Breathless [Criterion Collection] [2 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

The first feature film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and one of the seminal films of the French New Wave, Breathless is story of the love between Michel Poiccard, a small-time hood wanted for killing a cop, and Patricia Franchini, an American who sells the International Herald Tribune along the boulevards of Paris. Their relationship develops as Michel hides out from a dragnet. Breathless uses the famous techniques of the French New Wave: location shooting, improvised dialogue, and a loose narrative form. In addition Godard uses his characteristic jump cuts, deliberate "mismatches" between shots, and references to the history of cinema, art, and music. Much of the film's vigor comes from collisions between popular and high culture: Godard shows us pinups and portraits of women by Picasso and Renoir, and the soundtrack includes both Mozart's clarinet concerto and snippets of French pop radio. When Breathless was first released, audiences and critics responded to the burst of energy it gave the French cinema; it won numerous international awards and became an unexpected box-office sensation. ~ Louis Schwartz, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 2
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Screen: Black and White
• Features:
  • Disc One:
  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director of photography Raoul Coutard
  • Archival interviews with director Jean-Luc Godard and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, and Jean-Pierre Melville
  • French theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Disc Two:
  • New video interviews with Coutard, assistant director Pierre Rissient and filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker
  • New video essays: Filmmaker Mark Rappaport's Jean Seberg and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum's "Breathless" as Criticism
  • Chambre 12, Hotel de Suede, an eighty-minute French documentary about the making of Breathless, with members of the cast and crew
  • Charlotte et son Jules, a 1959 short film by Godard, starring Belmondo

AWARDS

• Berlin International Film Festival

•     Won Silver Bear for Best Director - 1960 (Jean-Luc Godard)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Jean - Paul Belmondo - Michel Poiccard
       Jean Seberg - Patricia Franchini
       Daniel Boulanger - Police Inspector
       Jean - Pierre Melville - Parvulesco
       Liliane David - Minouche
       Henri - Jacques Huet - Antonio Berrutti
       Van Doude - Journalist
       Roger Hanin - Carl Zombach
       Claude Mansard - Used-Car Dealer

• Director:

  Jean-Luc Godard

• Producer:

  Georges de Beauregard

• Screenwriter:

  Jean-Luc Godard

• Screen Story:

  François Truffaut

• Cinematographer:

  Raoul Coutard

• Composer (Music Score):

  Martial Solal

• Editor:

  Cecile Decugis, Lila Herman

• First Assistant Director:

  Pierre Rissient

• Artistic Advisor:

  Claude Chabrol

• Technical Advisor:

  Claude Chabrol

REVIEW:

• A loving pastiche of film noir yet an exuberant slap in the face of Hollywood convention, A bout de souffle is a movie landmark that wowed early 1960s audiences with its ultra-cool swagger, amoral outlook, and energetic style. Adopting a loose and shaggy narrative structure, the film follows Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a two-bit thug who models himself on Humphrey Bogart, steals from unsuspecting lovers, and, like the protagonist in Albert Camus's The Stranger, kills for no apparent reason, as he chases after debts, commits larceny, and tries to bed Patricia (Jean Seberg). Shot with hand-held cameras in natural light, the film has the gritty, documentary-like feel of such Italian Neo-Realist classics as The Bicycle Thief and Rome Open City, yet its visual style also breaks every cinematic rule in the book: characters and extras stare directly into the camera, edits occur in mid-shot, and the camera seems willfully restless. In the process, director Jean-Luc Godard gleefully breaks the illusion of reality, always reminding the audience that it is watching a movie. Ever the film buff, Godard packs this film with allusions drawn equally from American pop culture and high art: Nicholas Ray is referenced alongside Dylan Thomas, a 1956 Thunderbird Coupe alongside William Faulkner's Wild Palms. Godard's iconoclastic style, coupled with his constant referencing, might give the impression that the film is a vast inside joke, were it not tempered with a deep existential pathos for its characters. During the famous bedroom sequence, we witness Michel and Patricia, two thoroughly unlikable figures, try and ultimately fail to forge some sort of bond; they are too involved in their worlds to connect. Francois Truffaut once remarked, "There is the cinema before Godard and the cinema after Godard." A bout de souffle is the masterpiece that launched Godard's career and, in so doing, changed the face of cinema. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi