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 enlarge | Actors: Richard Balducci, Jean-paul Belmondo, Daniel Boulanger, Philippe De Broca, Van Doude
Studio: Fox Lorber
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $10.88
You Save: $9.07 (45%)
New (39) Used (15) Collectible (1) from $9.66
Rating:  83 reviews
Sales Rank: 25603
Format: Black & White, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: French (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 0
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5 x 0.6
MPN: D5266D
ISBN: 0794200095
UPC: 720917526621
EAN: 9780794200091
ASIN: B00005NC66
Theatrical Release Date: February 7, 1961
Release Date: November 20, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 16-20 of 83
 Why you should buy this movie again October 15, 2007
Jonathan E. Haynes (Berkeley, CA)
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
In case the Criterion logo and the plethora of special features aren't enough to convince you that you should replace your old copy of this film, the fact that Raoul Coutard, the film's original DP, supervised the transfer should be the clincher. When you read early reviews of BREATHLESS, many of them talk about the radically disjointed quality of the image, the "mistakes" Godard purposely left in the final cut. It isn't just that these devices have been so thoroughly co-opted by pop culture that it is hard for us to notice them today - though this is also true; these effects (e.g., sun flares, faces in deep shadow, etc) have largely been "corrected" in previous video transfers. With Coutard involved in Criterion's issue, the film has undoubtedly been restored to some of its original, shocking, ragged beauty.
 "...a minor producer hired a minor director to make a minor crime film..." September 21, 2007
Robert P. Beveridge (Cleveland, OH)
6 out of 22 found this review helpful
Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1959)
After seeing Pierrot le Fou, finding it awful, and then reading Roger Ebert's recent revised review of it ("...while I once wrote of it as Godard's most virtuoso display of his mastery of Hollywood genres," I now see it more as the story of silly characters who have seen too many Hollywood movies." Ebert, 16Aug07), I thought that perhaps I'd just picked a bad Godard movie to start with, and went for the one that everyone and his mother loves: Breathless, Godard's first film, about which Ebert has famously said "Modern movies begin here...". And that may well be true. Recognizing that it is seminal, however, does not make it any less boring.
I re-read Ebert's 2003 analysis of the film just before beginning to write this review, and I'm certainly not going to quibble with any of the points he makes there. Of course not; they're all absolutely true. "You cannot even begin to count the characters played by Pacino, Beatty, Nicholson, Penn, who are directly descended from Jean-Paul Belmondo's insouciant killer Michel." Indeed. If I'm reading Ebert (and watching the film) correctly, Breathless is a sort of anti-noir. It has most of the elements of a good noir; a doomed protagonist (Belmondo), a hauntingly lovely femme fatale (Otto Preminger protege Jean Seberg), murder and mayhem, some fun cameos (the one scene in this movie I really loved was the press conference with noir genius Jean-Pierre Melville), the whole lot. Put this in America and give it to, say, Billy Wilder, and wow.
But Wilder did not make it; Jean-Luc Godard did. Autant-Lara said of this film that "...a minor producer hired a minor director to make a minor crime movie running a maximum of five thousand metres. But the director filmed eight thousand metres..." Perhaps Wilder, with his clout, could have made a movie of the length Godard envisioned for this movie. (Or Melville, for that matter.) But Godard's 150-minute epic had to be cored, peeled, sliced, and stewed down to eighty-nine; as with the infamous screw-ups in Antonioni's Blow-Up that ended up being considered revolutionary, Godard stated that the jump-cuts now recognizable to any TV viewer (aside from being used in thousands of commercials, the jump-cut technique was a mainstay of Homicide: Life on the Street, one of the finest TV shows of the nineties) were the products of simple pragmatism: "...when we came to [Belmondo and Seberg in the car], which had to be shortened like the others, instead of slightly shortening both, the editor and I flipped a coin...'we're going to cut out one or the other altogether, and then we will simply join the remaining shots'." Pragmatism once again wins the day. (Modern viewers seeing the film for the first time are likely to see that scene and think about Homicide. I did, long before reading that piece.)
