Breathless
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Movie Reviews of Breathless
Movie Review: Revolutionary & Dynamic, "Breathless" Still Electrifies!!
Summary: 5 Stars
François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer were film connoisseurs, who all worked as movie critics for the same magazine. Between the years 1958 to 1964, this group transitioned into filmmaking, and, along with other directors, such as Agnés Varda, Jean-Pierre Melville and Louis Malle, ushered in the French New Wave Movement, (Nouvelle Vague). Their background in film theory and criticism was a major factor in motivating these artists to create a bold new cinema.
Jean-Luc Godard's first feature, "Breathless," was released in 1960, introducing the New Wave and changing cinema forever. Godard used jump cuts, handheld cameras, zoom lenses and a new editing style to take the viewer places never ventured before. No artificial, glossy stage sets in this movie. Along with the protagonists, we travel up and down small side streets, into local bars and sidewalk cafes, across boulevards and, for inconsequential moments, brush the lives of passers-by, who have nothing to do with the screenplay, but always play a role in our daily comings and goings. The fragmented rhythm of modern life is translated here. Godard used sound in the same way, adding street noises, bits of conversations and music to add to the movie's authenticity and pace. This was indeed innovative at the time. And it still holds up. Watching "Breathless" forty-five years after its debut, 21st century technology does not detract from its dynamism or relevance in the slightest. In fact, with each viewing, I find the film every bit as exciting and poignant as I did the first time.
Jean-Paul Belmondo plays the feckless, foul-mouthed car thief, anti-hero and Humphrey Bogart fan, Michel Poiccard. Just a few minutes after the opening credits conclude, Michel's status changes from small-time hood to cop killer. His life's plans alter drastically as he becomes a hunted fugitive. Michel remains cool enough, however, to visit an old girlfriend and steal some money. Bogart would have been proud - not of the theft, but of the style. Michel spots gamine-like American, Patricia Franchini, (the lovely Jean Seberg), selling copies of the Herald Tribune on the Champs-Elysees, and pursues her, with roguish smiles and moody pouts. He curses her and moves off fast, though, when she gives him a hard time. He likes his women more enthusiastic. Instead of getting out of town fast, Michel hangs with fellow thugs and steals more cars.
Patricia is an enigmatic character, who occasionally startles with her observations and revelations. Twenty years-old, with the naive face of an angel, she seems to have no direction or goals in life. She studies at the Sorbonne and says she wants to write, but is oddly detached. She shuns commitment. She does occasional odd jobs for the newspaper, but appears to live in a dream world. Of course Patricia winds up with Michel and together they gallivant around the gorgeous streets of Paris, as if they haven't a care in the world. Patricia does have at least one problem, however - she might be pregnant. Together the couple attempts to collect on a debt to raise enough cash to escape to Italy.
Godard captures incredibly intimate moments between the two lovers, particularly in one lengthy, extremely realistic bedroom episode, filled with small talk, tenderness, petty cruelties, eroticism, mind games, childhood memories shared and loneliness. At the scene's end we have a better understanding of the self destructive individuals who make-up this twosome. A sense of burgeoning doom, which has hovered in the background all along, begins to increase here. Michel's bravado also escalates with the level of danger and, to his credit, he remains true to his idol, Bogart, to the end. The conclusion boggles the mind, at least it has always impacted me emotionally in a major way.
Belmondo is brilliant as the restless thief, in this, his first film role. He reminds me of a French James Dean. Seberg is convincing and fresh. This is a dynamic film, witty, fast-paced, romantic and disturbing. It has long been a favorite of mine.
JANA
Movie Review: Still startling and fresh after all these years
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been meaning to catch up with Jean-Luc Godard's French New Wave classic BREATHLESS for a while now, ever since I became a big cinema enthusiast. Godard is said to have been one of the great film innovators of the 1960s, and this was the film that announced his arrival to the film world as a major new talent. I was able to catch up with this DVD recently, and I was not disappointed by the movie at all. In fact, I was intrigued and often startled by its sheer freshness and stylistic innovation. I was also intrigued by its characters: Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a criminal trying to elude capture by the authorities throughout the picture; and his American girlfriend Patricia (Jean Seberg), a wannabe-journalist who is strangely drawn to the lowlife Michel. This is perhaps youth as Godard saw it: disaffected, indifferent to anything but themselves and their own lives...maybe even existentialist. Michel himself towards the ends doesn't even seem to really care that the police are closing in on him; and by the end, Patricia doesn't either. These two young people are basically self-absorbed narcissists, and Godard similarly doesn't try to connect the audience to these hardly-sympathetic characters. We are often kept at an emotional reserve from these two people, just as they keep their distance from the real world circumstances around them. (Michel makes a fitting statement towards the end when he says to Patricia, "When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other.") In short, the characters themselves may not be the most memorable in movie history, but their cold, detached worldview most certainly is.
