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À bout de souffle (1960) More at IMDbPro »

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123 comments in total

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3 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
The most French film of the French New Wave, 4 February 2002
Author: paranoidandroid-1 (leemanansala@hotmail.com) from san francisco

Every 24 frames of every second of this film is a love letter to Paris. With all the talk of "French New Wave" this and "existential" that, it would be easy to forget the amazing images of Paris. For a brilliant, and much more upbeat look at Parisian life than "The 400 Blows", see this film.

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6 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Only gaping astonishment and unrequited love will do., 21 August 2000

Author: Alice Liddel (-darragh@excite.com) from dublin, ireland

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.

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8 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Time has not been good to "Breathless", 3 November 2004

Author: Tom DeFelice from Leominster Mass USA

In the late 1950's and early 1960's the French reinterpreted American film. They saw "Cinema" where everyone else say movies. From Alfred Hitchcock to John Ford to Jerry Lewis, the popular transcended into the divine. And so the "Auteur Theory" was born in the pages of the "Cashiers Du Cinema".

Truffaut, Godard, etc. not only appreciated the classic Hollywood of the 1940's and 1950's, they worshiped it. Breathless was meant to be a Gallic interpretation of film noir. Time, however, has left it flat. So much has changed in the last 45 years, that the novelty of disjointed action seems tame and exaggerated crime drama falls flat by today's standards. This film shows it's age.

I recently saw "À bout de soufflé" and "Out Of The Past" together. There is real "Noir" and a pale copy. Historically, "Breathless" may be interesting as a curiosity. But it's artificiality falls flat when compared to the real thing. It is a student trying to copy his master. And only leads to a pale imitation.

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Breathless, but not exasperated, 12 April 2009

Author: Merodoc from United States

This classic from the New Wave has aged like a subtle Bordeaux—perhaps a bit brackish at times, but still potent and sublime. It is memorable but not for everyone's taste. A joyride in the country turns into a getaway when Michel, the antihero gangster, turns his gun loose on a cop after a traffic violation. We don't have enough time to question his motives because in the next breath we are in Paris. We see Paris from the point of view of a passenger whose face is pressed against the car's window. In Paris, he finds his former lover (Patricia) selling New York Herald Tribune newspapers on the Champs-Elysees.

We sense that Michel knows his days are numbered. He has killed a cop in cold blood, and all of Paris wants him caught. His nonchalance is gripping yet frustrating. The plot (as in other New Wave films) is forgettable. Michel's character is part Humphrey Bogart (a poster of whom Michel stares at in Breathless), part nouveau roman antihero. He's the bad guy we're supposed to like.

Michel's character is the spine of this film. He lacks the sort of remorse and softness that characterize movie heroes. That's the point. He is insistent in making love to Patricia. A cigarette is never far from his lip. He apes other people's facial expressions. Those who argue that his character is bad are falling prey to the sort of gut reactions that Godard explores and rejects. Godard introduces a then-revolutionary technique in Breathless: the jump-cut. This method breaks up the action and gives the film an energetic, fresher feel. Godard is a master at playing with the length of each cut, restricting what we can see and leaving the rest ambiguous.

The film feels young like the director himself and the characters. Patricia sleeps with a teddy bear and has a tom-boy haircut. Michel is fearless and carefree, like many adolescents. This film is Godard's first feature film (he made at the age of thirty, after a Swiss documentary).

The film is also important for its references to American films and cinematography. Godard loved American cinema, and was influenced by Hollywood directors. The references to the Cahiers du Cinema (a film critique magazine) and other films are a noble homage to his influences.

Watch this film. It isn't long (about 87 minutes). Criterion Collection's translation is intended for North American audiences, but its re-mastering is top-notch. The film's score is marvelous. It's a classic, but not a tedious one.

