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When Jean-Luc Godard began shooting À Bout deSouffle, few could have realised that his debutfeature film would revolutionise world cinema.Similarly, I had little idea that in time myphotographs of the film would themselves becomeiconic, emblematic of the French New Wave.

Godard’s film had rather humble beginnings. In1959, the producer Georges de Beauregardthought he was ruined after the commercial failureof the films Ramuntcho and Pêcheur d’Islande. Agreat admirer of the French writer Pierre Loti(author of both Ramuntcho and Pêcheur d’Islande),Beauregard had imposed these subjects on thedirector Pierre Schoendorffer, who had taken themon with no great enthusiasm. The public wereequally unenthused when the film was released.

Beauregard had one life raft to cling to: Frenchculture minister André Malraux had recently madefinancial aid available to the cinema industry in abid to stimulate the production of new films.Filmmakers could apply for a loan of 30 millionfrancs – not enough in itself to produce a typicalfeature film, but a valuable subsidy for aproduction budget. Beauregard’s big idea was tofind a director who could deliver a complete filmon a budget of 30 million francs. The seriousdirectors were hardly falling over each other – atthat time no one thought it was possible to makea film for less than 100 million.

However, Jean-Luc Godard, who happened to bearound, said he was perfectly happy to direct a film

on those terms. Naturally, Beauregard tried toimpose a subject taken from Loti, but Godard hadthe courage to resist. He actually had no ideawhat he did want to do, but that was just a trivialdetail. He consulted his friends, François Truffautand Claude Chabrol, and they finally landed on arecent news item about the misadventures of ayoung hoodlum being hunted by the police. Theydrew up a one-page synopsis and showed it toBeauregard, who accepted it for want of anythingbetter. Little did he realise that he had just madethe most important decision of his career – themodest synopsis was the birth certificate of À Boutde Souffle.

They had to work quickly. When shooting startedin August 1959 the film’s screenplay still hadn’tbeen written. The worksheets contained nothingbut the locations, and Godard improvised thescenes on a day-to-day basis. In the mornings hewould sit on his own in a café, writing out dialogueon scraps of paper that he would pass to theactors just before shooting began.

Jean-Paul Belmondo, star of À Bout de Souffle, wasphilosophical about Godard’s approach andadapted to the situation readily, but Jean Seberg,his co-star, who was used to big-budgetHollywood productions, was driven crazy by it. Onthe first day of shooting, on the Champs-Elysées,she got into a shouting match with Godard, whichI photographed as it developed. Jean wanted toquit the film and return to America. Eventually,Godard managed to convince her to continue for

The New WaveRaymond Cauchetier

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a few days more, just to see how it went; in theend she stayed for the rest of the film, and she didwell out of it – À Bout de Souffle made her world-famous and gave her career a huge lift.

Beauregard, however, was perturbed to seeGodard sometimes send his crew home beforethey had completed a full day’s shooting; when thedirector ran out of inspiration, he would call a haltand arrange a time to meet up the following day. Itwas intolerable. Beauregard fired off a furiousmemo threatening to cancel the film and lay off allthe crew. He turned up at the shoot and had aviolent altercation with Godard; they had to bedragged apart. Of course, they quickly came to anarrangement; it was in everyone’s interest.

To stay within the agreed budget, Godard got ridof everything he regarded as inessential: no studioshooting – instead he used rooms rented by theday, and exteriors whenever possible; no livesound recording – the soundtrack was dubbedlater; the ultra-fast Ilford HPS film stock enabledhim to use photo-roman style lighting; and he paidrock-bottom salaries to the actors and theskeleton film crew. The largest fee, seven millionfrancs, went to Jean Seberg, who was to be thedraw for the American film-going public. The filmcame in on budget and À Bout de Souffle becamethe stuff of legend.

