Breathless
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Movie Reviews of Breathless
Movie Review: Superb, influential French New Wave thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
Godard's "Breathless" (or "Out of Breath," the correct translation fo the title) still feels fresh and alive, especially when viewed in the dreary context of contemporary Hollywood cinema. It offers a sparklingly original alternative at every turn, from the pacing of its story to the engine that drives its loopy, intentionally sloppy plot. This is a picture that is alive on screen as you watch it, forcing you to draw yourself into the action rather than lay back and passively absorb it.The film is one of the finest examples of New Wave cinema, from its jump cuts, its depiction of Parisian life, its incredibly sustained sequences of pure converstaion and dialogue, all of which dominate what is essentially a simple chase picture.
Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg are a perfect mix of classic and contemporary, both remaining timeless. Their relationship really unfolds in the film's central sequence, a near 25-minute conversation in Seberg's bedroom, in which such subjects as Faulkner and fornication are explored aptly. And that is what the film is known for----when was the last time a thriller contained the audacity to feel free to explore areas residing outside the genre?
Like "Pulp Fiction," one of its distant relatives, this is a film where plot and story are present but removed far into the background, while character, dialogue and visual texture are placed in the foreground. In its pristine black-and-white cinematography, its innovative use of camera movement and position, its raw, defined performances, and its tireless style and visual invention, "Breathless" is a great film and belongs in any serious film lover's video library.
Movie Review: Yes, the film is important, but it's also a lot of fun.
Summary: 5 Stars
"Breathless," Jean-Luc Godard's tribute to moviemaking itself and one of the seminal titles of the French New Wave, is, jump-cuts and all, a film that changed the way movies were made. It introduced audiences and critics alike to new voices in the cinema, to a newer and cheaper guerrilla-style film made on location and to the sort of movie aware of the fact that it was just a movie.That said, though, this movie is a lot of just pure fun. In the leads, Jean-Paul Belmondo and the absolutely gorgeous Jean Seberg seem to inject their portrayals of young thief-and-killer Michel Poiccard and his indecisive American girlfriend Patricia with a sense of humor and joy. The couple they portray are given moments where they're not really pushing the action forward, where they're reveling in what it feels like to be young and in lust, if not love. The scenes where they're lying in bed just talking or riding together in a car and talking about Paris are perhaps the most delightful aspect of the film.
Even though the character of Michel is almost certainly doomed from the moment he steals a car and guns down a police officer, he has a lot of fun with his last days, wandering the streets, stealing from friends and trying to get Patricia to sleep with him. Patricia, likewise, is given moments of joy, despite worrying about her pregnancy and job, wondering if she should betray the man she loves to the police or run away with him to Rome.
That spirit, in addition to its technical wizardry and the passion of its makers, is what made the film different in 1960, and it's the spirit behind it that just makes "Breathless" fun Sunday-afternoon viewing now.
Movie Review: "Live dangerously till the end"
Summary: 5 Stars
A movie more famous for style than substance, though it set the movie world on its head. A third-rate hood in Paris (Jean-Paul Belmondo), who thinks he's Bogart, steals a car, then kills the policeman who pulls him over. Now on the lam he goes to his girlfriend (Jean Seberg) and asks her to hide him until he can collect some money owed him from a previous job; after that he tells her they will go to Rome. But Seberg is as empty, soul-less, and finally ruthless as he is, and at the end she turns him in to the police.
But it's the way Goddard relates the story that had everyone ga-ga over this movie masterpiece: he presented new ways of viewing his material - fast-cutting, imaginative camera angles, a total breakdown of time and space, no transitions. His idea was to give the impression of "living in the moment." There are some memorable scenes, especially the bedroom scene with Belmondo and Seberg discussing art and philosophy and the final shot of Seberg, but at times it's very hard to relate to these two conscienceless, amoral characters; I know it's all about alienation and impetuosity, but whew!
The location photography on the streets of Paris is superb and set another precedent for New Wave filmmaking. Excellent too is the musical score (part jazz, part classical). It's an extremely influential movie, groundbreaking and revolutionary, though some of it's most creative techniques (jump-cutting, for example) have become second nature today.
Movie Review: Formally brazen
Summary: 5 Stars
The film that validated the French New Wave and consummated the now-ubiquitous cinéma vérité, "fly-on-the-wall" cinematography of modern independent film, Jean-Luc Godard's debut feature Breathless, as influential as it's obviously been (one need only gaze as far back as the extended bedroom scene of 2002's "Late Marriage" to catch a recognizable echo of its ingenuity), still remains as challenging today as it must have been in 1959. Stylistically, the jagged editing technique is what will always call the most attention to itself: Godard chose to snip out small pockets of celluloid almost arbitrarily between most of the action and dialogue, ostensibly to cut down the running time, but effectively to mimic the erratic, shallow attention span of his characters. In turn, the deliberateness of this device tends to distract from the essential simplicity of Godard's narrative, about a killer on the run (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who plots to flee the country with his Parisian lover (Jean Seberg). Revisiting this quaint work of artistry today reveals that Godard, in his vision of existentialist ennui and contemporary youth, has never really been intellectually surpassed in this subject matter by any subsequent film directors. For one matter, his picture's visual impudence alone renders most other cinéma vérité timid in comparison. It's one of the few films of its kind that actually dares to appear as clumsy as possible.Movie Review: First feature from Godard the Great
Summary: 5 Stars
More than forty years later, it may be hard for modern audiences to understand how revolutionary Jean-Luc Godard and his Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave) contemporaries really were. So many aspects of Godard's stylistic achievements, such as the unabashedly hand-held camera, have become so popular in music videos, TV, and the movies, that its use here may not seem notable. Film critic David Sterritt's commentary track does an excellent job of conveying the importance of this first feature-length Godard opus, and also emphasizes the many ways in which the director is having fun with his audience. As Sterritt demonstrates, Godard uses what he has enjoyed from his life as a lover of movies to deliver a filmgoing experience that contains the humor and action that he enjoys. Godard lingers on the lengthy interactions between Breathless' two young actors, allowing us all to savor their intimacy, and also uses Brechtian self-conscious techniques to encourage the viewer to stop and consider his filmic experience. Breathless is a great introduction to Godard, much more accessible to current American audiences than his later work. Watch the movie first, then watch it again with the excellent commentary track.