From Chemistry to Cinema: The Man Behind the Camera (and the Chemistry) of the French New Wave

In 1960, the movie world was turned upside-down and left (sorry in advance about this upcoming pun) breathless with Jean-Luc Godard's youthful and breezy Breathless.  The film's lack of polish with its man-on-the-run/love story narrative set it apart from the classic Hollywood and Italian Neorealism films that influenced it.  While the film may be remembered for its pretty faces of Jean-Paul Belmondo and the infinitely gorgeous Jean Seberg, improvisational acting and abundance of jump cuts, I can tell you the reason I love this movie.  It's the man behind the handheld camera.  His name is Raoul Coutard.

"I never dreamed of working on a movie.  I always wanted to be a chemist."

Nowadays, it's hard to imagine a cinematographer having the career he or she has without attending school.  Go through 4 years of school, then attend grad school and hopefully work your way up to eventually attaining ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) cred.  But back in in 1960 when Coutard was handling the camera for Godard, the man had very little feature film experience having only worked on 3 films prior to Breathless.  In fact, Coutard's first DP (director of photography) job on The Devil's Pass came about without even having held a motion picture film camera.

Coutard in the opening credits of Godard's Contempt.

Prior to his work as a DP, Coutard attended school to be a chemist, of all things.  But, "due to financial reasons," Coutard was forced to drop out and was eventually transferred to photography school.  But how serendipitous!  A background in chemistry eventually leading to photography, a craft which sort of requires a knowledge of chemistry.  For 11 years, Coutard took war photos in 'Nam for publications like Look, the same magazine in which Stanley Kubrick worked on staff.

The innovative use of a wheelchair as a dolly on the set of Breathless.

From shooting war, reportage photographs to shooting Godard's first feature film, the transition once again feels like fate.  Godard had hand-picked his DP for Breathless, a young, student DP Michel Latouche with whom he had worked on prior shorts.  French union regulations kept Latouche from shooting with Godard.  While Godard still wanted Latouche, producer Georges de Beauregard imposed upon Godard a cameraman who had worked on a film he had produced, The Devil's Pass.  Of course, that man was Raoul Coutard.  Godard said to Coutard, "We will shoot this film as if we are reporting a story."  Another serendipitous turn of events as shooting quickly and handheld as a photojournalist was Coutard's strong suit anyway.  The rest is cinema history.

Coutard and Costa-Gavras on the set of Z.

I take away two things from this incredible story.  One is that Coutard changed the face of La Nouvelle Vague (the French New Wave).  Without him, I don't see these films being as popular or even catching on.  As Jean-Pierre Melville said, "Breathless could easily have been a flop."  Certainly, it could have been.  But I think Coutard's camaerwork, handheld and breezy, aided in the editing process when Godard would shorten entire clips, jump cutting to particular dialogue.  Coutard's further work with Godard and even François Truffaut brought the sometimes haphazard and always youthful French New Wave to life.  That is something I look up to.

Two, and probably the most important to me, is that events build up to an eventual break through.  As the entire story of Coutard and the Coutard quote I used as a caption under the first photo illustrates, the man never thought he would shoot a still photo or motion picture sequence in his life.  It was by happenstance or pure fate that Coutard ended up as the champion of cinematography he is today.  Each step along the way in his life set him up to reach that point.  As a young, aspiring cinematographer trying to work his way to that eventual point where my work epitomizes the look of an entire movement of film, that's pretty damn exciting!  I can see Coutard's career becoming my own.

Raoul Coutard is my favorite cinematographer.  Whether it be the loose camerawork of black and white pictures like Breathless or Jules and Jim or the wonderfully vibrant CinemaScope color films like A Woman is a Woman or Pierrot le Fou, Coutard has captured this young, aspiring cinematographer's imagination and desire to shoot movies and has made him believe that it is possible.