Breathless / "À Bout de Soufflé"

À Bout de Soufflé (1960) directed by Jean-Luc Godard

"À Bout de Soufflé" aka "Breathless", was the first full-length film directed by the controversial Jean-Luc Godard and also the first film of his long career. “Breathless” A Bout de Souffle is possibly the brightest star to shine from the French New Wave which makes this the landmark film of the French New Wave. Godard went out to create his own film in homage to, and also complete contradiction to classic Hollywood film (Breathless, n.d.).

"Breathless" plot is rather simple: Michel Poiccard/Laszlo Kovacs (Jean-Paul Belmondo), our anti-hero, is a young criminal on the run from the police because he stole a car and murdered a police. Besides, he has an affair with a beautiful young American, Patricia (Jean Seberg), an aspiring journalist who sells the New York Herald Tribune in the middle of the Champs Élysées, and is also expecting Michel's baby. Patricia helps Michel to dodge the police, while they steal cars together in order to raise money for a trip to Rome (Breathless, n.d.).

The plot reads almost like a crime thriller typical of the 1930-40's; a criminal on the run from the police, the distraction of a beautiful woman, the escape. Yet it remains special in Godard's approach as the film style and the new technologies that he used compared to the typical crime thriller. The narrative methods in Breathless are perhaps the most fascinating part of the film.

For the classic Hollywood narrative, the film usually ended with little equilibrium. Yet, the closure part in “Breathless” where protagonist's motives are unclear as he tears off to Paris leaving a woman and a dead cop in his trail. This somehow makes the ending open-ended. With no sense of equilibrium to start with how can there be closure on what has happened throughout the film? This act does surprise our audiences and fulfill the need of French New Wave.

After all, I think that “Breathless” -A Bout de Souffle brought a sense of realism that is not seen in the classic Hollywood cinema.  

Reference:

Jean-Luc Godard (Director) & Georges de Beauregard (Producer). March 16, 1960. A Bout De Soufflé (Breathless). France. UGC.

Breathless. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2013, from IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053472/