24 Frames: Breathless

I have a friend who is not a fan of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960). He doesn't see what the point is. He describes it as a jumbled-up bunch of pieces that want to be a great movie. I tell him that's the very reason that Breathless is a a great movie. He usually waves me off and calls me pretentious.

First, yes I can be pretentious. Second, my snobbishness has nothing to do with why Breathless is a great movie. There are a ton of reasons why it is so enjoyable. Like the way Jean Seberg walks down the middle of the road pivoting on the balls of her feet, selling the New York Herald Tribune. Or Jean-Paul Belmondo dangling a cigarette and tipping his fedora trying to imitate Bogart. The fact that it's not Belmondo imitating Bogart, but his character Michel wanting to be a Bogart character, adding another level to the whole thing. The amazing 360° shot in the bank when Seberg is being questioned by the cops. The jump cuts, locations, sound design, Melville cameo, just the whole damn thing.













It was, is and shall always be, a barometer of hipness. It broke so many rules and spoke in a cinematic language so pure that nothing has been able to touch it since. Truffaut, Chabrol and Bazin may have helped lay the corner stones and the rebar, but it was Breathless that provided the concrete for the foundation of modern filmmaking.

It freed up not only the way movies could be made, but the way we watched them. Godard's dedicating the movie to Monogram Studios helped open the doors in what we could consider a classic. Cinematic art didn't have to be about how much money was put into it or who the stars were. It was about the end results and what was trying to be accomplished. A low budget movie could have just as much if not more to say than it's big budget counterparts. It opened up realms of possibilities and brought filmmaking to the streets. This is what Breathless represented and still represents. It's what Godard passed on to us from what he had learned from all of those small American b-movies. Anyone can do it and anyone should if they have something to say.

All pretentious pontification aside, what it all boils down to is a film that is entertaining. It's a fun ride even though you're following the adventures of an out-of-touch-wanna-be-gangster. Love, betrayal, murder, sex, joy, literature and cinema. It's a movie that is as modern today as it was when it first flickered to life on movie screens almost fifty years ago. Believe that it's archaic, or think that it is a minor note in a much bigger symphony. Give it another watch and maybe you'll come to see it as I do. It's a pitch perfect crystal clear aria. An ode to cinema that speaks volumes in one simple jump cut.