Experimental film maker Gerard Courant has taken Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and sped up it (or compressed it as he prefers to call it) into a four minute movie.

The French title of Godard’s debut film is À bout de souffle which translates to English as “out of breath.” Courant’s compression is most likely a play on the title.

What I find interesting about the compression is the way it brings Godard’s style and the American noir films he was inspired by to the foreground. The nervous energy of the film, the pans and tracking shots, cigarettes smoked, automobiles in motion, zooms, jump-cuts, and close-ups, all create an angular yet fluid motion that seems driven by forces of destiny - the movie is tumbling into a dark void of betrayal and its opposite - yin and yanging to the beat beat beat of a heart in the throes of atrial tachycardia. No time to catch your breath - you’re breathless.

Fucking with Godard’s masterpiece is very Godardian.

If, as Godard claims, “cinema is truth at 24 frames per second” what is cinema at 524 frames per second?
 

 
Gerard Courant’s Cinematon is a 175 hour long film comprised of 2,627 portraits (cinematons), each made from exactly one reel of three minute and 25 second 8mm silent film. They were shot between 1978 and 2012. Courant’s subjects vary from his close personal friends to artists in various fields, including actors, painters, film makers, as well as public figures known and not-so well-known.

Among the many directors that Courant has filmed are Samuel Fuller, Terry Gilliam, Jean-Luc Godard and Wim Wenders, to name just a few.

I’ve chosen a handful of my favorites to share with you. They can seen after the jump. Approximately 900 cinematons can be viewed here.

The entire collection of cinematons has been screened only twice and as a whole is the longest film ever made. I love many of these little vignettes because they’re so naked and at times you do feel as if you’re peering into the soul of the people on film. The natural lighting and silence contributes to their purity.

Of the cinematons I’ve seen, #264 is among the ones that delighted me the most, for obvious reasons. The subject is Galaxie Barbouth, the daughter of French actor Joel Barbouth, and she’s absoulutely wonderful. I believe this is Courant’s favorite.
 

 
Samuel Fuller, Sandrine Bonnaire, Derek Jarman, Terry Gilliam and Julie Delpy after the jump…