À Bout de Souffle (Breathless) 

Release date (US): February 7, 1961

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Starring Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo

Available on various streaming services, including Netflix and Amazon Prime

K mentioned in passing that Jean-Luc Godard had died. The following night, I watched À Bout de Souffle (Breathless), Godard’s first feature-length film.

 Breathless is a movie that every film buff is required to see. Not just see, but see many times. That’s because it was a breakthrough for French cinema after WWII. It was a departure from the way French films had been made, and it ushered in a decade of distinctly different filmmaking that became known as the New Wave.

There are several significant innovations in Breathless. One of them is that Godard shot the movie in natural light on the streets of Paris (rather than in studios). Another is that he used hand-held cameras almost throughout the entire length of the movie. Another, the most famous, perhaps, is the introduction of “jump cuts” – an odd way of cutting a scene into static pieces that force the viewer to notice that “this is a film,” as opposed to making the cuts invisible to enhance the “continuity.”

Had I not known that this is considered to be a great, revolutionary film, written and directed by one of the immortals, I might have thought it was just a low-budget, poorly made movie. But with one redeeming quality: the acting.

The story line is thin. (Godard explained his version of it to François Truffaut, who wrote the screenplay, this way: “Roughly speaking, the subject will be the story of a boy who thinks of death and of a girl who doesn’t.”) The production is odd and disturbing. But the movie itself – the images of these two people – that stuck with me.

If you haven’t seen it, check it out and tell me if you agree.

You can watch the trailer here.