BREATHLESS Movie Review

A Bout de Souffle

French hoodlum and petty thug Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is on the run from the law after shooting a cop and stealing a car. He hooks up with Patricia, a beautiful American girl (Jean Seberg) who hawks papers (“New York Herald Tribune!”) on the Champs Élysées. They make love, they make faces, they kill some time, she turns him in. They're going nowhere, of course, but that's not the point; what excites them is that they're doing it fast. The pacing of Breathless (Bout de Souffle originally, which is more like “out of breath”) is key because these amoral characters—who do what they want when they want to, whether it's killing, stealing, making love, or turning the other in—never stop for a second to contemplate cause and effect or their place in the world, unless it's to immediately satisfy themselves. Belmondo and Seberg looked great and had fun on the streets of Paris; the city was filmed with an electric immediacy and a restless camera by Raoul Coutard, and much of the editing is violently blunt. In his first feature, Godard dared to glamorize this beautiful, deadly couple without moralizing, and the effect was galvanizing. Breathless is generally regarded as the seminal film of the French New Wave, and it still feels revolutionary—and seductively dangerous—today. (It makes sense that Godard was Warren Beatty's original choice to direct his 1967 Bonnie and Clyde.) Breathless is famously dedicated to the American “poverty row” studio Monogram Pictures, and features cameos by directors Philippe de Broca, Jean-Pierre Melville, and Godard himself (as a stool pigeon).The true story on which it was based was brought to Godard's attention by François Truffaut, who is credited with the story idea. (American director Jim McBride's 1983 remake starring Richard Gere wasn't exactly awful, but it was pointless.)

NEXT STOP … Pierrot le Fou, Bonnie and Clyde, Gun Crazy (1949)

1959 90m/B FR Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger, Jean-Pierre Melville, Liliane Robin; D: Jean-Luc Godard; W: Jean-Luc Godard; C: Raoul Coutard; M: Martial Solal. Berlin International Film Festival ‘60: Best Director (Godard). VHS NOS, MRV, CVC