Unlike Anything I Have Ever Seen Before
Author: elevenangrymen from United States
9 December 2011
I give 'Breathless' a 10 out of 10 because it is simply unlike any movie I have ever seen in my life. The plot can be described in a sentence. Jean Paul Belmondo shoots a police officer and decides to run away with a girl he likes, Jean Seberg. The film isn't about plot however. The plot only provides a backbone for scenes that seem so spontaneous, it's incredible that they were scripted.
Godard here turns a film into something that is not a film, something that is not real life, he turns it into something....indescribable. The film is so fresh and innovative, even today it stands as a landmark of cinema. I am not sure how to convince you to watch this film. I just must say it left me...Breathless, pun intended.
What is there to say about Breathless, a movie that has started so many clichés? Not much, other than you owe it to yourself to see it. It is the type of movie that if released right now it would still sell will, despite subtitles and being black and white, something most audiences would hate.
This movie isn't about depth, but the exhilarating race through Paris, and the flashy dialogue. It is a movie that will keep you in, with it's jump edits, that fit right in, despite it looking like the disc messed up. Belmundo is a low life who accidentally kills a cop and runs away, catching up with a American girl while trying to leave to Italy.
It is one of those movies that you can't pull yourself away from, and when it is over you want more.
A Boute de Soufflé aka Breathless was one of the first foreign films I watched after I decided to watch films 'properly', back in 2003/4. A friend back then found it a bit ridiculous, even amateurish. I liked it then and parts lodged in my brain and I ached to see it again and prove my friend wrong.
As part of the Jean Luc Goddard collection, it whistled through its 90 minutes runtime in what seemed like half that – its freshness and that 'amateurishness' that my friend had harped on about was then, a new approach to filmmaking – cut editing, which adds dynamism and vigour.
The absolutely audacious lead crosses Bonnie & Clyde with Malcolm Mc Dowell in A Clockwork Orange – I can only see Mr Mc D being any sort of alternative actor that could have pulled it off.
As the flash harry Michel, Jean-Paul Belmondo is utterly superb and convincing. Jean Seberg as his American, flight attendant date that he sets out to impress. I read a reviewer (amateur) who moaned that the hotel bedroom scene was boring and wishy-washy where nothing happened. But that's the point and beauty of it and makes it the best part. Anyone who's spent aimless afternoons in the semi AND intimate company of a potential or actual lover, just knows that inane and meaningless chatter that goes on and that being was so brilliantly written and naturally acted.
He just occasionally says 'get your top off' whilst she organises his life, her life and everyone's life around him – he just lies in bed smoking – she goes about and does 'things', possibly useful, or otherwise.....
The gritty underbelly of the world's most Romantic city with petty crime and petty characters and the audacious thriller scenes remind of the original British Scarface (set in Brighton) and of course, the French heist movies of this time, pioneered by such as Bob de Flambeur from Jean Pierre Melville (who actually has a small part in this). Back then, fifty years ago and so singularly French (& since much replicated by/in Hollywood).
All in all, an absolute cutting-edged, scathingly scorching social thriller of refreshing naturalness. I can see a Scorsese-ness coming out of those brooding, angry and powerful scenes and characters.
Think you've seen all the best and most influential films? Not without this one, you haven't!
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Have a cigarette
Author: RainDogJr from Mexico City
2 November 2009
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
My introduction to the work of the French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard happened a little more than two years ago when I bought and saw the Criterion DVD (the very first Criterion DVD that I bought) of his Bande à part (aka: Band of Outsiders). I was immensely excited and Godard didn't disappoint me, of course I was ready to see more of his films. Until this year the only Godard film available on R4 DVD was, if I'm not wrong, one of his most recent ones (the 2004 Notre musique)...the fact that I saw my second Godard film (certainly it was his Breathless) just 4 nights ago has to deal in a way with how hard and how expensive is to get your DVDs of Godard's films in my city. Just in a way because I do own Notre musique since well at least a year ago and well of course you can always go after the illegal copies or have some luck and find some Godard to rent at a Blockbuster! But anyway, about a month ago I realized about the fact that finally a R4 DVD Godard collection is available, I was very glad and for a decent price I was able to get first Made in U.S.A. and later Alphaville. However before I had the time to watch those two films I stop by at my local Blockbuster only to find that they were selling real gems, used yet practically new R1 DVDs that you usually find for about $30 in just $3 and $5. I bought that day Wim Wenders'The American Friend (the Anchor Bay DVD), Takashi Miike's The Bird People in China, Nagisa Oshima's Ai no borei (which I also own together with other three films, including Ai no corrida, as part of a VHS collection of erotic films) and Godard's Breathless (not the Criterion but the Fox Lorber DVD).
