‘It’s sad to fall asleep. It separates people…’
One of the best things about teaching Film Studies is that as the exam specifications change, the curriculum becomes a learning curve for me too. My only previous dalliance with French New Wave came through François Truffaut’s masterpiece The 400 Blows. That film embodies the spirit of the Young Turks (a group of film critics disillusioned with the unimaginative state of post war cinema) – authenticity, gorilla, low budget film-making and the urge to do something different to what was already out there. Just a year later, Jean-Luc Godard, working in collaboration with Truffaut, would alter the French cinematic landscape again with Breathless…
Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a man who lives on impulse. Perhaps inevitably, this leads to Michel impulsively stealing a car and then impulsively murdering a traffic cop – the fact that he does this whilst remaining impassively nonchalant throughout is not enough to save him. His only possibility of redemption comes in the shape of Patricia (Jean Seberg) – a hip American journalist with a pixie haircut who is doomed to fall for Michel’s increasingly insistent advances.
For context, it’s important to point out that while Breathless may same tame by today’s standards, in comparison to what was coming out in Hollywood at the time, this gritty, sleazy film was utterly radical. Both Michel and Patricia are complicated characters, Godard doesn’t ask us to like them (although we inevitably do, despite their many transgressions), he simply presents their lives in a non-judgemental but incredibly compelling way. It helps that both Belmondo and Seberg (a tragic figure who would eventually commit suicide aged 40) act their socks off, with both performances now iconic. The fact that Michel is, for all intents and purposes, a dickhead, doesn’t detract from the fact that he oozes cool. He is the epitome of France as a nation and Paris as a city: aloof, composed, and yet, invigorating.
The purposefully shaky editing and the grainy, low budget shooting style won’t be to everybody’s taste, but when placed in context, Breathless is an irresistible and important film and a solid entry point into the world of French New Wave.