Breathless (1960)

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Breathless (1960)

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Breathless (1960)

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A loving pastiche of film noir yet an exuberant slap in the face of Hollywood convention, A bout de souffle is a movie landmark that wowed early 1960s audiences with its ultra-cool swagger, amoral outlook, and energetic style. Adopting a loose and shaggy narrative structure, the film follows Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a two-bit thug who models himself on Humphrey Bogart, steals from unsuspecting lovers, and, like the protagonist in Albert Camus's The Stranger, kills for no apparent reason, as he chases after debts, commits larceny, and tries to bed Patricia (Jean Seberg).

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Breathless (1960)

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Shot with hand-held cameras in natural light, the film has the gritty, documentary-like feel of such Italian Neo-Realist classics as The Bicycle Thief and Rome Open City, yet its visual style also breaks every cinematic rule in the book: characters and extras stare directly into the camera, edits occur in mid-shot, and the camera seems willfully restless. In the process, director Jean-Luc Godard gleefully breaks the illusion of reality, always reminding the audience that it is watching a movie. Ever the film buff, Godard packs this film with allusions drawn equally from American pop culture and high art: Nicholas Ray is referenced alongside Dylan Thomas, a 1956 Thunderbird Coupe alongside William Faulkner's Wild Palms.

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Breathless (1960)

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Godard's iconoclastic style, coupled with his constant referencing, might give the impression that the film is a vast inside joke, were it not tempered with a deep existential pathos for its characters. During the famous bedroom sequence, we witness Michel and Patricia, two thoroughly unlikable figures, try and ultimately fail to forge some sort of bond; they are too involved in their worlds to connect. François Truffaut once remarked, "There is the cinema before Godard and the cinema after Godard." A bout de souffle is the masterpiece that launched Godard's career and, in so doing, changed the face of cinema.

Jonathan Crow, Rovi

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Breathless (1960)

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Jean-Luc Godard's, A Bout de Souffle is possibly the brightest star to shine from the French New Wave. The 'Nouvelle Vague' came about from a group of like minded film critics writing for the Cahiers du Cinema.

With his knowledge of classic film narrative and style Godard went out to create his own film in homage to, and also complete contradiction to, classic Hollywood film.

The plot reads almost like a crime thriller typical of the 1930-40's. A criminal on the run from the police; the distraction of a beautiful woman; the escape and eventually someones death. But it is in Godard's approach to film style and use of new technologies that the typical crime thriller was turned on its head.

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Breathless (1960)

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In a break from classic Hollywood narrative the film opens with little equilibrium. Our protagonist's motives are unclear as he tears off to Paris leaving a woman and a dead cop in his trail. This in turn makes the ending somewhat open ended. With no sense of equilibrium to start with how can there be closure on what has happened throughout the film.

Another twist on the classic storytelling in film is the progression of plot. It is naturally assumed in classic Hollywood film, that everything the spectator sees they see for a reason. With Michel's constantly pointless phone calls to retrieve owed money the plot is not pushed along at all. The inclusion of a 25 minute digression from the plot stands to emphasise the spectators reliance on narrative structure in the watching of films. Although watching the film closely is, as always, important in following the story A Bout de Souffle requires that little bit extra to define where the plot is being progressed and where Michel or Patricia are just flattering their egos or each other.

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Breathless (1960)

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All in all I personally think that A Bout de Souffle brought about a sense of realism not seen in Hollywood cinema before 1959 and even now. The fact that life isn't full of clues that will help us progress in say our relationships or escape from authority, but is infact full of digression; self exploration; and the confusions of love, ego and aspirations.

IMDB Reviewer

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Breathless (1960)

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Edition Details:
- Restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director of photography Raoul Coutard (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Archival interviews with director Jean-Luc Godard, and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, and Jean-Pierre Melville (total 27:00)
- French theatrical trailer (2:01)
- New video interviews with Coutard and assistant director Pierre Rissient (22:27), and another by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker (10:31)
- New video essays: filmmaker and critic Mark Rappaport's "Jean Seberg" (18:55) and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum's "Breathless as Film Criticism" (11:08) - read by Daniel Stewart
- Chambre 12, Hotel de suede, (1:18:24) French documentary about the making of Breathless, with members of the cast and crew
- Charlotte et son Jules, a 1959 short film homage to Jean Cocteau by Godard, starring Belmondo (12:41)

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Breathless (1960)

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