Breathless goes extremely fast and begins with the main character, Jean-Paul Belmondo's character Michel, doing what he does: doing crimes. We see him stealing a car and soon after killing a cop. During these first minutes of the film you get the feeling of it, the music is fantastic. Soon Michel is in Paris and in a way the whole crime film is forgotten, I say in a way because of course for us is present that Michel is seeking for money and that the police is after him but as the film goes on and with Jean Seberg's character Patricia already in the film we go in a completely different way. I loved how the film forgets about everything and just gets talky with its two main characters...that whole section that happens in Patricia's apartment is a sort of perfect example to point out why I loved Breathless: we have a conversation pretty much about nothing yet we don't really care, we are following closely the characters, their dialog flows and we don't want to stop it. Other highlights are a great cameo of Jean-Pierre Melville as a writer (it's a really good scene..."two things are important in life: for men, women, for women, money"), the final decision of Patricia. And of course the performances of Belmondo and Seberg are extremely memorable, being Belmondo very cool as a fan of Humphrey Bogart (always smoking. in the film Blue in the Face, I have seen only bits of it, master Jim Jarmusch says that he thinks that a lot of people start smoking because is glamorized in movies and also that "the f***** up thing is you go to Hollywood now, they got us hocked on cigarettes and now you can't smoke anywhere...they come over, I'm sorry Sir smoking is prohibited by law"; Breathless is a film that can give any young man desires to light a cigarette) and Seberg extremely lovely as a beginner in the world of journalism. Few times 86 minutes went as fast as with Jean-Luc Godard's first feature film. 10 out of 10
6 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Only gaping astonishment and unrequited love will do.
Author: Alice Liddel (-darragh@excite.com) from dublin, ireland
21 August 2000
Four stars. Belmondo. Seberg. Godard. Paris.
Yes, this wonder does usher in modern cinema, but it keeps eluding Godard's grasp, as Michel (American cinema; masculinity; irresponsibility; style; action) and Patricia (modernism; ambition; commitment; lessons from Melville) battle, ironically, for his soul.
For all the subversion, irony, parody, pastiche, self-reflexivity, alienation techniques Godard hurls in our faces, it is impossible not to be captivated, on a conventional level, by the romance of 'A bout de souffle', its giddy narrative, its charismatic stars.
It is said that the inverse proportion given, in a supposed crime movie, to a brief cop-killing and a lengthy bedroom discussion, neuters the film as a crime movie - not true; it takes us where crime movies never went before (except 'Bob le flambeur', of course).
Not misogynistic: both Patricia and Godard inform on Michel.
We are not watching Michel and Patricia in a plot about murder and money; we are watching Belmondo, Seberg, Godard and Paris playing a film called 'A Bout de souffle'.
Far from distancing us from 'film', this realism brings us nearer.
No wonder Godard disowns it.
Magic.
1 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Respect for the landmark that is Breathless.
Author: bobsgrock from United States
12 July 2009
If all you have ever seen and been exposed to is the American-type persona in movies, television, books and music, you are missing something more; something different and yet saying the same thing. Any serious film fan knows of the French New Wave, the movement in the 1950s and 1960s that sparked the American film movement in the 1960s and inspired our own New Wave in the 1970s. Of that period, perhaps the most well-known director is Jean-Luc Godard, and his best known work is Breathless.
A rather interesting title, because that is exactly what this movie is. Of course there is a twenty-some minute scene in a hotel room that brings the narrative to a screeching halt, but that as well was revolutionary and daring for any film in that day. The new and exciting techniques and attitude of Breathless are what create its reputation and why it is considered so important in the history of film. However, it can also be approached simply as the story of a wanna-be gangster who wants the girl he longs for to run away with him but has the law on his tail as well.
Of course, could Breathless be as it is without the fascinating performances of its leads, in particular Jean Seberg as Patricia? Jean-Paul Belmondo plays it straight and we need that to take us through the story, but Seberg always detracts from the audience and that is part of the intrigue. What does she really think of Michel, and what will she do with him? Their scene in the hotel room is absorbing not only because of how Godard shot it with available light, overhead angles and those famous jump cuts, but also the dialogue. What are these people talking about and why? The subject in discussion changes hands frequently, but they both have the same goal in mind the whole time: Michel to sleep with Patricia and Patricia to find out about Michel.
The opening is unique in that we get no back story; just plunge right into this world and the surroundings that come with it. Speaking of which, is there a better backdrop then Paris? Perhaps not, and that is only part of what makes this an unforgettable experience. Certainly, it needs to be seen multiple times, but I get the feeling that many will get its message the first time. The true message Godard was trying to relate was: the world is changing, and that includes the cinema.
1 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Last Gasp
Author: eyeache from anisland
24 May 2009
One of the finest and most exciting films in cinema history. Deathless. It immortalised Seberg, Belmondo and Godard. Only the sad Seberg (evidently a girl of Swedish ancestry) is dead yet. The subtly plotted storyline unrolls, without a single unnecessary element, to its remorseless end, but is always exciting, no matter how many times it is viewed. Will she, won't she? What will she decide to do? The bedroom sequence, with its verbal-physical exchanges between Seberg and Belmondo, is riveting: mesmerizing, painfully true and witty, though nothing for lunk-headed semi-literates, for whom thought is a chore. The scene is real and to the point, so follow the argument. Get involved.
