À Bout de Souffle (1960)
Genre: Crime / Romance
Duration: 90 minuten
Alternative title: Breathless
Country:
France
Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg and Daniel Boulanger
IMDb score:
7,6 (95.677)
Releasedate: 16 March 1960
À Bout de Souffle plot
"Wild! Violent! Outspoken and Honest!"
Young petty thief Michel (Belmondo) tries to look like Humphrey Bogart. On his way to Paris, he steals a car and kills a cop. Once he fled to the City of Light, he develops a relationship with the American Patricia. She turns out to be a terrible femme fatale faster than he would like. An amorous relationship develops between the two. Meanwhile, the police are on Michel's heels. He knows he won't last forever, and he's taking more and more risks...
Actors and actresses
Michel Poiccard / László Kovács
Patricia Franchini
Police Inspector Vital
Antonio Berrutti
Carl Zubart
American Journalist, Patricia's Friend
Claudius Mansard
Liliane / Minouche
Police Inspector #2
Parvulesco the Writer
Reviews & comments
Bobbejaantje
-
- 2355 messages
- 2117 votes
My very first Godard and immediately hit the mark. I had the opportunity to project it with a beamer on a large screen, which is a nice bonus as a home cinema experience. I've seen a handful of films from the nouvelle vague so far, so there's still a lot to discover. I find this A Bout De Souffle visually unique - for that time - with its hectic style thanks to the loose way of filming and the numerous jump cuts.
The lead role is played by Jean-Paul Belmondo who is excellent as an arrogant character. Jean Seberg is his love interest and plays an interesting double role. It's not a big deal in terms of scenario. Rather, it's a must-watch movie for the atmosphere, the locations of 1950s Paris, the seemingly random dialogues (which does give the film a realistic touch), the striking 'cool' visual style, the whole psychology around the characters. It should be noted that in addition to Godard himself, another French director also plays a role in the film: Jean-Pierre Melville as Parvulesco.
Conclusion. Nice introduction to Godard's work and it certainly leaves you wanting more. The combination of the visual style shown here with '50s-'60s aesthetic, underlined by a jazzy score, suits me anyway. I like to include the improv scenes as long as it remains interesting.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Sergio Leone
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- 4461 messages
- 3144 votes
Bad.
La Nouvelle Vague. After the film, I browsed through the opinions here and did some reading about that term. I can imagine that 60 years ago it caused some shifts, but À Bout de Souffle strikes me as the first project in this movement. As a kind of project, an attempt by filmmakers who try something new with a lot of trial and error.
In any case, it resulted in some nice things: certain tracking shots, or 'natural' long scenes like in that apartment. But when we talk about visual tricks: those so-called jump cuts are annoying. In terms of content I miss something interesting to watch. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg play two annoying characters. It was therefore a long hour and a half to sit out.
1,5
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