Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2747 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-10-09
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Black & White, PAL
• Original language: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 86 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo), an ex-airline steward turned hoodlum, steals a car and heads to Paris. Discovering a gun in the car's glove department, he uses it to shoot and kill a cop who tries to wave him down. He wants to escape to Italy with his American girlfriend Patricia (Jean Seberg), but the police are after him, and he is distracted by all the pleasures Paris has to offer.

Story-wise, Jean-Luc Godard's A Bout De Souffle (1960) (aka Breathless) is pretty thin, but as its director always proclaimed, you don't need much in the way of narrative to make a movie. Sometimes a girl and a gun are quite enough. The effortlessly cool and laconic Belmondo mirrors the director's mischief and flamboyance. With his fat cigarette stub perched on his bottom lip, his shades, his felt hat and white socks, he looks like a cross between a left-bank intellectual and an American gumshoe (perhaps his beloved Bogart). With her close-cropped hair and New York Herald Tribune T-shirt, his girlfriend (Jean Seberg) is equally stylish. A Hollywood star (she had appeared in the lead in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan in 1957 when she was still a teenager), the Iowa-born Seberg is turned by Godard into the lithe embodiment of European radical chic.

The film has a spontaneity that studio-bound offerings of the time missed by a mile. Cameraman Raoul Coutard uses natural light and real locations whenever possible. Lots of the pet tricks in the movie--jump cuts, whip pans and improvised tracking shots--have been copied relentlessly by imitators ever since. A Bout De Souffle, though, is unique: anarchic, liberating and hugely stylish, "the best film around now", as its trailer proclaimed. It made Godard, almost overnight, into "the world's most discussed, interviewed and quoted filmmaker". --Geoffrey Macnab

On the DVD: Godard's greatest movie has been lovingly transferred to disc by Optimum, and comes with several extras including trailers and production notes and an old Godard short, Charlotte Et Son Jules, also starring the swaggering, arrogant Belmondo. --Geoffrey Macnab

Special Features
French
Region 2

Synopsis
Godard's first feature has been widely hailed as one of the most influential motion pictures ever made. On the run after killing a cop, a small-time crook (Belmondo) hides out in Paris with an American girl (Seberg). After she betrays him, he chooses to face his fate with an absurd stoicism modelled on his hero, Humphrey Bogart. BREATHLESS is the arguable cornerstone of the French New Wave, exhibiting the trademark documentary shooting style, natural sound design, and thematic interest in the detritus of American popular culture. (Rereleased theatrically in April, 2000.)

Customer Reviews

Film noir ... French style
Dedicated to the Hollywood gangster movies of the 30's and 40's, Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a small time crook with a penchant for Bogart and the illusory glamour of a film noir mobster. "Un Bout de Souffle" demonstrates how a simple narrative can be shaped into a thoroughly absorbing and charismatic film.

Belmondo has a face which looks like it was carved out of granite. It's a disreputable mug, complete with fat, crumpled cigarette constantly adhering to his lip. The image is iconic. He steals a car, discovers a gun in its glove compartment, and suddenly his transformation to matinee idol is complete. In an ensuing police chase, he guns down a copper.

He continues his flight to Paris, where he hopes to collect some money he's owed and make an escape to Italy. But his fantasy world begins to implode as he exposes himself to the encroaching claustrophobia of reality. Paris is no longer a big enough city. This is a small time crook whose limitations are circumscribed by his own rigid thought processes and inability to cope with frustration. Director Godard delivers a lesson in criminology in this hero-come-villain's inability to think ahead or plan, his vulnerability to spontaneity and immediate gratification, his chaotic vision, his blind optimism that something will turn up and that he won't get caught.

Jean Seberg plays Belmondo's girlfriend, an American journalism student. She becomes his sole link with the reality of a law-abiding world. He wants everything done his way, wants things to happen now, shows little awareness of consequences. But the net is tightening and he begins to recognise emotions. But falling for a woman is even more oppressive than the imploding lifestyle. If you trust someone, you expose yourself to abuse.

This is a fast-paced film, despite its introspective moments and long central scene in Seberg's bedroom, one in which Godard creates a very real sense of claustrophobia and breathless anticipation of what will go wrong next. There are echoes of Fellini's 8½ as Seberg interviews a famous artist. He suggests Belmondo has one chance at personal fulfilment - the petty crook can become an iconic image, a body on a street after a shoot-out with the law.

A wonderful blend of Belmondo's rugged testosterone-rich masculinity and Seberg's cool charm and sophistication, this is a tightly directed and focussed film which both celebrates the film noir and highlights some of the absurdities and pretensions of crime fiction and cinema.

A superb DVD, excellently put together
The DVD transfer of this groundbreaking fascinating film is exceptional. Alot of effort has gone into the picture quality, which is crisp and faultless. The revelation is the subtle and thoughtfully put together subtitles, extremely difficult in a film with such an enormous amount of French "slang".The DVD of Godard's classic re-interpretation of the limitations of cinematic technique, isn't packed full of extras. The extras available are however, insightful. For example the biographies are informative and the Godard short available on the DVD shows the potential of what Godard was to achieve in his extended hotel room scene. This is a brilliant transfer with excellent picture, sound, subtitles and limited but valuable extras.

Laconic crook , iconic femme fatale...
Many of the reviewers seem to see "Breathless" as being primarily of historical interest now , a groundbreaking film in its time introducing pioneering cinematic techniques. Thirty five years after its release and it still makes for absorbing viewing and has a sense of freshness about it that many modern films lack. The storyline is fairly slight; a petty crook (Belmondo) steals a car ,kills a policeman and goes on the run. He spends most of his time in Paris trying to win the love of his lukewarm American girlfriend (Seberg) and endeavouring to collect some money from an elusive Italian cohort. The strength of "Breathless" lies in its characterisation, Godard's stylish direction and the unorthodox romantic relationship between Belmondo and Seberg. There are also plenty of wry observations and philosophical musings from the bohemian couple to keep the viewers attention as the police close in on antihero Belmondo. Despite its age and it being shot in monochrome ,the picture and sound quality on this DVD is excellent and this contributes significantly to the overall enjoyment of a quality film.