Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

Recently watched the classic 1960 À bout de souffle (Breathless), which I hadn’t viewed since a History of Cinema college screening 30 years ago. Filmed in Paris, Breathless is Jean Luc Godard’s first feature, based on a story by Francois Truffaut. Heralded as a cornerstone of the French New Wave Cinema, it is shot in an edgy, spontaneous style of the beatnick jazz poetry of the times. The main character is a shiftless chain smoking car thief played by Jean Paul Belmondo. The film is often heralded as a turning point in filmmaking.

Naked, 1993 directed by Mike Leigh and filmed in locations around gritty parts of London. The protagonist Johnny, calls himself a cheeky monkey and is a similar chain-smoking, woman chasing, bad guy hero on the run cast from the same mold as Belmondo’s character.

My previous review of Kurosowa’s Drunken Angel covers the similar harrowing decline of a self destructive modern tough guy. Better him than me, eh Chuck-o?
So now that DV cameras are cheap, where are the new new wave of guerrilla cinematographers and little guys up against the odds of big established society? Perhaps they are with GNN: The Guerrilla News Network or Channel 101. We will know it when we see it: raw, jagged, real and maybe a little bit romantic.