Breathless

Year of Release:  1960

Director:  Jean-Luc Godard

Screenplay:  Jean-Luc Godard, based on a story by François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol

Starring:  Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg

Running Time:  90 minutes

Genre:  Crime drama

Cynical thief Michel (Belmondo) steals a car and kills a motorcycle policeman.  He escapes to Paris and contacts his on-again off-again American girlfriend Patricia (Seberg), a student and aspiring writer who earns a crust by selling the New York Herald-Tribune on the streets.  While trying to stay ahead of the police who are hot on his trail, Michel tries to call in a debt he's owed, in order to get enough money for himself and Patricia to escape to Italy.

This film takes what could be a conventional pulp narrative and turns it into an innovative blend of cinematic style and Sixties cool.  It marked the directorial debut of film critic turned filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, and was one of the defining films of the so-called "French New Wave".  The story was inspired by a real life case that François Truffaut came across in a newspaper.  Truffaut worked on the script with Claude Chabrol, but they both decided it was unworkable, however Godard read it and wanted to make it.   Filmed in a semi-documentary style, Paris shimmers in the crisp monochrome photography, with a roving camera, inventive editing (particularly it's use of the jump cut) and a cool jazz soundtrack.  The film's main character is Michel, a cynical thief, mugger and murderer, who it's hinted seduces and discards numerous women, is an absolutely ghastly person, who would take you for everything you owned given half the chance, however as played by Jean-Paul Belmondo he is really cool, and charismatic, basing his style and persona on Humphrey Bogart, he is the ultimate anti-hero, and although we see him do many bad things, and it is suggested that he has done a lot more besides, we still like him, and by the end we're kind of on his side.  As the equally cynical but ambitious Patricia, Jean Seberg has real charm and presence.  She's engaging and likeable and yet is shown to be possibly just as ruthless as Michel.  Together Seberg and Belmondo are electric.  They have real chemistry.  The dialogue is sharp and witty, although apparently it loses something in the English translation, particularly the ambiguous exchange at the end of the film.  Still fresh and exciting sixty years on, it's nihilistic, anti-authoritarian tone is still bracing to this day.  One of the seminal films in world cinema, it's influence is still felt today.  

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Breathless