Still from Jean Luc Godard's Breathless

When I was in film- school this kid in our film-group used to sketch "Godard Is God" in his notebook. I would roll my eyes because I found Godard's agit-pop to be tedious to the point of sleep. So recently running through this Criterion DVD the funny thing was to discover how prescient a movie "Alphaville" really was. Part sci-fi, part noir detective tale, the story has actress Anna Karina at her most luminous, a master computer growling instructions to our hero, really gorgeous shots of modern city architecture in Paris circa 1965 and a chilling early warning about how dehumanizing an excessive worship of technology can be for a society. Fashion kids are always digging up Jean Seberg in "Breathless" as the big Godard reference but for TI it really is all about the clinical precision of "Alphaville". Funny how Paris doesn't look like that these days. But get into the circular construction of Anna's coat as positioned against the swirling spirals of the staircase. That's what you call framing a shot!

Jean Luc Godard's Breathless