The Cinematheque

“A pop artifact and a daring work of art … It is still cool, still new, still—after all this time!—a bulletin from the future of movies.”

A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Jean-Luc Godard’s great debut feature is one of the cinema’s watershed works—perhaps the most representative and important film of the nouvelle vague, probably the most influential movie of the 1960s. Simultaneously a playful parody of, and sincere homage to, the American gangster film, Breathless stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel, a charismatic small-time crook on the lam from the police in Paris, and Jean Seberg as Patricia, his ambivalent American girlfriend. The film’s use of handheld 35mm cameras, location shooting, and direct sound came to define New Wave aesthetics, as did its most radical technical innovation: the startling, disruptive use of elliptical editing and the jump cut. It is replete with in-jokes, cinematic references, abrupt shifts of tone and mood, and Brechtian (soon to be known as Godardian) asides that would also become hallmarks of the burgeoning film movement. Screening here in its brilliant 60th anniversary restoration, Breathless remains remarkably vital cinema.

In French with English subtitles

“It stands apart from all that came before and has revolutionized all that followed.” James Monaco, The Movie Guide

“Godard’s masterpiece … [Breathless] has taken its place alongside 20th-century works that have become familiar landmarks yet not lost their ability to shock and surprise.” Philip French, The Observer

“The first masterstroke in Godard’s critical vision of the cinema as a mixed form … The interplay of masks, gestures, grimaces, and collages created a cinema for which no critical theory existed outside of Godard’s mind.” Andrew Sarris, Village Voice

preceded by

Charlotte and Her Boyfriend
(Charlotte et son Jules)
France 1958
Jean-Luc Godard
13 min. DCP

A puckish tribute to Jean Cocteau, the last in Godard’s suite of pre-Breathless shorts has Jean-Paul Belmondo (voiced by Godard himself) as a cigar-chomping dumpee who berates his ex-girlfriend (Anne Collette) when she returns to his apartment for what he arrogantly assumes will be a plea for forgiveness.

In French with English subtitles

“What could have been an exercise in misogyny becomes a wry and funny commentary on toxic masculinity and relationships, with a wonderful twist at the end.” Icarus Films