348. A bout de souffle/Breathless (1959)

Running Time: 87 minutes
Directed By: Jean-Luc Godard
Written By: Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut
Main Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger, Jean-Pierre Melville, Roger Hanin
Click here to view the trailer

GODARD WEEK: PART ONE

As we enter 2012, so do I enter the week that begins my eight (or maybe seven - more on that later) film introduction to Jean-Luc Godard and his films from THE BOOK. For those of you who inquired about how familiar I am with Godard's work, I am not that familiar at all. The only film I've ever seen of his is "Breathless" - once tonight and once years ago.

Michel Poiccard (Belmondo) is a two-bit criminal, who has just killed a cop. However, that doesn't stop him from chain smoking, stealing cars and chasing after Patricia (Seberg), a 20-year-old journalist, who sells the New York Herald Tribune on the streets of Paris to earn a living. After shooting the cop on a deserted country road, Michel retreats back into the city streets of Paris and meets up with a "connection", to pick up some cash after a supposed recent "job". Beyond that, Michel revisits Patricia, someone who he's previously known and whom he'd like to become serious with, although he doesn't come right out with it, instead he hounds her to go to bed with him, just one more time. Eventually the pair end up back at her place and the best part of the film is spent in her apartment, as the two exchange a glorious bout of dialogue. After reluctantly sleeping with Michel, Patricia starts to warm up to him and falls in love with him. To get away from the police, Michel begs Patricia to go to Rome with him, however her newly acquired flair for journalism ties her to Paris. As the film comes to a climax, Michel's picture is on the front page of every newspaper, as he hustles to gather some cash and convince Patricia to go with him, all while he tries his best to stay under police radar.

When I saw the film a couple of years ago, I basically forced myself to watch it, wanting my film tastes to be more cultured and to open my mind to cinema from other countries. Since I didn't really want to watch it for the positive reasons, I didn't end up liking it. When I started watching the films from THE BOOK, I had made the decision that I was ready to un-close my mind to different forms of cinematic art, whether they be silent, classic or foreign. And since my palate (in regard to film) has changed and matured drastically since I started watching movies from THE BOOK, it was no surprise to me that I actually enjoyed this one, this time around. Actually, there were still things that I didn't like about it, but the positive far outweighed the negative on this particular viewing.

Let's start with the good, shall we. For starters, there IS that glorious chunk of dialogue that occurs between Michel and Patricia, at about the film's halfway mark. It goes on for quite a while and is just an absolutely perfect piece of film. There are so many pieces of perfection in that long scene. I particularly love the piece where Michel threatens Patricia to smile by the time he counts to eight, or else he'll strangle her. Is there anyone who has seen this movie that didn't smile right along with her, when she finally cracked? The music that comes in and out during that scene works very well and the few cheesy, ultra-romantic scenes work too, because the dialogue is so good, it deserves to be paid off with sappy, romantic, cliche actions. And hey, how radiant was Jean Seberg? She was the perfect fit to the this character and she simply lit up the screen. Her smile, the way she wore Michel's hat and clutched a cigarette between her index and middle fingers, she was beautiful! Jean-Paul Belmondo wasn't too bad either, but in a way, his character was trying too much to be like American film-noir characters, instead of a new, original, real guy. The opening shot of his hat brim covering his eyes, as he peeks from behind a newspaper and puffs on a fat cigarette, is just a terrible shot and it almost turned me off to the entire picture. I can't say for sure why, it was just such a silly, cliche pose that it was off-putting.

Weaved through the plot of Michel's everlasting conquest of Patricia, is also the plot of Michel shooting the cop and running from the police. While I didn't hate this, I would've been perfectly fine with a story about Michel and Patricia and their on-again, off-again relationship. It just wasn't two ideas that meshed well together, because at one point you had the fantastic bedroom/apartment scene, with all the great dialogue and then it took a 360 and you had an action/adventure story, about a crook on the lam from the police. Like I said, it's more of a nitpicking thing than anything, but someone HAS to nitpick - why not me? For me this film is kind of like a rollercoaster, because when it starts, I just don't think it's something that's going to appeal to me. I go through the motions and I try to enjoy myself and slowly the positives start to shine in. Michel starts hounding Patricia, the beautiful city of Paris is sparkling in the background and that score (that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't) is chiming through. Then you get the dialogue and the segment where Patricia and Michel chat up in her apartment and eventually have sex - that's the high point, for me. Then, at that point, I decide that, "Wait, this is a film that I'm really having a good time with and I'm not just saying that to be like all the other film snobs". Then the final half of the film kicks in and it starts to go south again, but only slightly and I really start to wish the plot would simmer down, so we could get back to the dialogue. In the end, I decided that this is a film that should really appeal to me. It has a lot of things that I look for in my movies and is, ultimately, a really good movie.

If you go into it, trying your best to forget all the hype and view it as "just another picture", then I think you're going to have a really good time with it. Godard isn't your everyday filmmaker and some things are going to have that stroke of artistry to them. What's with all the jumpy editing, for one thing? But try your best and don't worry if you don't take to it. I didn't initially and it wasn't until another viewing that I realized that "Breathless" was a really beautiful film. Some of the beauty is extremely clear, while some of it has to be looked for. In conclusion, I'm very happy with the way "Godard Week" has begun and I'm looking forward to more.

RATING: 8/10 Had the film stayed strong through the dialogue that I kept mentioning, it could've been an easy '9' or maybe even a '10', but as it is, it's an '8'...which isn't bad either. Next up: "My Life to Live".

MOVIES WATCHED: 382
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 619

January 1, 2012 1:02am
Happy New Year!