À bout de souffle (Breathless, 1960)

Jean-Luc Godard

France

87 min, black and white, French (English subtitles)

Patricia: What is your greatest ambition in life?
Parvulesco: To become immortal. And then die.

An existential and essentially mindless flick that pulsates with meaningless life and drama, proceeds at a pace that does justice to the title, and ends as frivolously as it began. Breathless was one of Godard's first films and was the first entry in the long, distinguished, and influential line of French New Wave cinema.

Shot in marvelous black and white, and edited by a madman with a chain-saw, the film is irreverent and brutally honest in its depiction of the chain-smoking, self-involved, thief-killer-lover Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and his arrogantly self-motivated, fiercely independent American lover Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg). The film follows the travails of the car thief with obvious gusto, from the inauspicious beginning when he rubs out a policeman with the revolver he happened to find in a stolen car, to his "run" from the law, which is as leisurely as his pursuit of Patricia is determined.

Michel goes to Paris to wait for money owed him but mostly to convince Patricia to escape with him to Italy. At first, the girl has no idea what the French guy does for a living. She's too busy trying not to fall in love with him, or fall in love with her boss, or discover whether she is pregnant or not, or at least find a suitable spot on the wall to hang that Renoir reproduction (appropriately, in the crapper). When she finds out what Michel does, she is not phased a bit (proving that she does love him) and then dispassionately betrays him to the police (proving once again that she does love him). His final stroll through the streets is an apt metaphor for his existence: Mortally wounded, he staggers at a light prancing pace from car to car, trying to evade the evidently languorous pursuit, never missing a beat of the jazzy score, and never dropping his ubiquitous cigarette from his mouth. He drops and dies, Patricia stares at him, then at the audience, imitates the lip tracing gesture of his, and walks away.

When I first saw it, Breathless was likeable but not impressive. On second viewing, however, I am duly impressed. There are many slight and sly insinuations scattered all along the film, from suggestive movie posters, to ostensibly meaningless dialogue that only begins to make sense on repeat eavesdropping. For example, the deliciously naive exchange:

Patricia: That's wrong. I think informing is very wrong.
Michel: No, that's life. Informers inform, burglars burgle, murderers murder, lovers love.

Of course, Michel does believe this nonsense. Ironically, Patricia becomes convinced otherwise and changes her mind sufficiently to overcome the "wrongness" of informing when it comes to securing her own place. Now, that is life: Whenever it comes down to one's own happiness, nothing stands in the way.

Michel is quite simple minded and seems not to understand the mess he is in. He is most concerned with bedding the girly Patricia, to which end he professes love, says "something nice" to her, discusses art, and even stops smoking for ten seconds, if only to fondle her or be slapped in the face. Yet the long scene where they "share" is empty (by intent of the director, I assume) and devoid of feeling. He lusts after her, but she lusts after her independence. Later on, Patricia would declare, "I don't know if I'm unhappy because I'm not free, or I'm not free because I'm unhappy." By the end of the film, the answer is obvious and she becomes free, slightly unhappy, at the expense of her lover, the feelings for whom she did not want to endure for fear that it would shackle her. She cites Faulkner, "Between grief and nothing, I will take grief," and in the end that's exactly what she does.

Pretty engaging because of its meandering banter and somewhat disconcerting because of the chaotic editing, Breathless is an enjoyable fare that should not be missed. Both Belmondo and Seberg are excellent in their respective egoism, and the light score adds a surrealistic coloring to the narrative, making Michel's and Patricia's aimless existence seem fun and care free despite the supposed police mouse hunt for Michel.

The Fox Lorber DVD is decent for a change. A pretty good 1:1.33 transfer that has some graininess, but is otherwise sharp with relatively saturated blacks. The French mono is a bit uneven, but I could not decide whether this was a defect in the DVD or whether Godard wanted it that way. There are occasional moments where the dialogue is too quiet. There are several extras, including a feature-length audio commentary by the film critic David Skerritt and cast/crew filmographies. The yellow English subtitles are bright and readable. Overall, a nice DVD for an important film.

January 5, 2003