Years ago I was first introduced to Goddard's Band of Outsiders. Although today I feel oppositely, then it was a new language to me and it made me sleepy. But still my friend tried to explain how Goddard intentionally used editing to interrupt the fictional narrative on screen. In the dancing scene above, music is cut out (probably very simply by using the player's mute switch - Goddard was very resourceful in his production. Like even using a wheelchair) and narration dubbed in, while you can still hear the shuffles and snaps of the actors themselves.
Or, like later, mirrored in Terantino's Pulp Fiction diner dance scene, the narrative already being laid out is interrupted by this very theatric, but almost separate moment. Goddard's ruthless editing also makes his films look intentionally mismatched, with movements jerky or missing. A good example of such editing and (at first take, obnoxious) use of on and off music is the driving scene in Breathless. There's a fictional story being constructed here like any movie, but Goddard is also trying to make that more real by reminding us of how strange it is that these two people are probably driving the same route over and over; pretending. Goddard would famously edit together documentary like footage (long before this sort of Docu-reality became popular) of his actors on breaks or having a cigarette. And these would be written in, usually on the spot, into the movies story (this is not a post of Goddard's filmmaking prowess, but I will make one more aside: he was also infamous for changing his script daily, even making it up each morning to keep his actors and producers confused).
We're being reminded that these are movies. Artiface. And yet somehow these interruptions make other things feel more real.
When Art Observed posted this story of a found Velazquez painting (above), the chipped and old surface of the painting got me thinking again of interruptions and our sensation of reality. What sorts of imperfections were a part of image making (whether intentional or uncontrollable) that changed the image's narrative and impression on us?
