"It's sad to fall asleep. It separates
people. Even when you're sleeping together, you're all alone."
-- Patricia Franchini in Breathless
"It's sad to fall asleep. It separates
people. Even when you're sleeping together, you're all alone."
-- Patricia Franchini in Breathless
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The love intrigue set aside, this is a great film about Paris and the spirit that reigned there at the time. -- capsule taken in part from the Edinburgh University Film Society archives |
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Made in:
1959 |
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Cast: |
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Directed by:
Jean-Luc Godard |
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The
story begins in Marseilles. Michel Poicard (Jean-Paul
Belmondo), a young hoodlum, steals a car to go to Paris. He
is pursued by a policeman on a motorcycle, whom he shoots
dead with a gun he finds in the glove compartment. In Paris,
Michel steals money from a friend to go off and find
Patricia (Jean Seberg), an American girl who sells the
Herald Tribune in the Champs-Elysées. He is in love
with her and wants to take her to Rome. This film gave
Belmondo his first big role and Jean Seberg is exquisite
under Godard's direction. 
A
Bout de Souffle, shot with bits and scraps of film on a very
low budget, was the first official manifestation of the
nouvelle vague, a style of cinema that emerged in France, in
the period and was heavily inspired by what was being done
in America. Godard threw away the rigidity of French
conventions by using hand-held camera techniques and natural
settings, giving his film a fluidity and a spontaneity in
keeping with the life and character of his protagonist. The
young Michel Poicard; dashing, daring, cynical and purile,
is himself immersed in American culture (sporting his
role-model Bogart's hat and look). The film pays deliberate
homage to the films of Preminger and other contemporary
directors of the film noir genre. 
The
heroes banter, tell fibs and act silly. Yet the film is
essentially about cowardliness, foreboding, betrayal and
death on the prowl; on the difficulty of being who we
pretend to be and even of knowing ourselves. In the void
into which the youth of the times had fallen into, Godard
could see only love to save them.