Sequence Breakdown and 1-Page Analysis
SHOT BY SHOT:
1. Shot 1: MLS- Static shot. MAN in center of frame, his back to camera, reading a
newspaper. JULIETTE seated to his left, received a bottle of Coke, while a WOMAN
seated to his right looks through a magazine. A mirror in the top left corner provided a
reflection of the WOMAN in profile and the back of JULIETTE’s head. (21 seconds)
2. Shot 2: CU- Static shot. JULIETTE’s face is in the center of the frame as she brushes her
hair back, takes a drink of her coke, and looks over to the right. JULLIETTE crinkles her
brow in response to what she’s looking at out of the frame. Behind her, the mirror reflects
the WOMAN from the previous shot, indicating JULIETTE is looking at her. (12.
seconds)
3. Shot 3: CU - Static shot. An illustrated magazine opens on a table next to a glass of beer
as someone turns the pages, viewed from the side as if from JULIETTE’s perspective.
The narrator begins whispering on the soundtrack: “This is how Juliette, at 3:37 PM,
looks at the pages of this object, which, in journalistic parlance, is called a magazine.” (11
seconds)
4. Shot 4: CU- Static shot. WOMAN’s face in the center of the frame , looking down. A
garment hangs over the ledge behind her on screen right. Narrator continues: “And this is
how, some 150 frames later, another young woman , her fellow creature, her sister…” (6
seconds).
5. Shot 5: CU- Static shot. The same illustrated magazine pages viewed from directly above,
as if from the WOMAN’s perspective, showing fragments of stylized illustrations of
women. The narrator continues the previous sentence: “...sees the same object. Where is
the truth? In full-faced or in profile?” (5 seconds)
6. Shot 6: CU- Static shot. Repeat of Shot 4, WOMAN’s face in center of frame, looking
down. A garment hangs over the ledge behind her on screen right. She looks up towards
the screen left and then back down. The narrator continues: “But first of all what is an
object?” (8 seconds)
7. Shot 7: CU- Static shot. A new image from the same illustrated magazine show again
from directly above it, as if from the WOMAN’s perspective. The illustration of a
woman’s face, with lips painted like the British flag, takes up most of the frame. (4
seconds)
8. SHOT 8: CU – Static shot. Repeat position of Shots 4 & 6, WOMAN’s face in center of
frame, looking down, further establishing the Shot-Reverse-Shot pattern of the WOMAN
and the object she looks at. (3 seconds)
9. SHOT 9: CU – Static shot. A new image from the same magazine, a colored illustration
of a woman lying prone wearing only a pair of green shorts, her torso completely exposed
showing some tattoos on her body. (4 seconds)
10. SHOT 10: CU – Static shot. Repeat of Shots 4, 6, & 8. WOMAN’s face in the center of
the frame, looking down. She again looks up toward the screen left. Ambient noises are
heard on the soundtrack. (3 seconds)
11. SHOT 11: CU – Static shot. Repeat of Shot 2, JULIETTE’s face in center of frame,
looking toward screen right, establishing a Shot-Reverse-Shot pattern with the WOMAN
who’s visible but blurred in the reflection behind JULIETTE on screen right. As
JULIETTE repeats the same furrowing of her brow from Shot 2, non-diegetic music
begins to play on the soundtrack. (16 seconds)
12. SHOT 12: CU – Static shot. A blue cup of coffee and saucer on a wooden table. A spoon
stirs the liquid and leaves the frame before being set down on the saucer. Non-diegetic
music stops, and the narrator returns on the soundtrack: “Maybe an object is what serves
as a link...” (4 seconds)
13. SHOT 13: CU – Static shot. The MAN from Shot 1, viewed in the right-facing profile in
the center of the frame smoking a cigarette. JULIETTE is seen behind him, slightly
blurred on screen left. The narrator continues: “...between subjects, allowing us to live in
society, to be together.” The man looks over at JULIETTE, away from the camera, and
then back down facing screen right. And the narrator continues: “But since social
relations are always ambiguous, since my thoughts divide as much as unite, and my
words unite by what they express and isolate by what they omit, since a wide gulf
separates my subjective certainty of myself...” (21 seconds)
