Akira McKinzie
Films or Moral Struggle
Professor Al Auster
Spring 2015
Jules Et Jim
Jules et Jim, a French New Wave film relies heavily on camera movements to supply elements of the New Wave aesthetic. The story is about two men, Jules and Jim, one from Austria, the other from France, who become lifelong friends after they meet in Paris 1912. They travel, take in art, and even share the women they court, until they meet Catherine. They both fall in love with her, but the impulsive Catherine chooses Jules at first, and then leads them along an unpredictable journey of affairs and odd behavior for years. The use of the camera in the film is very fluid and swirling, sometimes independent of the narrative, which plays on the morality within the …show more content…
Catherine sings a song called “Le tourbillon” or “The Whirpool” which is repeated thoroughout the film to further this motif. This is a song about life being a whirlpool and states, “we go round and round, together bound.” This song as Catherine sings to the three men she desires and seeks out, reflects the fluid way that their relationships work. Jules et Jim offers an innovated look at the way relationships can exist, and Catherine, being both in the center of the whirlpool and the force that makes it spin, offers up the ultimate modern woman. Fidelity versus infidelity is a major moral point that is examined, and played with in the film, and the whirlpool offers an …show more content…
The two halves are distinct from one another, but still allow for New Wave aesthetic, we just see different sides of the characters. In the first half, soon after Jules and Jim meet Catherine, we are taken for a ride as they playfully explore and expound life upon one another. As the characters are playful, so is the camera and editing, remaining lighthearted and fun. The most important scene within the first half of the film is the scene that encapsulates the New Wave movement. The one shot scene, where Catherine, Jules and Jim race along the bridge in unifying joy is taken from a shaky camera which races along in front of them as the actors run. Their playfulness as they get to know one another is broken up in parts by Catherine’s “lightening” as Jim calls it. When the two men at all upset or ignore her, she shocks them, jumping into a river in protest to their disparaging her favorite heroine, or creating a disturbance during their game of dominoes. The camera echoes these broken up moments, with quick shots that do not linger upon a single subject and abrupt cut-away shots. As with Catherine’s actions and her unbothered-ness of her actions towards the men’s affections, the cameras’ actions have no direct consequences. Francios Truffaut allows for overt
Films or Moral Struggle
Professor Al Auster
Spring 2015
Jules Et Jim
Jules et Jim, a French New Wave film relies heavily on camera movements to supply elements of the New Wave aesthetic. The story is about two men, Jules and Jim, one from Austria, the other from France, who become lifelong friends after they meet in Paris 1912. They travel, take in art, and even share the women they court, until they meet Catherine. They both fall in love with her, but the impulsive Catherine chooses Jules at first, and then leads them along an unpredictable journey of affairs and odd behavior for years. The use of the camera in the film is very fluid and swirling, sometimes independent of the narrative, which plays on the morality within the …show more content…
Catherine sings a song called “Le tourbillon” or “The Whirpool” which is repeated thoroughout the film to further this motif. This is a song about life being a whirlpool and states, “we go round and round, together bound.” This song as Catherine sings to the three men she desires and seeks out, reflects the fluid way that their relationships work. Jules et Jim offers an innovated look at the way relationships can exist, and Catherine, being both in the center of the whirlpool and the force that makes it spin, offers up the ultimate modern woman. Fidelity versus infidelity is a major moral point that is examined, and played with in the film, and the whirlpool offers an …show more content…
The two halves are distinct from one another, but still allow for New Wave aesthetic, we just see different sides of the characters. In the first half, soon after Jules and Jim meet Catherine, we are taken for a ride as they playfully explore and expound life upon one another. As the characters are playful, so is the camera and editing, remaining lighthearted and fun. The most important scene within the first half of the film is the scene that encapsulates the New Wave movement. The one shot scene, where Catherine, Jules and Jim race along the bridge in unifying joy is taken from a shaky camera which races along in front of them as the actors run. Their playfulness as they get to know one another is broken up in parts by Catherine’s “lightening” as Jim calls it. When the two men at all upset or ignore her, she shocks them, jumping into a river in protest to their disparaging her favorite heroine, or creating a disturbance during their game of dominoes. The camera echoes these broken up moments, with quick shots that do not linger upon a single subject and abrupt cut-away shots. As with Catherine’s actions and her unbothered-ness of her actions towards the men’s affections, the cameras’ actions have no direct consequences. Francios Truffaut allows for overt