Breathless

Breathless - Criterion Collection
$39.95
Jean-Luc Godard has been credited with revitalizing cinema in the early 60's with his interesting and unique style of filmmaking, a style that has bleed over into even modern cinema and continues to influence and inspire. To say that Jean-Luc Godard is one of the greatest directors of all time (in company with Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Ingmar Bergman) is perhaps too simple. The fact remains that Godard isn't simply one of the best, he's one of the most important. `A Bout de Souffle' (better known as `Breathless') is a sublime example of why he is so important. With his debut feature film he stunned audiences and critics alike by breathing a breath of fresh air into cinema and creating something new and intriguing and completely entertaining.

`A Bout de Souffle' is one of those films you have to be wary about `over-praising' because once you `get' it you totally fall head over heals for it, but until you `get' it you may find yourself baffled at all the praise. That was me upon my initial viewing. I was about halfway into the film and I was stumped as to why this movie was so well loved. Sure, it was stylistically exuberating and blatantly original in construction, but as far as being a great `movie', well, I just wasn't `feeling' it in that way. The third act though is a huge wallop to the viewer and completely changed my thinking on the entire film. In fact, upon my second viewing I was able to spot things throughout the films progression that only added to my admiration for it, and now I am completely and utterly in love with the film; so much so that I consider it one of the best ever made.

So, I don't want to raise your expectations so much that you become dumbfounded in the films first and second act. Please, realize that my praise belongs to the film in its entirety, and entirety that cannot be fully appreciated until the third act is through. You really need to judge the film on your second viewing, for it is only after you have put all the pieces together that you can really enjoy the film from start to finish.

The film is part crime noir, part romantic thriller. It centers around a thug named Michel who is on the run after killing a police officer. He hides out in his American girlfriend's apartment. The film sports a neurotic narrative that keeps the audience glued as Michel and Patricia (the girlfriend) go through their day as normal people in abnormal circumstances. The performances are fresh and believable, and the dialog (a lot of which was adlibbed) feels perfect for the situation. Godard brings a lot of his love for film into his construction of `A Bout de Souffle', a film that can be seen as an ode to the great film noirs that came before it. What is remarkable is that, but making this film completely his own, Godard created an ode that is superior to the films he was praising.

During a press conference with an author, Jean Seberg's character Patricia asks the author "what is your greatest ambition in life" to which he responds, after much thought, "to become immortal and then to die". The significance of this statement is seen, not only in this film, but in the idea that art makes the artist immortal. Godard has become immortal. In the context of the film though, the immortality comes from love. When one has become truly loved then they are in essence `immortal'.

The question raised at the end of this film is, `was Michel immortal?'

Through Godard's impressive way of telling a story within a story one really has to watch this film a few times to answer that question. The outcome with each viewing may be different than the last, and the fact that Godard keeps the answer an ambiguity is to the films advantage. Did Patricia really love Michel? Was her emotional reaction to the films conclusion all just an act? Piecing together Godard's point of view may reveal an answer you least expect, which makes this film all the more captivating. The films production notes mention that Patricia commits the ultimate act of betrayal; but exactly what that act is, is up to the audience to decide.

Breathless
$26.95
Breathless instantly caught my attention with its unusual premise and setting. The characters were strongly drawn and, because of their initial antagonism, had great chemistry. The scene in which the heroine first sets eyes on the hero and, marching right up to him without saying a word, slaps him in front of the whole town, is great. It draws a daring line in the sand, and I gleefully anticipate a battle of the sexes to end all battles.

Daniel Walker is a lawyer on a mission. He's been sent back to his small hometown Shivaree by the big wigs in Atlanta to take care of some business for them. A gentleman's club owned by one of Daniel's backers (Daniel has a lot of ambition and hopes to be a senator) has been closed down thanks to the petitioning of one Lily Morgan. Daniel is to overturn the judge's ruling and get the club back up and running. If this weren't enough to place him in direct opposition to Lily, the two also share unpleasant history. Daniel was the lawyer who sued her on behalf of her ex husband for divorce. Thanks to this divorce Lily is the scarlet woman of her small town. She is shunned and scorned, and her own family won't talk to her. And she blames Daniel for much of her woe. Daniel, for his part, doesn't feel any remorse for how he treated her during the divorce trial, and no sense of responsibility for her present plight. His refrain is that he's just doing his job.

