Influenced: Agnès Varda, Terence Malick, Tony Scott, Lars von Trier, Richard Linklater, Claire Denis
Rightly prized as one of the most innovative films of the nouvelle vague, À Bout de Souffle is fairly light on story and high on experimentation and style. Godard developed the screenplay with fellow French new wave directors Truffaut and Claude Chabrol, while another director has a cameo as a dead man in the street (Jacques Rivette). One of the most distinctive aspects of the film is its use of jump cuts, with Godard frequently interrupting the continuity of scenes with sudden breaks in the action, partly to reflect the lack of careful moral scruple in the decision-making of Jean-Paul Belmondo's main character but also to create a disjointed and jarring effect that challenges conventional cinematic storytelling.
Godard's rapid cutting technique was not only a stylistic innovation but also a reflection of the film's themes of alienation and disconnection in modern society. The film's cool, narcissistic young characters are obsessed with themselves and cinematic heroes like Humphrey Bogart, and largely oblivious to any concept of social responsibility. Belmondo plays Michel, a young criminal on the run from the police, with a sense of cool detachment that is also highly charismatic. We get the picture of a man unable to connect with the people around him, except for rare fleeting moments with Patricia (played by Jean Seberg), as he desperately searches for meaning and purpose in his life.
Seberg delivers a captivating performance as Patricia, a young American woman living in Paris. Her character is complex and multifaceted, and Seberg's performance captures her vulnerability and strength in equal measure. One of the film's many striking elements is the naturalism of their performances and they balance each other so well, with Belmondo more active and assertive and Seberg more thoughtful and passive. The film's sound design is also noteworthy, with Godard experimenting with sound in a way that was highly unconventional for its time, incorporating ambient noise, overlapping dialogue and abrupt cuts between sound and silence, to enhance the film's disorienting effect.
Another key stylistic innovation of Breathless is its use of handheld camera work. Godard rejects traditional filmmaking techniques, such as static camera shots, in favour of a more improvisational approach. The handheld camera work creates a sense of intimacy and cinéma vérité reality, bringing the viewer into the action of the film. There are so many innovative shots, from the fade to a black circle that frames the two police detectives as they fail in their pursuit of Belmondo at the cinema, to the framing of Seberg with another man at lunch and the way the Eiffel Tower appears twice in the shot as reflections in the glass. Then as the pair leave the restaurant after lunch, the camera reverses away from the couple to capture Belmondo coming up the stairs going in the other direction. À Bout de Souffle delivers so many wow moments and, as ever, Paris is the star.
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