Breathless
À bout de souffle
1960 · France · 90 min · 1.37:1 · B&W
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Introduction
Breathless is a 1960 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, his first feature, with Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel and Jean Seberg as Patricia. The outline came from François Truffaut, and Jean-Pierre Melville appears in the film as a novelist. Michel steals a car in Marseille, shoots a policeman who pursues him, and reaches Paris, where he stays with Patricia, an American student, while trying to collect money owed him and leave the country; she eventually reports him to the police. The film was shot handheld on Paris streets. It ran long when assembled, and Godard shortened it by cutting sections out of the middle of shots, which produced the jump cuts throughout. He received the Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin.
The Jump Cut as Manifesto
The film was shot in about four weeks in August and September 1959 on a very small budget. Raoul Coutard often worked handheld from a wheelchair pushed along the street, and used high-speed stock manufactured for stills photography, spliced into long rolls, so that he could work in available light. Godard wrote each day's dialogue that morning. The opening credits dedicate the film to Monogram Pictures.
Titles
- Mainland China
- 精疲力尽
- Hong Kong
- 斷了氣
- Taiwan
- 斷了氣
- English
- Breathless
- Original
- À bout de souffle
Cast
- Jean-Paul Belmondoas Michel
- Jean Sebergas Patricia