14. SHOT 14: CU – Static shot. The same blue coffee cup and saucer viewed from above, as
if from the MAN’s perspective, the patterns in the foam swirling. The narrator continues:
“...from the objective truth others have of me, since I constantly end up guilty, even
though I feel innocent; since every event changes my daily life; since I always fail to
communicate, to understand, to love and be loved, and every failure deepens my
solitude...” During the narration, the spoon comes into frame and stirs the liquid. (21
seconds)
15. SHOT 15: CU – Static shot. An even tighter CU on JULIETTE from the same perspective
as Shots 2 & 11. She looks down toward screen right and then up toward screen left. The
narrator trails off his thought: “since...” (5 seconds)
16. SHOT 16: CU – Static shot. A BARTENDER, wearing dark glasses and facing away
from the camera, looks back over his shoulder past the camera toward screen right as he
fills a beer from the draught. He looks back and forth between the beer and what’s
assumed to be JULIETTE, based on the establishing of Shot-Reverse-Shot patterns. He
walks out of frame on screen left. Ambient noises are heard on the soundtrack. (7
seconds)
17. SHOT 17: CU – Static shot. A kind of faucet or tap viewed in close-up as a hand pulls a
lever to release the liquid. Ambient sounds are still audible, and the narrator continues:
“Since...” (13 seconds)
18. SHOT 18: ECU – Static shot. The liquid inside what is presumably the same coffee cup
as before, viewed directly from above (probably from the earlier MAN’s perspective).
The foam swirls again as if recently stirred. The narrator continues: “...since I cannot
escape the objectivity crushing me nor the subjectivity expelling me, since I cannot rise to
a state of being nor collapse into nothingness... I have to listen, more than ever I have to
look around me at the world, my fellow creature, my brother.” (29 seconds)
19. SHOT 19: CU – Static shot. Repeat of Shot 13, the same MAN in profile facing screen
right and smoking a cigarette, then looking away from the camera toward JULIETTE,
seen slightly blurred behind the MAN, on screen left. He looks back down and up toward
the screen right, then back down. JULIETTE continues to look at him. The narrator
continues: “The world alone.” (19 seconds)
20. SHOT 20: ECU – Static shot. Return to the liquid, presumably in the coffee cup in front
of the MAN in the previous shot. Most of the screen is black, with a collection of bubbles
and foam in the center of the frame. The narrator continues: “Today, when revolutions are
impossible and bloody wars loom, when capitalism is unsure of its rights and the working
class is in retreat; when the lightning progress of science makes future centuries
hauntingly present; when the future is more present than the present; when distant
galaxies are on my doorstep...” The bubbles and foam move and change shape. (24
seconds)
21. SHOT 21: CU - Static shot. Repeat of Shots 13 & 19, MAN viewed in profile looking
down toward screen right, smoking a cigarette. JULIETTE is still visible behind him on
screen left, slightly blurred and smaller in the frame. The man looks up toward screen
right as the narrator continues: “My fellow creature, my brother.” JULIETTE is looking at
the MAN, and he looks over at her briefly. (13 seconds)
22. SHOT 22: ECU – Static shot. A sugar cube (presumably) dropped into the same dark
liquid from Shots 14, 18, & 20. The liquid takes up the entire screen, and the foam and
bubbles are mostly absent as they move toward screen right. The narrator continues:
“Where do we start? But start what? God created heaven and earth, sure, but that’s too
easy. We should put it better: Say the limits of language are the world’s limits, that the
limits of my language are my world’s limits; and that when I speak, I limit the world. I
finish it.” Bubbles reappear in the image, coming in and out of focus. And the narrator
continues: “And one inevitable and mysterious day, death will come and abolish these
limits, and there will be no questions nor answers. It will all be a blur.” The bubbles in the
liquid come most clearly into focus at this moment as the narrator continues: “But if by
chance things come into focus again, it may only be with the advent of conscience.
