Breathless

Rating:
Summary: A great classic that needs to be restored
Review: The fact that this movie was so popular in its day (late 1950's to early 1960's), and that it has remained a classic, indicates that it predicted the 1960's. Many people compared the character played by Jean-Paul Belmondo with their own drab, conformist lives and wanted to be like him. By 1969, many were. There's a wonderful soundtrack, but when white subtitles are shown against a background of white sidewalk, you can't read anything for scene after scene. Still, this is a story of two fascinating characters and their lives which will give you a lot of insight into the era and how it became our modern world.

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Summary: i think he did a interview with dan rather once.
Review: movie totally rules. dvd is lacking but that's okay because you can learn about godard from other places such as commercials on cbs and rolling stones magazine.

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Summary: To cite Roger Ebert, "Modern Cinema begins here"
Review: Its amazing how some people consider themselves cinephiles, yet give a movie like this -- one that's just as important as Birth of a Nation and Citzen Kane -- one star. Yet these same people will give a sadistic filmmaker, who lost his way long ago, Lars von Trier, five stars for the ilk he churns out year after year.

Let's face it, without Breathless, there wouldn't be Pulp Fiction. Despite critics saying how unique Quentin Tarantino is, and how he inspires this director and that director, they never say how profound of an influence Jean-Luc Godard (and Jean-Pierre Melvelle) had on QT. As a matter of fact, these critics never mention how profound of an influence Breathless and Jean-Luc Godard had on Scorsese, Allen, Stone, and DePalma.

Francois Truffaut and Claude Charbrol were other great French New Wave filmmakers, but to me, Jean-Luc Godard always were a step ahead of them because he likes to make a moviegoer work for their answers; he likes to challenge them.

Roger Eberts great review of this movie totally pinpoints how important this film is, so its a great read for anyone who wants to know more about it.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific film, terrific DVD
Review: Breathless, as a movie, is a delight. And David Sterritt's commentary on this DVD is the perfect accompaniment. He obviously loves this film, loves its characters, its actors, its quirky little devices, its big philosophical themes. He delights in everything about it, and I can't imagine anyone failing to be swept along with his enthusiasm.

Furthermore, the visual quality of this disk is excellent. Breathless was originally shot on 16mm film, but many of the scenes on this restored recording look as sharp, clear, and beautifully lit as B&W still photographs by Edward Weston.

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Summary: Two things are important in life: for men, women; for women,
Review: This was one of the few films that I was actually very interested in listening to the audio commentary. I do not normally do this with films, because it may scar my overall feeling of the film by hearing how the director had gas throughout the production, so I stay clear. The director of this film, Jean-Luc Godard is considered the Godfather of the French "New Wave" movement. I had to see a film by this man. I had to see what a film made back in 1959 has brought to modern cinema. While I was impressed with the style in which this movie was filmed, I was not impressed by the actors in the film. This was one of those movies that I could have watched without the sound. While the director uses film techniques that are now the standard in Hollywood, the actors that participated in this film left more to be desired. I know that I have used that phrase several times in this review, but it is my general feeling of this film. I went in expecting WAY too much, and came out with the feeling of sand falling through my fingers.

The shots of the actors talking to the camera, the quick camera shots, and the cryptic story are amazing to see, but you can sincerely tell that he was experimenting with this film. The actors talking into the camera you can tell are reading their lines, forcing French words out of their mouth, while trying to bring the audience into the picture, into the world that these two main characters are trying to create. Then there was the quick camera shots which made me feel as if Godard was having a heart attack instead of bring artwork to the silver screen. Finally, there was the cryptic story. So many times you find yourself trying to keep up with what these characters are doing, what they are talking about, or who they are interacting with. I felt that sometimes their interactions were too minimal, while others were too long and in-depth. This film WAS interesting to watch because you can see traces of Scorsese, Tarrantino, and even Stone in this film, and where these 21st century directors learned their techniques. I would bargain to say that without this film perhaps there wouldn't be any of these three directors making amazing movies today. BUT that still does not mean, by any means, that this was a great movie.

I actually hated this movie. I hated the characters the most. I could live with the story ... I could live with the new film techniques being used, but I could not ... and should not ... have to live with the characters. The actor and actress that carried the main parts in this story were, to be honest, horrible actors. I could not get into any of them. In Michel's final scene, I was looking at my clock wondering how long Godard would leave the camera on him, or if it would just be over with so I could get to my next film. Patricia was unbelievable and confused. While this film is trying to build a love story, you instead get bombarded with philosophy and art instead of love. I think Godard was trying to build a love story using these elements, but it never happened. Therefore, when Michel's climactic scene arrives, we feel nothing for him. Perhaps this was what Godard wanted us to feel, but then it does not go with the rest of the film.

Overall, I do not suggest watching this film. I have read other reviews that talk about how film students need to watch this film to fully respect the field, but I would have to say "I can't". I would give up on film if this was the best-of-the-best.

Grade: * out of *****

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Summary: Amazing forty three years later !
Review: For many viewers this film is the quintessential movie of the New Wave . I would not dare to affirm it but undoubtly we are in front a masterpiece loaded with irreverence , sardonic humor and a special candor and tenderness of the loneliness told in a brilliant journey of hyperkinetic anguish .
The delirium and the sorrow ; the time must be lived as it was the last day of their lives . The story turns around the adventures and misadventures of a very weird couple who decides to break certain rules . Belmondo is outstanding .
We had to wait until Jules and Jim to enjoy and describe the whole circle of the meaning of the New Wave .
You may number five essential titles : 400 blows (Truffaut) (see my review) ; Breathless ; Les cousins (Chabrol); Bob le flambeur(Jean Pierre Melville) and Jules and Jim (Truffaut).
Essential film .

