Title: Breathless
Year: 1960
Director: Jean Luc Godard
Country: France
Language: French
In 1957 the popular weekly magazine L'Express had dubbed the current generation of filmmakers 'la nouvelle vague' or. as we call it now "the French New Wave". This generation of directors grew up watching the cinema of America's Golden Hollywood, and they sought to free the medium by breaking all the rules. Of the five Cahiers du cinéma critics to start a feature, Godard may be the most notorious.
In Godard's debut, a small-time thief steals a car (Jean Paul Belmondo) and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he reunites with a hip American journalism student (Jean Seberg) and attempts to persuade her to flee with him.
Breathless was shot by only two people, Godard and his cinematographer, with hand-held cameras, at a fraction of the cost of most pictures at the time. It was filmed on location, using amateur actors, and it looked like a documentary.
The jump cuts, jazzy score and themes about aimless alienated youth makes Godard's film quite fascinating. There are quite a few instances where his style departs from what you'd expect to see in cinemas - even today. Breathless is timeless, iconic and will forever be cool.
If you have never seen a Jean Luc Godard, or any French New Wave film, then Breathless is a tremendous way to begin. Francois Truffaut once said "There is Cinema before Godard and Cinema after Godard."
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