Jean Luc Godard “To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body. Both go together, they can’t be separated” - Jean-Luc Godard Photography Nuria Pons Styling Nuria Pons Words Nuria Pons
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he following images are part of a creative process based on capturing Jean-Luc Godard´s cinematographic style through photography. Godard is a cinema director, pioneer of the French New Wave during the 60´s. The main focus of the editorial is being placed in one of the first movies of the director ‘Breathless’; conceptualizing the female character Patricia.
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In order to develop his technique it is important to understand the director´s background. Godard was a cinematographic critic and discussed philosophy, politics, society and cultural behaviours. One of his main focus was existentialism -also portrayed in his movies- the mystery of being and the alienation of personality that leads to the absurd in the way the characters behave or speak.
In the movie ‘Breathless’ the characters narrate existentialism thoughts concerning the meaning of life, death and art. The complexity of the characters show a strong sense of emotion juxtaposed along with mundane daily activities. Also, the director portrays the concerns of young generation during the 60´s in Paris. Based on the past analysis during CWK1 of the film and its technique, it was concluded to focus the concept of the editorial paying tribute to the way Jean-Luc Godard –film director of ‘Breathless´- captures artistic content, narratives, emotions and points of perspective. As the director, the student wants to focus on spontaneity followed by creative freedom. The model - called Marina Llobera- was asked to understand the expression of emotional thought of the female character showed in the movie to reproduce a sense during the shooting. In addition, the student experiments with aesthetic possibilities of other movies directed by Godard such as ´Masculin Féminin´. As already mentioned before, the characters of the movie go through an existentialism process of thought that leads them feeling dethatched and lost in personal thoughts. The student wants to illustrate this process with the juxtaposition of mundane of daily activities. Some of the techniques that are used in the editorial to portray a new dimension to photography -to assemble it to the cinematographic art of Godard- are Jump cuts. During the shooting process a few sequences of Jump cuts were taken, however only one was chosen to appear in the editorial due to the sense of motion that it is narrating. The style of the pictures are intended to look and feel raw, making the model vulnerable while the images are capturing her thinking about life, death and art. Adding to the sense of vulnerability, the model is not using a complete make up look. The ideal aim was to do a natural face playing with nudes colours using foundation, concealer,
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eye-brow gel, mascara and a touch of blush on the cheeks while emphasising the cat eye liquid eyeliner. Concerning the styling, it also had to be subtle to adjoin it with the simplicity and spontaneity of the film director. The looks were inspired in Patricia – female character of ´Breathless´ and in the Parisian look of the 60´s. Initially, the shooting of the editorial was planned to photograph more full body shots with different outfits. However, during the selection and editing process the student decided to include more close-up images to attribute to the raw and vulnerable feeling mentioned above. Nevertheless, one of the main points of the editorial is the location. Godard has a ingenious way of glorying the city of Paris in almost every movie that he has directed. As the director, the student aims to portray Paris in a sophisticated yet modest way. The illusion lies in shooting in local and plain Parisian streets instead of main avenues such as Champs Elysees or George V, as seen in the movie. Therefore, the mystery is located on the doubt of the viewer whether or not it has actually been photograph in Paris. Initially, the images were supposed to be coloured, however due to the lack of natural lighting the student decided to edit the shots on Photoshop while playing with different layers of contrast and exposure of black and white. The publication choose to publish the images is a biannual British magazine called ‘Another Magazine’. The publication celebrates fashion and beauty; art and photography and design and living. Therefore, readers are not only interested in a fashion magazines, but a culture magazine. As mentioned before, the motivation behind the editorial is to honour Jean-Luc Godard and to show his relevancy to this day while emphasising his shooting, editing and narrative techniques. The content, the layout style and photography matches the students aesthetic objectives.
Beige Trench Coat from BURBERRY. Vintage Clutch. Sunglasses by CÉLINE
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Striped sweater by SANDRO. Vintage Hat. Sunglasses by CÉLINE
Beige Trench Coat from BURBERRY. Green silk scarf by UTERQÜE. Sunglasses by CÉLINE
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Anon, (n.d.). Quora. [online] Available at: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-basic-conceptsideas-of-existentialism [Accessed 21 Nov. 2018]. AnOther. (2019). Creative Director Laura Genninger on AnOther’s New Look. [online] Available at: https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/7146/creative-director-laura-genninger-on-anothers-new-look [Accessed 22 Jan. 2019]. BrainyQuote. (n.d.). Jean-Luc Godard Quotes. [online] Available at: https://www.brainyquote. com/quotes/jeanluc_god- ard_108249 [Accessed 21 Nov. 2018]. En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Meaning of life. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Meaning_of_life [Accessed 21 Nov. 2018]. IMDb. (n.d.). Breathless (1960). [online] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053472/ [Accessed 22 Jan. 2019]. Oxfordbibliographies.com. (n.d.). Auteurism - Cinema and Media Studies - Oxford Bibliographies - obo. [online] Available at: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo9780199791286/obo-9780199791286-0009.xml [Accessed 21 Nov. 2018]. Philosophy in Film. (2018). 10 Absurdist Films for Philosophy Students. [online] Available at: https://philosophyinfilm. com/2018/01/21/10-absurdist-films-for-philosophy-students/ [Accessed 21 Nov. 2018]. Scholarlyrepository.miami.edu. (2008). University of Miami. [online] Available at: https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1129&context=oa_theses [Accessed 21 Nov. 2018]. The-artifice.com. (n.d.). The French New Wave | The Artifice. [online] Available at: https://the-artifice.com/the-french-new- wave/ [Accessed 21 Nov. 2018].
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ANNEX
Inspirational Moodboard for images. The layout inspiration refers to VOL 2 Issue 7 Spring/Summer 2018 Saoirse Ronan photograph by Craig McDean
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