Breathless (1960 film)

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Breathless

Original release poster
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Produced by Georges de Beauregard
Written by Jean-Luc Godard
François Truffaut
Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jean Seberg
Music by Martial Solal
Cinematography Raoul Coutard
Editing by Cécile Decugis
Lila Herman
Distributed by Films Around the World, Inc. (France)
UGC (US)
Release date(s) March 17, 1960 (1960-03-17) (France)
February 7, 1961 (1961-02-07) (US)
Running time 87 minutes
Country France
Language French
English
Budget FRF400,000
Box office $67,464

Breathless (French: À bout de souffle; literally "at breath's end") is a 1960 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and Godard's first feature film. One of the first and most influential films of French New Wave[1]. At the time, the film attracted much attention for its bold visual style and the innovative editing use of jump cuts.

Breathless, together with François Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour, both released a year earlier, brought international acclaim to the French nouvelle vague.

A fully restored version of the film was released in the U.S. for the 50th anniversary of the film in May 2010. When originally released in France, the film had 2,082,760 cinema goers.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a young petty criminal who models himself on the film persona of Humphrey Bogart. After stealing a car in Marseille, Michel shoots a policeman who has followed him onto a country road. Penniless and on the run from the police, he turns to his American girlfriend Patricia (Jean Seberg), a student and aspiring journalist, who sells the New York Herald Tribune on the streets of Paris. The ambivalent Patricia unwittingly hides him in her apartment as he simultaneously tries to seduce her and call in a loan to fund their escape to Italy. At one point, Patricia says she is pregnant with Michel's child. She learns that Michel is on the run when questioned by the police. Eventually, she betrays him, but before the police arrive, she tells Michel what she did. He is somewhat resigned to a life in prison, and does not try to escape at first. The police shoot him in the street and, after a prolonged death run, he dies “à bout de souffle” (at breath's end).

[edit] Closing dialogue

Michel's death scene is one of the most iconic scenes in the film, but the film's final lines of dialogue are the source of some confusion for English-speaking audiences. In some translations, it is unclear whether Michel is condemning Patricia, or alternatively condemning the world in general.

As Patricia and Detective Vital catch up with the dying Michel, there is the following exchange, according to the transcript published in Dudley Andrew's book on the film:

MICHEL: C'est vraiment dégueulasse.
PATRICIA: Qu'est ce qu'il a dit?
VITAL: Il a dit que vous êtes vraiment "une dégueulasse".
PATRICIA: Qu'est ce que c'est "dégueulasse"?[2]

In his book, Andrew translates the dialogue thus:

MICHEL: That's really disgusting.
PATRICIA: What did he say?
VITAL: He said, "You are really a bitch."
PATRICIA: What is "dégueulasse" [bitch]?

Dégueulasse is the noun and adjective form of dégueuler, a slang verb meaning "to vomit."

Andrew's translation obscures the subtlety of Vital's misquotation of Michel; in the original French, it is not clear whether Vital misquotes him deliberately, or simply mishears. Other translations have made the possibility that Vital mishears Michel more apparent. In the English captioning of the 2001 Fox-Lorber Region One DVD, "dégueulasse" is translated as "scumbag", producing the following dialogue:

MICHEL: It's a real scumbag.
PATRICIA: What did he say?
VITAL: He said, "You're a real scumbag".
PATRICIA: What's a scumbag?

The 2007 Criterion Collection Region One DVD uses a less literal translation that renders the French into a familiar American colloquialism:

MICHEL: Makes me want to puke.
PATRICIA: What did he say?
VITAL: He said you make him want to puke.
PATRICIA: What's that mean, "puke"?

This translation also was used for the 2010 restoration print.

[edit] Cast

Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless

[edit] Production

Jean-Paul Belmondo had already appeared in a few feature films prior to Breathless, but he had no name recognition outside of France at the time Godard was planning the film. In order to broaden the film's commercial appeal, Godard sought out a prominent leading lady who would be willing to work in his low-budget film. He came to Jean Seberg through her then-husband, Francois Moreuil, with whom he had been acquainted. During the production, Seberg privately questioned Godard's style and wondered if the film would be commercially viable. After the film's success, she collaborated with Godard again on the short Le grand escroc, which revived her Breathless character.[3]

[edit] Filming

Godard envisaged Breathless as a reportage (documentary), and tasked cinematographer Raoul Coutard to shoot the entire film on a hand-held camera, with next to no lighting.[4] The production was filmed on location in Paris during the months of August and September in 1959,[4] using an Eclair Cameflex. Almost the whole film had to be dubbed in post-production because of the noisiness of the Cameflex camera.[5]

Coutard has also stated that the film was virtually improvised on the spot, with Godard writing lines of dialogue in an exercise book, giving the lines to Belmondo and Seberg, having a few brief rehearsals on scenes involved, then filming them. No permission was received to shoot the film in its various locations (mainly the side streets and boulevards of Paris) either, adding to the spontaneous feel that Godard was aiming for.[6]

[edit] Awards

[edit] Reception

According to the New York Times, Breathless is both “a pop artifact and a daring work of art” and even at 50, “still cool, still new, still – after all this time! – a bulletin from the future of movies”.[8]

The film currently holds a 96% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[9]

Breathless ranked as the No. 15 best film of all time in the British Film Institute's 2002 Sight and Sound Critics' Poll.[10]

[edit] In popular culture

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Film: Video and DVD Guide 2007. London: Halliwell's. 2007. pp. 1. ISBN 978 000 723470 7. 
  2. ^ Dudley Andrew (1987). Breathless, chapter: Continuity script for the film. Rutgers Films in Print series. Rutgers University Press. p. 146. ISBN 9780813512532. http://books.google.com/books?id=VCoh5Yn9uaEC&printsec=frontcover&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
  3. ^ "The Jean Seberg Enigma: Interview with Garry McGee", Film Threat, 28 March. 2008
  4. ^ a b Begery, Benjamin. Reflections: Twenty-one cinematographers at work, p. 200. ASC Press, Hollywood.
  5. ^ Begery, Benjamin. Reflections: Twenty-one cinematographers at work, p. 201. ASC Press, Hollywood.
  6. ^ Solomons, Jason (6 June 2010). "Jean-Luc Godard would just turn up scribble some dialogue, and we would rehearse maybe a few times". The Observer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/06/raoul-coutard-jean-luc-godard-breathless. 
  7. ^ "Berlinale: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1960/03_preistr_ger_1960/03_Preistraeger_1960.html. Retrieved 14 January 2010. 
  8. ^ Scott, A.O. (21 May 2010). "A Fresh Look Back at Right Now". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/movies/23scott.html. Retrieved 29 May 2010. 
  9. ^ Breathless at Rotten Tomatoes
  10. ^ Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll 2002

[edit] External links

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