• À Bout de Souffle (Breathless)

9/7/21 (Tues)

I was already in Truffaut mode after The 400 Blows, so with the news of Jean-Paul Belmondo’s death, I immediately decided to watch the actor’s breakthrough Breathless, which was co-written by Truffaut. Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 debut work is considered a milestone in film history – one critic says in apparent seriousness that movies can be divided into pre- and post-Breathless. It stands with the previous year’s Blows as one of the founding works of the French New Wave. Unlike that film, though, it hasn’t aged well.

The blink-or-you’ll-miss-it story is about a Humphrey Bogart wannabe who steals a car, kills a cop, and finds himself on the run. “On the run” may not be the right phrase here since he doesn’t seem too rushed to get away. He shacks up with a cute American woman until he can arrange things. Then the movie devolves into a series of meaningless scenes until the woman ultimately turns him in. Out of guilt? Jealousy? Revenge? No, apparently she wanted to see if she really loved him. I don’t get it either. He runs frantically through the streets attempting to escape but is shot in the back by the police. When the girl comes to him and confesses that she ratted on him, he tells her that she makes him want to puke. And promptly dies. Seberg looks directly at the camera at the end in a virtual repeat of The 400 Blows – I’m sure that’s taken as a tribute to Truffaut as opposed to, say, a copycat move.

American actress Jean Seberg, speaking horrifically accented French, plays Bonnie to Belmondo’s Clyde (Godard was at one point supposed to direct that film years later). Their motivations are unclear throughout, and the story is secondary to the quirky directorial touches – jump cuts, unrealistic dialogues, inside jokes, questionable continuity, appearance by the director himself in a Hitchcockian touch. It’s jarring to see movement interrupted like clay puppets. There’s one long unbroken scene between the two protagonists in a hotel room, apparently largely ad-libbed, that seems to have nothing to do with anything. The artificiality, never letting us forget that we are watching a film, is supposedly the point, i.e., it’s about the process of filmmaking, not the characters. Is that progress? I think the idea is to alienate us, forcing us to watch the plot (as such) unfold naturally rather than in a predetermined direction and thus preventing us from judging the characters or predicting the outcome. But it just seems lazy, as if the filmmaker couldn’t be bothered to create anything as bland as a credible story. Individual moments were interesting, like the way Belmondo, chewing an oversized cigarette, rubs his lips in imitation of his idol Bogart as he stares at a movie poster (one of the many film references throughout) and the beautiful shots of postwar Paris. The film suggests Belmondo is partly a victim of circumstance: he kills the policeman impulsively when he happens to find a gun in the glove compartment of the stolen car, then is killed when a friend throws him a gun, making the police see him as dangerous. But he shows no regret for his actions, content to drag anyone else down as long as he gets away, and his death seemed inconsequential. Bonnie & Clyde did this much better.

Jean Seberg gives a cryptic performance as the girl, with no indication as to what on earth she sees in this opportunistic killer. She has undeniable star presence and certainly makes the part her own, but I’m not sure whether we’re supposed to root for her or despise her. Belmondo is impressive as the amoral punk. Whereas Bogart can be cynical, Belmondo is without any feeling at all, an accomplishment of sorts. His performance did make me regret all over again not seeing him in Tokyo in Cyrano back in the bubble years (the ¥30,000 ticket put me off), though the passionate, romantic and swashbuckling Cyrano is miles from this insensitive crook.

The film was evidently a shocker in its day, breaking all the rules of what was considered good filmmaking. But those rules took hold for a reason. It may be a victim of its own success since its innovations are supposedly run-of-the-mill these days. Critics seem impressed by the techniques, such as the spontaneous filming on the streets and tracking shots done from a rolling wheelchair, though that was mainly due to the director’s lack of money. That also explains the jump shots, since the director seems to have randomly cut within scenes to reduce the running time (though he would have done better to slash individual scenes entirely). I’m glad to have seen the film, but only to catch what the fuss is about.