It is difficult for me to sum up in a few lines what Ithink about the New Wave. Countless books havebeen written on the subject. I’ll content myselfwith expressing an opinion, to do with thecamera, an opinion I consider both important andoriginal: The thing that more than anything enabledthe New Wave to come into existence was the readyavailability of 35mm Ilford 400 ASA black-and-whitenegative film.

Originally, the film was created purely forphotographers and was sold in 30-metre reels,while the slower film stock designed for the cinema

(25ASA) was sold in 300-metre reels, allowing forten minutes of continuous shooting. The greatinnovation came from the excellent cameramanRaoul Coutard: he loaded a portable Cameflex with30-metre reels of Ilford, even though the camerawas designed to carry the classical 120-metre filmreels. The speed of the Ilford film, which was usedby all the press photographers of the time, allowedfilming in reduced light and gave the images astrikingly realistic look.

Before we began working in cinema, Coutard and Iregularly used this film for the photo-romans(photo novels) produced by Hubert Serra, a friendof Georges de Beauregard. With a littleexperimentation, we worked out how to use twoflashes, directed at a white wall and the ceiling togive the photos a striking relief. It was an excellenteducation in lighting that Coutard was able todraw on when filming for Godard, who, luckily, andfor reasons of economy, wasn’t searching for the‘beautiful image’, but rather a slice of life. Coutardreplaced the flashes with floodlights, and that’show they filmed the now immortal room scenesin À Bout de Souffle, among others, combiningdaylight and a few floodlights (see below). This wasachieved thanks to the speed of the Ilford film andthe techniques of photo-romans. It would have beenimpossible otherwise.

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At 25 frames a second, the 30-metre reels ofIlford film allowed only a minute’s worth offilming, obliging Godard to employ the choppyform of montage that so enraptured the critics.Few people appreciate how much the New Waveowes to Ilford film.

Generally speaking, the on-set photographer triesto be as unobtrusive as possible. Even actors whoare totally at ease in front of the camera canfreeze when they realise they are beingphotographed. The best photos are taken on themove; I learned that in Indo-China by watchingwar photographers, who were reporters ratherthan artists. They were the eyewitnesses of theirtimes and had no right to compose theirphotographs in the way that fashion photographersdo in their studios. An artist, even a photographer,is a creator, who imposes his own personality, hisvision, on the subjects that are offered to him. Thisis exactly what the reporter must avoid doing.Maybe I could have become an artist too, but Inever felt the need. Each to their own.

In reportage, what counts, as Henri Cartier-Bressonemphasised, is the search for the decisive moment,the hundredth of a second that captures andamplifies an action. It’s not something you learn inphotographic school, it’s something you feel.

Cartier-Bresson, as it happens, detested theRolleiflex; he had a pronounced preference for theLeica, maybe because Leica sponsored the Magnumagency. But I started my career with a Rolleiflex,the camera that all the war correspondents inIndo-China used, because it was built to withstandeverything. I dropped mine in the Mekong onseveral occasions and was able to use it againimmediately, or at least once it had dried out. Icontinued to use the Rolleiflex for my cinemaphotos, even though the fixed 80mm lens was notvery suitable for portraits. I didn’t regret it.

Film directors, at least the ones I knew, took little

interest in still photos; the only exception wasJean-Pierre Melville, who liked to pore overcontact sheets. It’s understandable – cinema isabout movement, action, speech and often music,all things that are missing from traditional studiostills. Yet, over the course of time, it is thephotograph that constitutes the principal memoryof a film and, in some cases, gives the work anextended lease of life. It has taken producers along time to realise this.

When I first set out, Georges de Beauregardcriticised me for taking too many photos: ‘Onephoto per scene is enough. If you take more,you’re wasting film and you slow the productiondown. And time is money!’ In the end he fired me.But that was mainly because my shots weredifferent from those of the head cameraman,which was unforgivable.

Fortunately, François Truffaut welcomed me withopen arms, and I was able to illustrateunforgettable films such as Jules et Jim and La PeauDouce, although I always regretted not being ableto take the photographs for Le Mépris, one ofJean-Luc Godard’s masterpieces.

