Breathless - Criterion Collection
by Jean-Luc Godard
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Claude Mansard, Henri-Jacques Huet, Jean Domarchi, Roger Hanin, Van DoudeDirector: Jean-Luc Godard
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Raoul Coutard
Composer: Martial Solal
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-10-23
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion Collection
Movie Reviews of Breathless - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: The `New Wave' begins with this startling cinematic achievement...
Summary: 5 Stars
Jean-Luc Godard has been credited with revitalizing cinema in the early 60's with his interesting and unique style of filmmaking, a style that has bleed over into even modern cinema and continues to influence and inspire. To say that Jean-Luc Godard is one of the greatest directors of all time (in company with Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Ingmar Bergman) is perhaps too simple. The fact remains that Godard isn't simply one of the best, he's one of the most important. `A Bout de Souffle' (better known as `Breathless') is a sublime example of why he is so important. With his debut feature film he stunned audiences and critics alike by breathing a breath of fresh air into cinema and creating something new and intriguing and completely entertaining.
`A Bout de Souffle' is one of those films you have to be wary about `over-praising' because once you `get' it you totally fall head over heals for it, but until you `get' it you may find yourself baffled at all the praise. That was me upon my initial viewing. I was about halfway into the film and I was stumped as to why this movie was so well loved. Sure, it was stylistically exuberating and blatantly original in construction, but as far as being a great `movie', well, I just wasn't `feeling' it in that way. The third act though is a huge wallop to the viewer and completely changed my thinking on the entire film. In fact, upon my second viewing I was able to spot things throughout the films progression that only added to my admiration for it, and now I am completely and utterly in love with the film; so much so that I consider it one of the best ever made.
So, I don't want to raise your expectations so much that you become dumbfounded in the films first and second act. Please, realize that my praise belongs to the film in its entirety, and entirety that cannot be fully appreciated until the third act is through. You really need to judge the film on your second viewing, for it is only after you have put all the pieces together that you can really enjoy the film from start to finish.
The film is part crime noir, part romantic thriller. It centers around a thug named Michel who is on the run after killing a police officer. He hides out in his American girlfriend's apartment. The film sports a neurotic narrative that keeps the audience glued as Michel and Patricia (the girlfriend) go through their day as normal people in abnormal circumstances. The performances are fresh and believable, and the dialog (a lot of which was adlibbed) feels perfect for the situation. Godard brings a lot of his love for film into his construction of `A Bout de Souffle', a film that can be seen as an ode to the great film noirs that came before it. What is remarkable is that, but making this film completely his own, Godard created an ode that is superior to the films he was praising.
During a press conference with an author, Jean Seberg's character Patricia asks the author "what is your greatest ambition in life" to which he responds, after much thought, "to become immortal and then to die". The significance of this statement is seen, not only in this film, but in the idea that art makes the artist immortal. Godard has become immortal. In the context of the film though, the immortality comes from love. When one has become truly loved then they are in essence `immortal'.
The question raised at the end of this film is, `was Michel immortal?'
Through Godard's impressive way of telling a story within a story one really has to watch this film a few times to answer that question. The outcome with each viewing may be different than the last, and the fact that Godard keeps the answer an ambiguity is to the films advantage. Did Patricia really love Michel? Was her emotional reaction to the films conclusion all just an act? Piecing together Godard's point of view may reveal an answer you least expect, which makes this film all the more captivating. The films production notes mention that Patricia commits the ultimate act of betrayal; but exactly what that act is, is up to the audience to decide.
Summary of Breathless - Criterion Collection
There was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless. With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, crackling personalities of rising stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and anything-goes crime narrative, Jean-Luc Godard's debut fashioned a simultaneous homage to and critique of the American film genres that influenced and rocked him as a film writer for Cahiers du cinema. Jazzy, free-form, and sexy, Breathless (A bout de souffle) helped launch the French new wave and ensured cinema would never be the same.The movie that heralded the French New Wave movement, this lean and exciting 1959 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard (A Woman Is a Woman, Weekend) broke new ground not only in its unorthodox use of editing and hand-held photography, but in its unflinching and nonjudgmental portrayal of amoral youth. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg play two young lovers on the run from the law after Belmondo kills a cop and steals a car. Soon they are on an odyssey through the streets of Paris searching for some money he is owed so that he and his American girlfriend can escape to Italy. As a chase picture it features some startling photography on the streets of Paris, but as a romance it defies expectations, existing as part tragedy and part Bonnie and Clyde crime movie. The result is a wholly original film experience. Inspiring not only a remake starring Richard Gere but numerous films and television series, Breathless is an essential part of motion picture history. --Robert Lane
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