Breathless by Anthoney Baker

Title/Year: Breathless (French: À bout de souffle; literally "at breath's end") 1960

Director/Birth Country/Year Born: Jean-Luc Godard / French / 1930

Budget: 400,000 Francs (Wikipedia) (Roughly $40,000 USD)

Gross: $67,464 (Wikipedia)

Synopsis: Michel, a young petty criminal who steals cars, shoots a French police officer and goes on the run. He turns to his American girlfriend, who is a student and journalist, and tries to convince her to run away to Italy with him. She betrays him and Michel is killed by the police.

Narrative and Visual Keywords: French new wave, Long scenes with extensive jump cuts, forbidden love, betrayal, voyeuristic,

Characterization/ Dialogue: Long natural dialogue is used between the main characters with quick dialogue with other side characters that drive the story.

Camera/lighting/editing technique: Handheld during long dialogue scenes, natural lighting, and extensive use of jump cuts.

Political/ Social Commentary: The world in breathless seems to be non-existent beyond the dialogue of the two lovers. The only thing that stands in between them is the occasional inquiry from the police or the moments when Michel is trying to obtain money for their escape to Italy.

Historical Relevance/ Recognition: This film is considered by critics as one of the most important pieces of French New Wave cinema. This film is also Jean-Luc Godard's first film.

Notable Collaboration: Godard envisioned this film as a documentary and tasked cinematographer to shoot the entire film with a handheld camera.

Random fact: The film was shot with no extra lights nor did it have permission to shoot on the city streets. This helped to add the spontaneous feel of the film. (Wikipedia) (Note: it also added to the countless onlookers looking directly at the camera.)

Week 2 Reaction Questions:

The presence of Godard’s vision is evident in ‘Breathless’. Within the opening moments of the film we see the main character, a petty criminal named Michel, steal a car and shoot a French police officer. Seconds after the incident the film moves into a world where the previous actions are mere happenstance. Michel looks directly at the camera and proclaims ‘If you don’t love France, you can ‘stuff it’. This is the moment that Godard tells us we are about to explore the dynamic relationships buried in the theme of this film. After a few moments Michel seeks out the refuge of a young American student named Patricia. The majority of this film is the exploration of the very realistic relationship between these two lovers. Michel has a one track mind thinking only of sex while the young girl is fickle and is always ignoring his advances. These moments are where the authorship in this film most evident. The extremely long scenes between the two lovers and the natural playful dialogue create a sense of voyeurism that’s almost embarrassing to witness. These beautiful love scenes, along with the quick dialogue exchanges make this film deeply enriched. Truly we are watching Godard show us that he understands a deeper connection between love, courtship, sexuality and independence.

Godard creates a world in which two young lovers explore their attractions and test commitment. During the long ‘love’ scenes we see the two lovers toil and play with each other in a very natural way. It is such an immersive world in Breathless that it is easy to forget that the main character is wanted for the murder of a police officer. Outside of the police entanglement we seldom see any real world interactions. There are a few instances when Michel is trying to call in a load and obtain money for his escape to Italy but he knows the inevitable is just around the corner. The story reaches its climax when the girl betrays him and informs the police as to his whereabouts. She does this to ‘test’ her love for him. While Michel thinks it’s a ridiculous notion we see a woman exploring her independence and making the decision that she doesn’t need to be confined in love of this petty criminal.

Jean-Luc Godard saw film making as an extension of criticism and a way to tell deeper stories. Breathless gives us a small preview of how is later works would be presented. His visual narrative style and raw film making techniques are evident that his works are not so much about the medium but about the stories and ideas that convey through them. In the last moments of Breathless Michel is on the ground dying. He looks up and proclaims, “It’s a real Bitch”. (Note: The Criterion Collection changed the translation to “Makes me want to puke” and it has also been transcribed as “It’s a real scumbag”.) It is as if Godard was saying “[The world] is a real bitch.”