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Summary: Experimental, exciting, and just plain fun!
Review: Godard is like a jazz musician. He takes a simple story (a cliche even) and flips it around turns it inside out and creates a revolution on the screen. This is one of the most satisfying things to watch happen.
Though not everybody will like his films - they are still ( you must admit) ingenious and uncompromising.
Watch this movie and have fun with it.

Rating:
Summary: Still startling and fresh after all these years
Review: I've been meaning to catch up with Jean-Luc Godard's French New Wave classic BREATHLESS for a while now, ever since I became a big cinema enthusiast. Godard is said to have been one of the great film innovators of the 1960s, and this was the film that announced his arrival to the film world as a major new talent. I was able to catch up with this DVD recently, and I was not disappointed by the movie at all. In fact, I was intrigued and often startled by its sheer freshness and stylistic innovation. I was also intrigued by its characters: Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a criminal trying to elude capture by the authorities throughout the picture; and his American girlfriend Patricia (Jean Seberg), a wannabe-journalist who is strangely drawn to the lowlife Michel. This is perhaps youth as Godard saw it: disaffected, indifferent to anything but themselves and their own lives...maybe even existentialist. Michel himself towards the ends doesn't even seem to really care that the police are closing in on him; and by the end, Patricia doesn't either. These two young people are basically self-absorbed narcissists, and Godard similarly doesn't try to connect the audience to these hardly-sympathetic characters. We are often kept at an emotional reserve from these two people, just as they keep their distance from the real world circumstances around them. (Michel makes a fitting statement towards the end when he says to Patricia, "When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other.") In short, the characters themselves may not be the most memorable in movie history, but their cold, detached worldview most certainly is.

If the characters are interesting to simply observe, the technique is also equally fascinating to watch. BREATHLESS has a small reputation of being the first film to extensively use the "jump cut," sudden cuts in the middle of scenes. Personally, I wasn't always sold on Godard's frequent use of it in this film, but when it works---as in one short sequence in which Michel tries to describe Patricia in various ways---it works very well, somehow making the film more realistic-feeling as a result. The cinematographer of BREATHLESS, Raoul Coutard, also uses a lot of handheld camera work---supposedly one of the first films to do so---to impart a documentary feel to the movie. In short, all throughout the movie you see glimmers of this film's incalculable influence on later filmmakers (Martin Scorsese immediately comes to my mind; BREATHLESS' realism and style reminds me of his early film MEAN STREETS).

To sump up: BREATHLESS is a seminal work of the cinema that has still managed to remain fresh and startling over the years. Its main characters and filmmaking style still manage to fascinate, and I don't feel that it has dated a whole lot since its landmark release in 1961. It still remains as potent as ever...just as any "classic" film should. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Catching Godard's Wave
Review: On this wonderful DVD of "Breathless" the commentary by film critic David Sterritt on Jean-Luc Godard's new wave masterpiece is so insightful that it makes this DVD even more of a must have for any lover of international cinema. It is a delight to hear his enthusiasm for the film, the director and the stars. Beyond that, there is this landmark film that in its new pristine restoration is so fresh and vibrant that it leaps from the screen. It is packed with incredible images of the three major characters of the story, Belmondo, Seberg, and Paris. It all seems to have been shot only yesterday. Jagged and edgy in its famous jump cut editing and with fluid cinematography by the famous Raoul Coutard it is as fresh and exciting as it was forty-four years ago.
The film is full of homage after homage to movies and pop culture of the day that so inspired Godard and many of his contemporaries. All of this is interlaced with a story of two characters so convinced of their independence from society that they cannot see how trapped they are within their self-created images gleaned from the icons of that time and place. All of this is presented with a wonderful mix of humor and suspense that propels the story forward in jerks and leaps through the city. Only when we are in Patricia's apartment does the film switch to long lingering shots of the everyday life of these two people. Then back out on the streets and the frantic chase with the cops and the search for an escape.
Jean Paul Belmondo is simply incredible to watch in this the film that made him and his tough sexy image famous throughout the world. He is so natural, and human as to seem to be caught by the eye of the camera completely unaware in his life as Michel Poiccard. Jean Seberg broke out of her limited Hollywood shell and embarked on her European career with her role as Patricia the American girlfriend of Michel who ultimately and inexplicably does what she must do. It is obvious that Godard and his cameraman adore her and the wide-open eye of the lens lingers on her with the same enamored devotion that Michel reluctantly shows her. With this film she really shows the range of her talent and how good she really was in the medium of film acting.
Here are two of the most photogenic faces of the early sixties shot without Hollywood lighting setups. Yet some of the shots have a glamour that Hollywood could not equal in all its artifice. Yet all the time this groundbreaking film never for a moment lets you forget you are watching a movie-movie. Both real and fake it achieves a fantastic reality all its own that changed cinema in profound ways and is still affecting the way we look at and make movies today.


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Summary: Addendum
Review: Yes, yes, of course Breathless is a great film. What amazes me is that no one has yet complained that this disc features only the FULLSCREEN version. What?? If they can give *Starsky and Hutch* a widescreen edition, why not Breathless? To not be able to experience the full frame of Godard's most well-known work is ridiculous. Cinephiles of the world, unite and demand a new, more comprehensive release. Why hasn't Breathless yet been enshrined in the Criterion Collection canon? Who will save this seminal work from its current limbo in a land formatted to fit your tv screen? For your own good, and ours, don't purchase this shoddy version of a great flick until Fox gives it the treatment it deserves.