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
style and plot, 11 February 2009

Author: paulforbes-1 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Everyone talks about style, but I think the writing is subtle but very good. I like the plot twist here. In pre-feminist era films, women are always victimized by men. Every film noir had strong female leads, but each were weak and vulnerable when it came to men. This film turns the table. Michel is evil (murderer, thief, cad) and yet, he is completely vulnerable to Patricia. She can love, but she can still be herself, much like men of the classic era. The story explains the nature of love more than any film previously. Love is complex and messy, not a simple affair. Not black and white, which is another clever play, since color could have been employed in the film. The style of this film really was revolutionary to this day and still worth seeing. If you are interested in the history of film then you will like this film. If you are simply interested in good story, this is still worth your time. However, I think there are more modern stories that have done a better job since.

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Style over substance but not half bad, 8 February 2009

Author: sme_no_densetsu from Canada

Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" is a landmark film in the world of cinema. It was an important early work in the French new wave and served as an indication of things to come. As for the story, it involves a roguish car thief (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who tries to convince his girlfriend (Jean Seberg) to run off to Italy with him after he kills a police officer.

The story is almost secondary here. There are plenty of long conversations with little impact on the actual plot. There is an unmistakeably existentialist slant to the film, which would have appealed to me less had Godard not infused the film with such frenetic energy with his bold visuals and innovative cutting.

The cast is pretty good with Belmondo & Seberg convincingly infusing their characters with vivid life. Michel is either a lovable scoundrel or an incorrigible bastard, I can't quite decide which. It makes for an entertaining performance but in the end the character's fate didn't mean much to me. The same goes for Seberg's character, whose crisis might as well have not been introduced in the first place.

Ultimately, while I appreciate the film's impact on film-making I prefer the results of its influence found in later films. Moreover, I am of the opinion that its exalted status is due more to its historical significance than its intrinsic quality. That being said, I do think that it is a worthwhile film, though those with historical perspective will no doubt gain the most satisfaction from it.

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
"We look at each other in the eye, and it's no use", 14 December 2008

Author: ackstasis from Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

As much as I'd like to think that, after two exciting years, I've been well-and-truly inducted into the world of cinema, I'm really still an amateur. I hear the term "French New Wave" and immediately become intimidated. What's it all about? Hand-held photography, jarring jump-cuts and pretentious philosophical musings? It was with some trepidation that I approached Jean-Luc Godard's 'À bout de soufflé / Breathless (1960),' supposedly the cornerstone of the French movement, though I was somewhat reassured by a brief plot description that sounded uncannily similar to a modern urban thriller: "a young car thief kills a policeman and tries to persuade a girl to hide in Italy with him." In many ways, 'Breathless' is just like a contemporary film. The hand-held camera-work has a gritty, documentary-like immediacy, and a dynamic freshness that wouldn't arrive in Hollywood cinema for another few years {Sidney Lumet's 'The Pawnbroker (1964)' is the earliest example I can think of}. Stylistically, even recent thrillers like 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)' and 'Michael Clayton (2007)' owe a lot to Godard, as curious as that may sound.

Both leads are excellent in their respective roles. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a Humphrey Bogart-wannabe, an out-of-his-depth car thief who speaks tough, but whose brave frontage is immediately transparent. His character works effectively as a semi-affectionate satire of Hollywood's hard-boiled film noir heroes – ripped from the pages of Hammett, Chandler and Spillane – who don't actually exist in real life. Jean Seberg, an American actress who only found success after migrating to Europe, is beautiful and sensual as his independent some-time lover, who finds excitement in the notion of a fugitive boyfriend, but has yet to decide if she loves him or not. As far as the romantic subplot is concerned, Godard emphasises the selfishness of his new generation. Love is no longer an intimate and enduring connection between two people, but a succession of lurid and meaningless sexual encounters. Though Michel and Patricia frequently speak their love of each other, their motives are purely egocentric in nature. Each character frequently alludes to their own needs and desires, and Patricia eventually informs on Michel to prove, for her own benefit, that she is indifferent to him.

