The jump cut existed before Godard . It was (and still is according to some prescriptivist film grammarians) a pejorative term and a thing to be avoided (along with sun flares, shaky hand-held, etc.). What Godard did was to popularize jump cuts by featuring them prominently in his first feature film. I read an interview with Godard recently where he said that the original cut of A bout de souffle was too long, and he simply went in a removed frames from shot sequences to shorten it. Interestingly, he didn't really use jump cuts in his subsequent films. It shows up in pop promo films because film school and commercial ads filmmakers are constantly raiding history for "new" film gimmicks (or artistic devices).

And speaking of sun flares: they were studiously avoided until the release and instant box office boffo of Easy Rider. Execs in Hollywood looked at the film and decided it must be the sun flares that made the young ones go to see it. After that sun flares galore in the usual dreck.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.