Breathless

Man, I started this blog off on the wrong night. It does take some of the pressure off, but man, I would love to have talked about Beathless as my first commentary/review/whatever this is going to turn out to be. Jean-Luc Godard is one of my favorite directors and Breathless is one of his best films.

I love how it moves at a different pace compared to other movies of its time. The fast cuts throw you from one sentence to the next with little remorse as to if you are keeping up. It has an heir of 'fuck you' that only a Frenchman can compose. Even in the opening lines Michel Poiccard (Played by Jean-Paul Belmondo) basically says: 'If you don't like France then you can go to hell' blatantly looking into the camera and breaking the fourth wall for the first of many times. He then proceeds to blatantly objectify women, point a loaded gun at passing cars and fire the gun at the sun, then kill a cop. The whole time you watch the edit pace of the movie is at a rapid fire, essentially switching shots after every sentence. He flees to Paris to meet up with an American girl, Patricia (Played by Jean Seberg) apprenticing to be a journalist. I do not really feel like describing the whole movie to you so I am speeding up.

 A statement is made in the movie akin to “American women totally own men and French women have not quite figured out how to whip a man yet.” This is shown throughout the movie as Michel constantly dominates the women around him – yet he is completely wrapped around Patricia’s finger. I always get the feeling that Michel strongly believes he is in a movie but wrongly believes he is a hero. So he goes about his doing what he believes is what Bogart or Sinatra would do. But he is a pretty despicable when it comes down to it. But through his hijinks he is nonetheless endearing. He knows the police are after him yet he hangs around for a girl that only half-heartedly flirts with him. She does sleep with him – But this is France so there you go. Patricia does know exactly what she is doing the whole time as she reveals in the final lines of the film and stared intently into the audience. No, I meant to word it like that.

Like with any Godard film you get a great atmosphere. He plays with camera angles and always is mindful of the whole frame. The characters are stereotypical but fresh always mysterious, I believe that has something to do with the copious amount of cigarette smoke constantly being thrown into the air by Michele and Patricia. As I mentioned before the editing for this movie is rapid fire fast. While he throws jump cuts around like a pedophile throws candy at a park Godard also takes his time over various scenes and does entire scenes in one shot.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone who loves film. And if you liked this movie and would like to know more about Godard I also will suggest “Band of Outsiders”.

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10/10