ABSTRACT

A detailed look at the use and significance of the two most prominent cinematic techniques employed in Breathless: the jump cut and the tracking shot. The chapter shows that jump cuts can be seen as “metaphysical” insofar as they illuminate the relationship between a filmed scene and the reality that was filmed in order to produce that scene. Tracking shots, by contrast, are shown to be, as Godard once put it “a question of morality.” His use of them in Breathless not only allows audiences to differentiate between their own perspective and concerns and those of the characters on screen. They also highlight the way that individual perspectives never fully coincide, so that his film suggests vividly the problem of intersubjectivity at the heart of ethics.