The paradoxes of the film did not escape critics at the time. Its employment of jump cuts, character asides, and a more fanciful narrative structure were innovative at the time of its release. So omnipresent is this cigarette that Godard is only kidding us a little when Michel's dying breath is smoky. Michel says this to point out that he knew the entire time that he should not have pursued Patricia and that she wasn't right for him. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. ", The movie had a sensational reception; it is safe to say the cinema was permanently changed. Breathless (1960 film) - Wikipedia Melville's "Bob le Flambeur" (1955) is referenced when we meet the man who informed on Bob, or when Michel tells a friend, "Bob the gambler would have cashed my check.". Michel wants to be as tough as the stars in the movies he loves. Point of view is that of Michel and Patricia, Serious, Dramatic, Noir, Fanciful, Romantic, Protagonist: Michel, Antagonist: The police. Now wanted by the authorities, he renews his relationship with Patricia Franchini, a hip American girl studying journalism at the Sorbonne, whom he had met in Nice a few weeks earlier. Which brings me to question #2: what kind of budgets would he work with that allowed such loose form? The . He is somewhat resigned to a life in prison, and does not try to escape at first. Decugis has said that the film had a bad reputation before its premiere as the worst film of the year. Robert . This foreshadows the fact that Patricia will betray him. Paradoxically she turns him in after showing him he can trust her. That's why I don't regret making Breathless and blowing that all apart. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. (PDF) Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless: The Revelation of Filmmaking as Patricia asks this question of a famous writer: "What is your greatest ambition in life?" Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Breathless is one of Godard's (and our culture's) reflex images, so acute and apt that it remains sharply in focus for anyone who cares about the cinema, about the West in 1960, or about ourselves at the onset of the twenty-first century. "Breathless" remains a living movie that retains the power to surprise and involve us after all these years. Michel Poiccard is based on Michel Portail (who . 'Out of Breath') is a 1960 French crime drama film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. There are other male icons of the eraAlain Delon, Jean-Pierre Laudbut with his casual sexiness, cigarette-smoking swagger, and boxers mug that only a mother (or actually, as it turns out, everyone) could love, Belmondo stands alone.