Line #5 Film/Breathless


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3	[[quoteright:313:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/breathless_1960.jpeg]]
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5	''Breathless''[[note]] Its original French title is ''"À bout de souffle"'' (which translates literally to "at breath's end", with the general meaning being "out of breath") [[/note]] is a 1960 French crime drama film written and directed by Creator/JeanLucGodard, in his feature filmmaking debut. Along with Alain Resnais' ''Film/HiroshimaMonAmour'' and Creator/FrancoisTruffaut's ''Film/The400Blows'', it gained much attention as one of the seminal films of the UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave. It can also be seen as one of the earliest examples of Neo-Noir, as it openly acknowledges and plays with a number of common FilmNoir tropes.
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7	The basic plot is fairly simple, seasoned by Godard with pop-cultural meta-commentary and Paris travelogue. Michel (Creator/JeanPaulBelmondo), a petty criminal who models himself on the film persona of Creator/HumphreyBogart, steals a car and – seeing that a policeman is following him on a motorcycle – shoots the cop. He then flees to Paris, where he hides out with his American girlfriend Patricia (Creator/JeanSeberg).
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9	''Breathless'' made an international star of Belmondo and raised the profile of Seberg, whose Hollywood career had stalled when she starred in the big-budget flop ''Saint Joan''.
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11	An [[ForeignRemake American remake]], starring Creator/RichardGere and Valérie Kaprisky in the lead roles, was released in 1983.
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13	Don't confuse this with the [[VideoGame/{{Breathless}} crappy 1990s Doom-clone]].
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15	!!Tropes associated with ''Breathless'' include:
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17	* BilingualDialogue: One sequence has Patricia and an unnamed man conversing in a cafe. The conversation switches from English to French and back to English again on a dime.
18	* BoyishShortHair: Patricia. Michel mentions it gives her an appeal that is more charming than gorgeous. He still finds her attractive though.
19	* BreakingTheFourthWall: Godard doesn't go as crazy with it here as much as in later films like ''Le Weekend'', but Michel frequently talks to the camera/audience.
20	* TheCameo: Creator/JeanPierreMelville plays the writer Parvulescu, who is [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed inspired by]] Creator/VladimirNabokov.
21	* CharacterTics: Michel moves his thumb across his lips multiple times to appear badass, as well as a ShoutOut to Humphrey Bogart's role in ''Film/{{The Maltese Falcon\|1941}}''.
22	** {{Lampshaded}} at one point when he sees a poster of Bogart, studies it reverently, and proceeds to emulate the aforementioned gesture.
23	--->'''Michel:''' ''(reverently)'' Bogie...
24	** PlayedForDrama in the end [[spoiler:when he is shot and Patricia does the exact same action, moving her thumb across her lips]].
25	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Michel can certainly come off as one at times. His drive through the countryside at the beginning of the film is charmingly bizarre, to say the least.
26	%%* CoolShades: Michel is sporting a pair in most scenes.
27	* CopKiller: Michel is on the run from the police because he shot one of them while traveling from Marseille to Paris.
28	* CreatorCameo: Godard shows up briefly as an informant.
29	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Patricia betrays Michel by contacting the police, before proceeding to break up with him. Michel is fatally shot while fleeing, and dies on the streets cursing either Patricia or the world.]]
30	%%* {{Fanboy}}: Michel is one of Creator/HumphreyBogart.
31	* ForeignRemake: Was remade in 1983 into an American film starring Creator/RichardGere. Not well known and its critical reputation is dismal.
32	* GirlyRun: Patricia runs like this when she [[spoiler: approaches a dying Michel towards the end of the movie.]]
33	* HassleFreeHotwire: It takes about five seconds for Michel to hotwire the car that he steals at the start of the movie.
34	* IJustWantToBeBadass: Deconstructed with Michel, who tries hard to be one but isn't much more than a low-rank criminal, which [[spoiler:leads towards his quick and grotesque downfall]].
35	* TheIngenue: The last image of the film is of the girl looking into the camera and saying, innocently, "What does it mean, 'disgusting'?" (She's speaking in French, which is not her first language.)
36	* JumpCut: The movie [[TropeCodifier helped popularize them]]. However, they weren't done because of stylistic choice as much as the fact that Godard needed to shorten the picture, so he got rid of frames randomly. [[UnreliableNarrator Or so he claimed]].
37	* LeFilmArtistique: The summary at the top? Only really affects about 15 minutes of the movie. The majority of it is mainly long, heavily adlibbed discussions between Michel, Patricia and occasionally other characters which add relatively little to the story. Still entertaining, though.
38	* LostInTranslation: The closing lines of the film are notoriously difficult to properly translate. Depending on how it's rendered, the entire conclusion of the two main characters changes drastically. In the original French, [[spoiler:Michel's]] dying words are "C'est vraiment dégueulasse," which could mean either "It's really disgusting" (cursing the world) or "She's a real scumbag" (cursing [[spoiler:Patricia for turning him in]]). However, there's no easy way to translate this into English without losing one of those meanings.[[note]] The 2007 Criterion Collection subtitles go with "Makes me want to puke," so that whether he's cursing the world or [[spoiler:Patricia]] is as ambiguous as in the original.[[/note]]
39	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The film was loosely based on a newspaper article that Creator/FrancoisTruffaut read in ''The News in Brief''. Michel Poiccard was based on real-life Michel Portail and his American girlfriend and journalist Beverly Lynette. In November 1952 Portail stole a car to visit his sick mother in Le Havre and ended up killing a motorcycle cop named Grimberg.
40	%%* RuleOfCool: Godard always adheres to this rule.
41	* SeinfeldianConversation: This being a Godard work, this movie's ''filled'' with them. Michel and his girl talk about the most random things, even when in bed....
42	* SmokingIsCool: Michel clearly thinks so, although some viewers may be put off by the detail with which burning cigarettes are shown, ashes and all. Godard himself believed in this as did most people in France then.
43	* StealthParody: Certain elements of the film noir genre, and by extension, classic Hollywood films (the effortlessly cool protagonist, long takes with minimal editing, suspenseful plotting, bleak and cynical tone) are oh-so-subtly skewered by Godard. Makes sense, given that he was a part of the French New Wave, a movement which openly rejected literary and cinematic conventions of the era.
44	%%* SuicideByCop: Michel kills a policeman and resists arrest, so his death isn't unpredictable.
45	* TrollingTranslator: Michel uses numerous slang expressions. Patricia knows only the regular French but not the informal lingo spoken in the streets. She always asks Michel for the meaning of those expressions and he often translates incorrectly to troll her.
46	* TropeCodifier: The greatest legacy of ''Breathless'' may very well be its idiosyncratic usage of jump cuts. While the editing technique was not unheard of at the time, they became much more popular upon release.
47	* TropeMaker: One of the earliest examples of French New Wave cinema, and one of the most acclaimed works to come out of the movement.
48	%%* VillainProtagonist: Michel.

Context Film / Breathless