One theme is the impact of American society and culture (huh?) on France. A plump, bourgeois American officer and his plump, bourgeois wife have their American car stolen by a slim, ultra-cool, Italo-Frenchman, who loves France, but wants to make it in Cinecitta. He lives a vicarious life, with imported celluloid values. Finding that Americans always, naturally, keep handguns in their car glove compartments, he decides to use the one he's handed. The American Dream becomes reality, anxiety-ridden and finally exhausting. Belmondo identifies with his cinematic other-life, to the full. It tells him how to live and die. Eisenhower features in the parade, Bogart in the movies.
My disc came with a trailer for the remake. It looked quite hideous, so I won't bother. However, some people seem to like it.
2 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
By now, a classic
Author: Daryl Chin (lqualls-dchin) from Brooklyn, New York
27 January 2005
There was a period (roughly from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s) when it was hard to see A BOUT DE Soufflé, not because it was unavailable, but because it had been copied so much that the freshness and the vitality (which had been much-remarked upon on the movie's initial release) seemed to have seeped out. This romantic-ironic thriller about a charming (but murderous) Parisian hood and his lovely (but treacherous) American girlfriend has withstood the ravages of time, and is now as much a classic French thriller as Becker's TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI or Carne's QUAI DES BRUMES. Particularly poignant are the performances of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, so youthful, delightful and enticing: it's hard to realize that Belmondo would use the popularity this film gave him to embark on a steadily declining career as a box-office fixture, and that Seberg would have such a tragically embattled life. But seeing them in A BOUT DE Soufflé, you're seeing them at their best.
The French directors at this time do not due complete dependence on appearance primal but the narrative has more meaning, psychologically speaking. An ending of a French New Wave film is not typical Hollywood: the closing of the picture would be completely unexpected like Michel's ‘tongue in cheek' demise. Therefore in simple terms: Hollywood is a nursery tale for adults, a traditional narrative structure is essential, as is the notion of hero and villain. Whereas French New Wave investigates humanity and the circumstances of life, it is high art, quite different to the popular culture of America of the time. Godard uses real time as we see Michel walking calmly down a flight of stairs leading to an underpass. The audience watch him blend in with the environment and the camera pans right to patiently wait upon the Arc d'Triomphe for roughly four or five seconds. Before the audience starts wondering about Michel's whereabouts, the camera pans right again to complete about ninety degrees to witness Michels's miraculous arrival on the other side of the road. This amazing piece of camerawork is genuinely astonishing because it demonstrated his perfect choreographic skills down to the split second. Interestingly Truffaut while directing 400 Blows (a reflection on his earlier years) showed a personal touch, which is sad and endearing. A scene at the climax of the film shows him reaching the sea and as he helplessly turns to look at camera, and as the camera closes in on his distraught face we realise he has no where to go, his environment becoming his eternal trap...
3 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Breathing hard
Author: jotix100 from New York
28 November 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Jean-Luc Godard, the director of this film, was a revolutionary in his approach to the way French cinema was evolving into; it can be seen as the influence for the movement that was known as "New Wave". Godard, like the rest of his colleagues wanted to transform the way movies were seen. In fact, most of the directors of the New Wave movement felt that style and presentation were more important than the traditional narrative that was widely used up to that point.
Godard, brought the camera into the streets of Paris, something that was imitated by everyone. His characters are secondary to the mood he created. The story, with its many detours of the main idea, shows more of the atmosphere Mr. Godard created around the characters of Michel and Patricia. It's hard to imagine the attraction of the young American for this tough guy, but maybe because of the aura he projects, attracted her to what might be perceived as a dangerous involvement.
Michel Poiccard is a petty criminal with a long history of wrong doing. For him Patricia represents a fruit he hasn't tasted and once he has a bite out of it, he is hooked. When Patricia tells him she suspects she is pregnant, he takes the news with apparent surprise, even though it appears he is the only man in her life. Deep down, the cool Michel is a desperate man. Michel seems to be impressed by the American movie stars of the times, especially Humphrey Bogart, whose picture he examines on one of the movie houses where he passes. In spite of his coolness, Michel knows his good luck could end at any given moment. That is why he clings to Patricia because he feels secure with her.
"Breathless" was filmed in the streets of Paris. Raoul Coutard, the cinematographer, used a hand held camera for most shots. The film was shot in daylight, as Godard detested lighting what he was going to shoot thus making everything look natural and unprepared. The jazzy score is by Martial Solal.
Jean-Paul Belmondo was not a handsome man by movie star standards, and yet, he has such a presence that he is hard to dismiss as the most important element that holds the film together. Jean Seberg, on the other hand, cast a youthful and wholesome aura on her Patricia that she appears to be the right actress for playing the part. Other uncredited cameos include the director, himself, Philippe DeBroca, and Jean-Pierre Melville, among others.
"Breathless" influence can be traced to a score of other movies that came behind it. It is a tribute to Jean-Luc Godard's early genius that made this film the classic that it is.