My only previous Godard work, 'Alphaville (1965),' had sufficiently intrigued me with its half-satirical espionage thriller set against a backdrop of science-fiction. However, when the narrative periodically came to a standstill, so too, I found, did my interest in the film. 'Breathless' gave me similar sentiments, albeit to a lesser degree. While never boring, there is a sizable patch in the middle of the film – in particular, a long scene spent inside Patricia's apartment – where Michel's status as a wanted man is entirely forgotten. The film's narrative drive comes to a grinding halt, and the two characters are left in limbo. When he's not trying to entice his American companion into bed, Michel raises seemingly arbitrary philosophical questions – such as, out of nowhere, "do you ever think about death?" – that apparently serve no purpose other than to justify Godard's film as an important "arthouse" picture. Much has been said about the pioneering use of jump-cuts, a creative trick to trim down the running-time without losing key scenes, but I found the technique unnecessarily jarring and unpalatable.

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
When smoking was cool, 21 November 2008

Author: bandw from Boulder, CO

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I saw this for the first time a few years after it came out when I was too young to appreciate it. Some forty years on I think I am too old to appreciate it. The stylistic novelties--jump cuts, long tracking shots, natural lighting, ironic score, hand held cameras, grainy black and white--now seem passé.

I have sometimes wondered what my reaction to this would have been had I come to it with no foreknowledge. I think there are few who have had that experience since opinions and reviews hit the presses early on, almost a year before this wave came to the shores of the U.S. The mythology surrounding a film such as this becomes as important as the film itself.

The story revolves around Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Patrica (Jean Seberg). While the amoral Michel steals cars, murders a policeman, and robs people, Patrica tries to figure out if she loves him. The film alternates between realism, like a long scene in a hotel suite where the two talk and talk and talk, and stylistic cinematic flurries that call attention to themselves. Neither Michel nor Patricia seems to care much about anything. Even when Michel knows the police are closing in on him he does not attempt flight, complaining that he is tired.

Since the story is not much and the characters are not terribly appealing, appreciation must come mainly from the presentation. There is no mystery to Michel, he is aimless and shallow, trying desperately to effect coolness. Micel's affectations of rubbing his thumb across his lips and making a sequence of faces bugged me the first time he did them and by the time he had done these things several more times I was ready to hurl a frying pan at him. Goddard films Seberg in a way to give her a commanding presence and at least she retains some element of mystery. It is hard to see why Patricia, an American expatriate and student at the Sorbonne, had such a hard time figuring out whether she loved Michel.

All of the stylistic innovations mentioned above kept my interest, but the prevailing mood of anomie rubbed off.

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
A love letter to cinema, 9 August 2008
Author: AdnanZ

"Breathless" is certainly one of the most talked-about films in history (academically, at least), and its technical innovations, influence, and place in film history have been covered in far more detail than I could fit into a 1000-word IMDb comment, so this particular comment will focus on whether or not I think "Breathless" works purely as a movie.

I'll never be able to completely ignore the fact that "Breathless" has an important place in film history when watching it, but I can say that every single time I've seen it (and that's many, many times) I have been thoroughly entertained. "Breathless" is remarkably pure, undiluted cinema, shot by two people on a shoestring budget. It's also fun to note that three titans of the French New Wave, Melville, Truffuat, and Godard, were all involved in some capacity in this film.

"Breathless" was shot on a hand-held camera by Godard and his cinematographer Raoul Coutard. There were no other crew involved in principal shooting for the film. With that taken into account, "Breathless" is a fine-looking film, with editing that still has the intended effect today, a good musical score, and acting that remains striking in 2008. It's an admirable low-budget effort, a love letter to cinema which regardless of your personal feelings on the film at least tries to do something interesting.

"Breathless" is far from Godard's best film, and I doubt that many who have seen more than a few films by him would say that it is. It's not as purely entertaining or involving as "Band of Outsiders" and it lacks the intellectual and philosophical bent of many of his other movies, but as pure cinema it works.

8/10

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
What he will be remembered for, 8 September 2001
Author: (caspian1978@hotmail.com) from Attleboro, MA

Godard once said that no medium can catch the truth. Reckless is an example of capturing the honesty in film. Godard came to reject the ideology of naturalism. He felt that a correct view of reality had to be created. The only authentic and artistic realism in films was the truth behind the appearance of what films tried to show as the truth. Godard held nothing back in his work and in 1960, Godard revealed to the world a new way of movie making with the release of Reckless.

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