Breathless

8 May 2023

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

See

Her: Breathless / A bout de soufflé / на последнем дыхании - a 1960 film by J-L Godard. A crime and love story of a french wheeler and dealer Michel and Patricia, an American student and journalist who sells NYHT on the streets of Paris. A film that was not expected to be a big success though ended up being a timeless classic that marked the beginning of the french nouvelle vague, kick started J-P’s, J-Ls careers and became the biggest movie for Jean Seberg.

Him: Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a small-time thief who kills a policeman and hides out in the Paris apartment of Patricia (Jean Seberg) an American journalism student.

Think

Her: Think: Breathless was made at the time when creativity was the only way out of necessity and shortage. Rules breaking is in the very Center of Godard’s directing approach: sometimes as a result of a lack of resources, sometimes as his rebellious creative weapon - the change was in the air and traditional film language just wouldn’t work to depict it. When Godard didn’t break the existing rules, he created his own out of previously forbidden techniques (e.g. jump cuts). Last but not the least, he turned American actress into a symbol of French new wave cinema. And I can’t decide whether it’s the most or least French thing to do.

There were no examples of films made this way before Breathless and almost nobody believed that it was going to come together. But Godard somehow knew what he was doing.

Him: Classic criminals in French New Wave cinema of the sixties show them to be charming and convivial, as if they don’t steal and kill. The majority of time on screen Michael is shown hustling on the street, and seducing Patricia. I wonder how she really thinks of him, sure she’s 20, and about to enroll at the Sorbonne. But is it just sexual chemistry? 

Feel

Her: Breathless is not a unique story that is told in a very unique, brand new way for the time it was made. Belmondo’s character is perhaps the most attractive criminal in the history of cinema, Jean Seberg is the most French of all American actresses. It’s a love story but Patricia’s feelings for Michael are arguable as they don’t stop her from betraying him. Michel and Patricia are both young, beautiful but real. I wanted to be like Seberg when I saw this movie first at the age of 17. Now, 17 years later, I can see that she is still timeless and was glad to notice that some things I did end up adopting. Michel’s last dance scene could be cringy in so many ways but it’s not. It’s a relief to realise more than a decade later that your youth heroes are still holding their credibility.

Him: Patricia interviewing the director was my favourite scene, and the abstract answers made me nostalgic for past press conferences when pithy responses were read into as profound.