If the characters are interesting to simply observe, the technique is also equally fascinating to watch. BREATHLESS has a small reputation of being the first film to extensively use the "jump cut," sudden cuts in the middle of scenes. Personally, I wasn't always sold on Godard's frequent use of it in this film, but when it works---as in one short sequence in which Michel tries to describe Patricia in various ways---it works very well, somehow making the film more realistic-feeling as a result. The cinematographer of BREATHLESS, Raoul Coutard, also uses a lot of handheld camera work---supposedly one of the first films to do so---to impart a documentary feel to the movie. In short, all throughout the movie you see glimmers of this film's incalculable influence on later filmmakers (Martin Scorsese immediately comes to my mind; BREATHLESS' realism and style reminds me of his early film MEAN STREETS).
To sump up: BREATHLESS is a seminal work of the cinema that has still managed to remain fresh and startling over the years. Its main characters and filmmaking style still manage to fascinate, and I don't feel that it has dated a whole lot since its landmark release in 1961. It still remains as potent as ever...just as any "classic" film should. Highly recommended.
Movie Review: A revolutionary film for its time......
Summary: 5 Stars
This review is for the 2001 Fox Lorber DVD.
The movie begins with a car thief, Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo), hot-wiring a late '50's Oldsmobile coupe on a busy street in Paris and racing off into the French countryside. While speeding through a construction area, he passes two motorcycle cops and a high speed pursuit begins. Michel quickly eludes the police by turning off the highway onto a dirt road but one of the cops pulls up and attempts to arrest him. Using a pistol that he found in the glove compartment, Michel shoots the cop and flees on foot across the countryside. He eventually gets back to Paris and hounds all of his male and female friends for money so that he can flee the country. Finally, he runs into the woman he adores the most, Patricia (Jean Seberg), and this sets up the remainder of the movie where the two become more attached while at the same time the authorities try to hunt down Michel for the murder of the policeman.
There's a lot of things this movie does impressively. First, the free-spirited criminal played by Jean-Paul Belmondo brings a sense of ultra-suaveness to his character. He seems so hip and he's such a lady's man that it's really hard to view him as a bad guy - but the reality is that he is bad and its fascinating to me how women cling to the "bad boy" and seemed turned off by the stable and caring "good boy". In addition, the jazz score greatly enhances the film and it brings an ultra-cool mood to the movie. Much of the dialogue between the characters is fun and playful, and very provocative for an early 1960's film. I also give the film credit for its realistic ending and for not being heavy handed or dishonest. The picture doesn't look at all dated for being 45 years old, and the cinematography is at times a feast for the eyes.
With all the great things going for it, there are two minor things about this film which keep it from being an awesome masterpiece for the ages. One problem is the abrupt editing, which at times is almost irritating. The other problem is that some of the scenes, especially the bedroom scene with Michel and Patricia, goes on far too long. But those are minor problems compared to the groundbreaking achievements of this film. I'm aware from the commentary that editing and long scenes were perceived as artistic enhancements to some, but for me, they stood out as annoying flaws.
Overall, if you enjoy foreign cinema or groundbreaking, original films, then "Breathless" is a must-see.
The DVD restored picture is virtually free of imprefections, but the black & white presentation does have a low contrast, gray cast to it, which minimizes the extreme black and white tones. The DVD contains commentary by columnist David Sterritt.
Movie: A-
DVD Quality: A-
Movie Review: We still haven't caught our breath.
