Breathless Film analysis

Breathless Film analysis

Jean Luc Godard, one of the founders of the great French new wave started his celebrated career in the year 1960 with the film a bout de Soufflé, also known as Breathless. The story of the film revolves around an amoral petty criminal Michel, who steals a car, senselessly kills a policeman on a highway and is in the desperate need of some money that's owed to him so that he can escape to Italy with his love, an American named Patricia. The film boasts of many kinds of cinematic qualities with casting and the screenplay being in the foremost place. Jean Paul Belmondo plays such a complex role of Michel, modeled after Humphrey Bogart with such ease and efficiency that we become close to the character till the end of the film arrives. Jean Seberg also performs fabulously in the role of Patricia the American girl, Michel is in love with, by providing intense and natural reactions that a confused mind goes through.

The screenplay of the film is absolutely outstanding, written by the two gems of French new wave Francois Truffaut and the director himself Jean Luc Belmondo. Dialogues such as “If you don't like the shore, if you don't like the mountains and if you don't like the city, then get stuffed, I hope that nothing happens to you like the woman in the book and the conversation between Michel and Patricia in the climax signifies and identifies the personalities of both the characters. The brilliance of the screenwriting in the film can be experienced in the scene when Michel finds a gun while driving the car he stole and says the sun's great and then starts firing at the sun. This whole sequence in the beginning of the film actually tells the audience, why Michel is so fearless, why he is so daring and why he is so mad. In context with the characterization of the film the screenwriting guru Syd Field in one of his books elaborates As outlaws, their efforts to escape are farcical and half hearted. I totally related to their nonchalant attitude. It seemed that Godard's character really didn't give a damn about anything; they had no moral foundation, no political ideology.

The confused character of Patricia is brilliantly displayed in the scene where she tells Michel about her pregnancy and also tells him that she is ...