Off camera, I would try to capture the keymoments without being noticed. There alwayscomes a moment when everyone forgets that thephotographer is there, and that’s just great.

At the time the New Wave films were being made,my style received no critical attention at all; it wascompletely ignored. Similarly, it should not beforgotten that my photos, which are now soughtafter by press and collectors alike, languished industy cardboard boxes for 40 years. It wasn’t thefashion to show behind the scenes of a shoot.Georges de Beauregard told me that the audienceneeds to dream, to believe that what they areseeing on the screen is a true story, thatBelmondo really is laying out his adversaries withjust one punch. We mustn’t reveal that everything

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is planned to the nearest centimetre, or that everyscene is shot several times. The audience shouldbe unaware of the camera. Today, there’s adifferent mentality. The audience has grown up andnow has a genuine interest in the making of thefilm. They have become connoisseurs.

Despite the prevailing tastes of the New Waveperiod, it is not traditional film stills – the ones mycolleagues and I were paid to produce – that havewritten the history of cinema, but the ‘non-film’photos, those that show the methods andcharacters of the directors and the hidden face ofcinema. These non-film photos, for which I tookmuch flak, are now the only ones that remain.

I’m always surprised when one of my photographsis seen as emblematic, symbolising not just theNew Wave but also a whole era, and evensometimes France itself. Why is it that certainimages unexpectedly take on this mantle? It’s notfor me to say; I merely register my surprise.

One of the most famous photographs is ‘the walkdown the Champs-Elysées’ from À Bout de Souffle.It should never have existed. Godard had a lot oftrouble filming this scene, where Belmondo meetsJean Seberg, an unauthorised street seller of theNew York Herald Tribune. Godard had the idea ofconcealing the cameraman in a postman’s trolleywith a hole cut out of the front. This allowed himto film the actors and to call out directions asdiscreetly as possible. But the device was soonrumbled, and a crowd began to gather round thetrolley. The camera may have had enough time tocapture the essential action, but I was unable to getan accurate photo of the scene. So I askedBelmondo and Seberg to walk to the bottom endof the Champs-Elysées, where the pavement wasstill deserted, and to replay the scene, just for me.They very kindly agreed. My experience directingphoto-romans, the trade from which I still earned aliving between film shoots, helped ensure that theirlooks were properly aligned and their walks

satisfactorily in sync. And this simple photoachieved a completely unexpected worldwidefame.

Another photo became almost as famous, the oneknown as ‘the kiss on the Champs-Elysées’. It’s theimage on the cover of this book (see above),although, paradoxically, there is no correspondingclose-up in the film. That day, Jean-Luc Godard hadwanted to shoot the actors walking down theChamps-Elysées once again, but to avoid attractinga crowd, the camera was set up on the roof of abuilding. It was a wide shot, where Seberg leavesBelmondo, planting a kiss on his cheek. Filmedfrom the sixth floor, the scene played out almostunnoticed, and I thought that was a shame. So Iasked Seberg and Belmondo to replay it for me. Itonly took a few seconds.

Like many of the photographs I took in the NewWave period, the close-up of Seberg and Belmondoon the Champs-Elysées spent much of the next halfcentury in a box, all but forgotten. Only recently, andto my great surprise, has it found an appreciative,global audience. In common with all the photographsin this book – of Truffaut, Godard, Moreau et al – itrecalls a decisive moment, documenting a remarkablechapter in the story of cinema.

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THE SCREENPLAYThe producer wasindignant when hesaw Godard writingdialogues in a caféand sending the filmcrew home becausehe didn’t have anyideas that morning.

20-21 Les Quatre Cent Coups, François Truffaut, 1959

22-23 À Bout de Souffle, Jean-Luc Godard, 1959

ISBN: 978-1-85149-791-1

ËxHSLIPBy497911zv+:+:!:!:! £????/$????www.antiquecollectorsclub.co.uk