Review of Breathless (1960) by Matheus C — 27 Dec 2011

I used to watch a lot of movies. 3, 4 a day, every day, and I did it for years (oh the joy of perpetual student-hood). I saw New Waves, Silents, Dissident, World and Commercial pictures - sometimes it seems I saw everything. But I never saw this. The film that changed a generation.

A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), in retrospect, has amazing pedigree: its story, its history, its place in the cinematic pantheon are well documented - for all these reasons, and more, this unassuming picture always seemed like one I'd seen. Of course I'd seen a dozen other Godard's, but somehow, this, his first picture, slipped through the cinematic cracks of my education. So how does it hold up? Sometimes the pictures that were important ten years ago, twenty - or fifty odd years in the case of this - seem dated. They belong to their time. And much about Breathless does seem to have dated - but within minutes all ones fears and hesitations are blown away. Breathless hits you still like the waft of fresh air it must have been in 1960. And when Jean Seberg walks into view, hollering "New York Herald Tribune", Breathless becomes effortlessly cool.

This is not to say that Breathless is a perfect film: it does have some very minor flaws. Godard would go onto make technically better films, and films that would reveal more of his heart - and it is heart that is ultimately missing from the story of these rebellious lovers (you can't help but wonder why Seberg doesn't slap Jean Paul Belmondo's Michel Poiccard a little more often). I read a review of this film by David Thomson in which he called it a 'cartoon' - it seems the most appropriate description. For all of this pictures influence on French cinema of the next decade, the biggest influence on it is Americana - you could almost set it in New York City - and the cult cartoon writing that typified a generation of American 'crime' writing.

Godard would write later in life: "All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl." He was thinking of this, his effortless debut, when he said that.