Everything will follow from there.” As the narrator finishes speaking, non-diegetic music
begins to play on the soundtrack. (54 seconds)
23. SHOT 23: LS – The camera pans with JULIETTE as she walks from a street into a
courtyard, moving from screen left to right. An unknown period of time has passed
between now and the previous shot; or,this is a memory of JULIETTE’s as she narrates in
voiceover: “I don’t know where or when, only that it happened.” The same non-diegetic
music that began in Shot 22 continues. (9 seconds)
24. SHOT 24: LS – JULIETTE, seen from farther away, but dressed the same as in Shot 23,
walks down the middle of a street. The camera pans with her to the right exactly as in the
previous shot, until it is revealed to be a longer repetition of the same shot of her leaving
the street and entering a courtyard. Her voiceover continues: “I’ve tried to recapture the
feeling all day. There was the smell of trees.“ The non-diegetic music continues to play.
(14 seconds)
25. SHOT 25: LS – JULIETTE again walks from a street into a courtyard, dressed exactly the
same as in shots 23 & 24. Her movements are not the same, however, so these are not
repetitions of the same shot but separate takes of the same action. Non-diegetic music
continues to play while JULIETTE continues in voiceover: “I was the world. The world
was me.” This shot follows JULIETTE until she leaves the frame. An unknown MAN
passes through the frame and looks at the camera briefly. JULIETTE’s voiceover
concludes: “A landscape is like a face.” (18 seconds)
26. SHOT 26: ELS – Construction of a bridge underway. The non-diegetic music has
stopped, and ambient sounds are heard. (12 seconds)
SHOT 13: CU – Static shot. The MAN from Shot 1, viewed in the right-facing profile in the
center of the frame smoking a cigarette. JULIETTE is seen behind him, slightly blurred on
screen left. The narrator continues: “...between subjects, allowing us to live in society, to be
together.” The man looks over at JULIETTE, away from the camera, and then back down facing
the screen right. And the narrator continues: “But since social relations are always ambiguous,
since my thoughts divide as much as unite, and my words unite by what they express and isolate
by what they omit, since a wide gulf separates my subjective certainty of myself...” (21 seconds)
This scene explores the concept of how souls communicate with each other and what it
truly means to understand someone. As the subject of this shot, the man glances at Juliette as if
longing to express a thought to her while the narration of the shot describes Juliette and the man
coexisting in a world where language and communication are what bring people together and
drive them apart. The narration further proves its point as the lack of words exchanged between
the two results in an obvious disconnect between them as they both passively stare at their
magazines. The film challenges the idea of perspective in language, through its analysis of
consciousness with respect to the value the subject places upon itself. Language becomes
obsolete in this way as one can not fully communicate their perception of reality to another
without confining it to fit the perspective of the other party. Godard’s emphasis on seemingly
unrelated subjects throughout the film juxtaposes this specific shot, as stated “...a wide gulf
separates my subjective certainty of myself…”. Where these unrelated subjects contrast the
viewer’s traditional notion of what is “important” whilst remaining entirely essential to the
portrayal of the film in Godard’s eye. Juliette’s monolog from a rooftop further inspects the
purpose of meaning as she explains how the face a landscape makes “doesn’t mean it's an
extraordinary expression.” In support of the message Godard makes throughout the film,
Juliette’s words further affirm it is not possible for every soul to synthesize meaning in the same
distinctive way as you, where meaning can be lost through the translation of the language of
thought. Whereas her statement harmonizes with a somber thought that maybe meaning
expresses uniformity itself and your attempts to derive importance from a subject with a single
concrete answer are to no avail.