Fifty years on Breathless is still brilliant

10 April 2012

The end of 1959 wasn’t a bad period for film. Satyajit Ray completed the beautiful Apu Trilogy, John Cassavetes made the ground-breaking Shadows and Howard Hawks completed the classic Rio Bravo.

Besides that, Godard made A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) which, in its 50th year, now has a new remastered print showing off Raoul Coutard’s beautiful black and white cinematography.

Godard, with this film, seemed to be the Quentin Tarantino of his day, though an innovator with a good deal more intelligence.

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, the fractured story’s lovers, stranded between traditional values they reject and a future they don’t quite understand, are as pertinent today as then. And the film-making still looks an extraordinary mosaic of invention.

Breathing (Atmen)

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