bill Flavell

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