A screaming whistle, a death knell
In 1960, Jean-Luc Godard released
Breathless, a star-crossed romantic crime drama about an aloof French
thief and his American journalist love interest, changing the trajectory of
cinema forever and creating a self-perpetuating mythology for all involved. The
thief is Michel, a compulsive liar with a penchant for violence and a worship
of Hollywood icon Humphrey Bogart, who jacks cars, mugs men in bathrooms, and
steals money from his paramours. Brash yet detached. Hot-headed yet ice-cool. Like
the filmmaker he was created by and the film itself, he's made of contradictions.
A faker who claims it's better to tell the truth in a poker game. A character
that's simultaneously a commemoration and a critique of film noir anti-heroes.
Patricia the journalist – in a profession dedicated to uncovering "the truth" –
on the other hand, is thoroughly of the moment and thoroughly herself. She's
not a femme fatale. Not as tough as the boys. Not handy with a gun. Not a damsel
in distress or a dame in need, subservient to the antagonist, doing bad against
her will and waiting to be rescued. She's simply a modern young woman, independent with her own needs and goals, trying to find
her way in life, and always looking forward rather than back. She subverts the noir
archetypes completely while Michel embodies them, leading to a postmodern collision
of past and future where one will eventually overcome the other. One must die
for the other to survive.
And speaking of death, the aptly titled
Breathless
must have raised smoking rates across the world after it came out because damn
do Michel and Patricia (played by
Jean-Paul Belmondo and
Jean Seaberg,
respectively) look cool as hell puffing endlessly on their cigarettes. Plumes billowing
from their mouths like chemical emissions from factory smokestacks on a crisp,
clear-skied winter day. Or like steam clouds trailing from a train as it cuts a
path through the western frontier, carrying a plague of uncertainty and excitement.
A new way of life. New rules. New perspectives.
On its back jacket for The Criterion Collection, the
film's description states, "There was before
Breathless, and there
was after
Breathless." And like the dawning of the industrial age and the
advent of transnational railroads,
Breathless was a screaming whistle signaling
the arrival of a new modernity - with all the alluring danger of a changing
world - and a ringing death knell sounding the end for all that came before it.
Breathless was by no means the first "New Wave" film
though. Calling it so would be an egregious disservice to its forerunners. Even
in France, its rushing tide could be felt at least as far back as
Jean Cocteau's
hip and freewheeling
Orpheus in 1950. But with its suave 4
th-wall
breaks directly addressing the audience, subversive jump-cut editing, and
self-reflexive narrative elements,
Breathless kicked down doors across the world. Jean-Luc Godard's revolutionary style and no-fucks-given attitude helped usher in an incendiary new breed of aggressively unconventional, radically anti-establishment
filmmakers. It heralded an age of unprecedented
experimentation and glorious, breathtaking anarchy within the form. Where rules
were made to be broken, and the faces of authority were meant to be spit in. A
movement intent on exposing the falsity of cinema while acknowledging its
influence and power. Telling us that it's not real life, even when employing
neorealist techniques. It's a shocked face, a smile, a scowl, and a prolonged death.
Yet potent enough to make one sick.
It's no overstatement to claim Godard fulfilled his self-reflexive mission statements in
Breathless either. Whether it's the
poster reading "Live dangerously until the end." Or Michel telling the audience, "Never
brake," before quoting automobile manufacturer Ettore Bugatti, saying, "My
cars are made to run, not stop." Or a character responding to the question, "What's
your greatest ambition?" with, "To become immortal, and then die."
Godard, the uncompromising
iconoclast, lived up to those promises, immortalizing himself through an output that
continues to challenge the status quo and cinema itself. A divisive figure who's
kept the danger alive - ceaselessly. A thief with three faces, stealing from
the past and skewering it to reveal the future. A man of contradictions, telling
you how much he loves you, and how you make him want to puke. A liar who tells
the truth.
Distributed by:
The Criterion Collection /
Janus Films /
Fox Lorber
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