I read Breathless always waiting for the other shoe to drop - I felt like this situation was a recipe for disaster, one in which the heroine would get terribly hurt, the hero would walk all over her, and I had a lot of sympathy for Lily. She's treated terribly by her neighbors, who wrongly malign her as an adulteress and outrageously blame her for her husband's infidelity. But she never gives up or lets others get her down. When it comes to the club, she vows to fight Daniel all the way in his efforts to reopen it. She has personal reasons, besides the usual moral ones, for wanting it closed - it's the house of sin her husbanded frequented during their loveless, miserable marriage. But besides Daniel's threats to Lily that he won't fight her fairly on this, that he has the killer instinct and the skills of manipulation she lacks, he actually doesn't treat her too badly (besides not believing she's not an adulteress and believing all the terrible things her ex husband said about her - which, you know, doesn't win him any points.) Lily manages to rally the women, after valiantly overcoming initial difficulties because of her bad reputation, while Daniel rallies the men. Soon quiet Shivaree is thrown into turmoil and divided by discord, with the women marching, protesting, and harassing their unhappy men to vote to keep the club closed. This part of the book was enjoyable enough - the tension and fighting between Daniel and Lily is fun and sexy. It helps that they live right next door to each other while Daniel's staying in Shivaree.

But then the gender war over the club is curtailed by a murder at the club of one of its prostitutes. Amos, a young friend of Lily's is accused and arrested. The lines of alliance are immediately redrawn, and the former issues raised by the Shivaree gender war are summarily abandoned in favor of bringing Lily and Daniel together. He agrees to defend Amos, and she gets to be his sidekick. You would think that this would provide ample opportunity for them to get closer, for amping up the chemistry, and make things interesting. To my dismay, things got boring, and I found myself slogging through a court drama that is laboriously, ponderously executed. The romance became an afterthought while the hero and heroine work towards winning this case.

When the murder trial business is finally dispensed with, we've got little more than 50 pages left in which to resolve, or actually develop a romance between Daniel and Lily and address their problems - like his assumption that she's adulterous, his siding with her evil, lying ex husband, his legal sophistries to justify his actions, and the fact that HE RUINED HER LIFE. The last is completely swept under the rug. They fall quickly in love, and Daniel begins to think, gee, maybe she's not a cold, lying, cheating harlot (the worst part is he has this epiphany when she responds to his kisses so "innocently." Aaargh! Nothing annoys me more than that medieval witch dunking test of virginity.) Then we get to the question: will Daniel sacrifice his political aspirations for the woman he loves? Because a future senator can't possibly marry a divorc���e. Everyone gets a chance to be noble martyrs, and a happily ever after is swiftly wrapped up. I was pretty disappointed in Breathless, considering its potential.

Breathless: A Novel
$28.00
i dont know how he does it but dean koontz has the gift of writing not only eliquent prose but also suspenseful wonderment. he never disappoints.

Jean Seberg -- Breathless
$24.95
And you thought Marilyn was tragic.
Garry McGee's "Jean Seberg--Breathless" is the heartbreaking story of the life, loves, life, career and death of one of the most startling beauties ever seen on the silver screen. Perhaps most astounding about Seberg's career is that, although she made a fair number of films with some great (and not so great) directors, only one truly captures her beauty and spirit.
That's not to say the camera wasn't enraptured with Seberg; her beauty prevented her from ever looking in a truly bad light, regardless of her age or weight. Yet "Saint Joan," "Bonjour Tristesse," "Lilith" and "Paint Your Wagon" pale (and eventually fade) when compared to Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 New Wave masterpiece, "Breathless." Save Garbo in "Queen Christina," no other movie actress has ever looked so beautiful on the movie screen.
McGee's narrative is both nimble and inclusive, seldom pausing for theory but compiling the events and facts which led up to a tragedy of near-epic proportion. Literally picked out of thousands for someone to play the title role in Otto Preminger "Saint Joan" (1957), this unsure, insecure girl from Marshalltown, Iowa was thrust into the limelight of stardom and international politics.
From her rise through mediocre movies to international success, through her great love and eventual marriage to novelist and diplomat Romain Gary, to her eventual suicide (or possible murder) brought about by her involvement with the Black Panther movement and resulting persecution by J. Edgar Hoover, McGee is riveting in style and content.
There are really no heroes or villains here, except Hoover who really does deserve to continue burning in the deepest pit of hell. Yet the author draws a portrait of the machinations of cold war intrigue and politics, as well as the rise, persecution and fall of a provincial American movie star who becomes both a symbol and a locus of hatred for the American spy system. Today,
Seberg's story would make a brilliant motion picture, truly capturing the mores and folkways of the time; the problem is, who is beautiful enough to play her?