Homework Movie - A Woman is a Woman

This story has been done in various forms over and over throughout the years in different cultures. What I enjoyed about A Woman Is a Woman was the use of different camera edits like in the opening few minutes when the other "dancer" was showing her costume change. Going from one side of the screen, crossing the 180 line in the new outfit was genius. Long time collaborators Jean-Luc Godard and Raoul Coutard, the cinematographer, have worked together on almost a dozen films (most with Anna also) in the 60's through the 80's.

The sudden starts and stops of the sound to match or not match the scene was a bit alarming at first. Something like that takes me out of the movie experience. Perhaps it was intentional, but that didn't come across to me.

Also, what I found fun was to see that the main characters were really playing to the camera in some scenes. Anna Karina and her boyfriend in the movie Jean-Claude Brialy, were really funny when they were fighting in the apartment scene and they stopped in the middle of it to talk to us. However, in the similar scene when the titling came across telling the story before it unfolded, it was unnerving to me.

Homework Film - 400 Blows

Going from the documentary High School to The 400 Blows was seemingly simple. 400 Blows is the first movie from French Director François Truffaut, the movie follows a character based on his own life, so it feels like a documentary. Using real locations such as the carnival ride where Jean-Pierre Léaud, who played Antione, is playing hooky with his friend looked incredible. Later on, I was disapointed that his friend Rene couldn't visit him in the reform school. Come to find out that was based entirely on real events from Truffaut's life.

I noticed there were longer takes and less different angles for takes even for close up shots. It must have been difficult to set up for those shots back then, but it really shows how much thought was put into every take. The scene near the end of the movie where he was running must have taken tremendous effort and planning. To set up that long of a shot, and to have the young Leaud run that in one take looking like he wasn't breaking a sweat, could have been a scene from a running documentary.