Summary: 5 Stars
*Breathless* is a cornerstone for any cineaste's video library. It's also MANDATORY for students of film. Don't argue. Live with it. And spare me the arguments like the ones I've read here about the movie being "dated". (PuhLEEZE.) I take out my red pen and write "prove?" in the margin. Just because everyone uses jump-cuts today doesn't mean *Breathless*, as an autonomous work of art, is dated. I've seen many new movies this year, and none of them have challenged me half as much as this old New Wave warhorse continues to do. Godard's putative "homage" to American gangster pictures challenges you right from the first frames, with the get-to-the-point editing and especially with the protagonist, Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo), who within the first 5 minutes steals a car and kills a cop. Godard gives us a "hero" who is amoral, and, worst of all, not particularly bright. Quentin Tarantino, who borrowed mightily from this film, couldn't resist giving his criminals witty things to say about Pop Culture . . . but Belmondo's Poiccard has almost nothing to say, witty or otherwise, although he does jabber on at length about cars and pretty girls. There IS one telling moment wherein he proclaims that he prefers "nothing" to "grief", but despite that statement's basic affinity with the movie's overall existentialist mood, it's also just macho posturing. The triumph of the film, however, is not Belmondo or even the ground-breaking narrative style but Jean Seberg as Belmondo's American girlfriend. At first we're thinking that she's a pixie-like Audrey Hepburn type, what with her radically short haircut and insouciance. But she ain't no Sabrina: she's instead an all-too-familiar type of danger-cruising b---h blessed with that uncanny instinct of knowing when to jump ship when the going gets rough. Godard dares to be interested in these two, even spending an absurd half-hour with them as they loll around in bed, chatting about fornication and Faulkner (Belmondo: "Did you sleep with [Faulkner]?" Seberg: "Of course not!" Belmondo: "Then I'm not interested in him") during the film's middle section. This scene is the essence of Godard's accomplishment, and -- in cinematic terms -- remains very daring. But perhaps "daring" is a dated concept for today's movie-watchers. Perhaps they feel they've moved beyond films like this, and can thus be condescending about *Breathless* and other art-films from its era. I suspect these films are simply out of fashion, and today's audiences are not so much "jaded" as "complacent". [The DVD features commentary that contains nothing new for the veteran New Waver, but it may be of use for newbies.]Movie Review: Catching Godard's Wave
Summary: 5 Stars
On this wonderful DVD of "Breathless" the commentary by film critic David Sterritt on Jean-Luc Godard's new wave masterpiece is so insightful that it makes this DVD even more of a must have for any lover of international cinema. It is a delight to hear his enthusiasm for the film, the director and the stars. Beyond that, there is this landmark film that in its new pristine restoration is so fresh and vibrant that it leaps from the screen. It is packed with incredible images of the three major characters of the story, Belmondo, Seberg, and Paris. It all seems to have been shot only yesterday. Jagged and edgy in its famous jump cut editing and with fluid cinematography by the famous Raoul Coutard it is as fresh and exciting as it was forty-four years ago.
The film is full of homage after homage to movies and pop culture of the day that so inspired Godard and many of his contemporaries. All of this is interlaced with a story of two characters so convinced of their independence from society that they cannot see how trapped they are within their self-created images gleaned from the icons of that time and place. All of this is presented with a wonderful mix of humor and suspense that propels the story forward in jerks and leaps through the city. Only when we are in Patricia's apartment does the film switch to long lingering shots of the everyday life of these two people. Then back out on the streets and the frantic chase with the cops and the search for an escape.
Jean Paul Belmondo is simply incredible to watch in this the film that made him and his tough sexy image famous throughout the world. He is so natural, and human as to seem to be caught by the eye of the camera completely unaware in his life as Michel Poiccard. Jean Seberg broke out of her limited Hollywood shell and embarked on her European career with her role as Patricia the American girlfriend of Michel who ultimately and inexplicably does what she must do. It is obvious that Godard and his cameraman adore her and the wide-open eye of the lens lingers on her with the same enamored devotion that Michel reluctantly shows her. With this film she really shows the range of her talent and how good she really was in the medium of film acting.
Here are two of the most photogenic faces of the early sixties shot without Hollywood lighting setups. Yet some of the shots have a glamour that Hollywood could not equal in all its artifice. Yet all the time this groundbreaking film never for a moment lets you forget you are watching a movie-movie. Both real and fake it achieves a fantastic reality all its own that changed cinema in profound ways and is still affecting the way we look at and make movies today.