What remains, when you strip away the mystique and the seminality, however, doesn't necessarily have to be enjoyable. Thousands of fantasy novels read by millions of people are descended, directly or indirectly, from the Eddas. Have you ever read the Eddas? No, you probably haven't. Some find them enjoyable. I have my doubts that ninety or so percent of Lord of the Rings fans would agree with them. Why? Because Tolkien distilled what was there, embellished it, and then added his own artistic touches to make it his own epic, and he succeeded famously. Tens of thousands of copies of Lord of the Rings sell every year. Stack that up against maybe hundreds of copies of the Eddas. And so it is with Breathless; all those Pacino/Beatty/Nicholson/Penn characters (and the odd exclusion of DeNiro) quite simply did it better. Hell, look at John Cusack in The Grifters. (For some odd reason, that performance strikes me as the closest analogue. Don't ask me why, I've no idea.)
Yes, it's important, and it changed the face of filmmaking forever, but unlike a number of other films of that stripe, Breathless has not aged well in the least. To use one more quote, filmmaker and critic Tao Ruspoli says of Breathless that it "...may be amusing to watch without attempting any sort of analysis, [but] its status as a masterpiece can only be understood through a careful analysis of its historical context." I submit that a number of other, just as important, films don't require such context in order to be enjoyable (or, as "enjoyable" is not the precise word one would probably use for such movies as Birth of a Nation or Triumph of the Will, we'll substitute "powerful") to the modern viewer. Night of the Living Dead, just as important as Breathless, still holds up today not just because it changed the face of filmmaking, but because it's a cracking good piece of filmmaking. Similarly Murnau's Nosferatu or Welles' Citizen Kane. So why bother with it unless you're a film student who's been assigned it in class? Gets a single star for its historical importance, but certainly doesn't merit a recommendation unless you like gaping at Jean Seberg (which is, actually, quite a valid reason to watch it). *
Essential French Cinema: Godard's 'A Bout de Souffle.' September 14, 2007
G. Merritt (Boulder, CO)
37 out of 40 found this review helpful
As a French New Wave director, Jean-Luc Godard (1930) was at the head of his class. Drawing from politics, film history, French intellectualism, existential and Marxist philosophy, Godard's radical films challenged the conventions of Hollywood cinema and influenced French cinema. Breathless (1960) is among his most accessible films. With all the energy of a 1940s' American gangster B-movie, it tells the simple story of Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a French petty street thief, who steals a car and kills a policeman, while at the same time pursuing a naive American girl Patricia (Jean Seberg). She is wary of Michel's intentions and questions his lack of ambition, but proving that nice girls have a thing for bad boys, Patricia spends time with him in Paris before turning him in to the police. Using ragged editing techniques, handheld cameras, and a musical soundtrack that seems out of sync with the action, Godard succeeds at constantly reminding his audience that his film is an artificial reality having little to do with actual reality. Although the film's plot is thin, Breathless revolutionized French cinema. Of his films, Bande à part (also called Band of Outsiders - Criterion Collection) (1966) remains my Godard favorite and should not be missed.
The new dual-disc Criterion upgraded edition of Breathless includes a restored high-definition digital transfer (approved by director of photography Raoul Coutard), interviews with Godard, and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, video essays: filmmaker and critic Mark Rappaport's "Jean Seberg" and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum's "Breathless as Film Criticism," an eighty-minute French documentary about the making of Breathless, with members of the cast and crew, the French theatrical trailer, and a booklet featuring writings from Godard, film historian Dudley Andrew, Francois Truffaut's original film treatment, and Godard's scenario.
G. Merritt
Breathless August 26, 2007
Robert H. Lever (Seattle, Washington)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This film is the best of the French New Wave of films. It is continually entertaining and keeps the viewer involved. I love the candid shots films on Paris streets. While Truffaut is the most human of the New Wave directors, Godard is easily the most challenging and inventive.
Breathless June 27, 2007
John Farr
One of the more fascinating and important works in cinema, and a great, loving tribute to American film noir, Godard's "Breathless" epitomized the French New Wave with a minimal yet innovative tale of doomed love. The tremendous appeal of this movie comes from its innovative use of sound (Mozart meets French pop), handheld cameras, and jarring cuts--not to mention an ultra-hip swagger beautifully performed by Belmondo. The lovely, perky Seberg reinvigorates a female cliché--the gangster's moll--giving her a bit of bubbly pizzazz. Shot on location in the City of Lights, "Breathless" is an energetic fusion of high art and pop culture that's not to be missed.
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