Breathless

Jean-Luc Godard is one of the most influential New Wave French cinema directors. Translated that means that he "invented" some new film styles, namely the jump cut (when a scene gets chopped into little bits and put back together in a jumpy, but still essentially continuous manner). The French in the 1960s were also influential in making things look very natural, what I expect would be called neo-realism. The actors (Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, whose careers took off after this film) look straight at the camera at points and they talk like we talk. This film is so natural in its conversation style and character mannerisms that you don't even realize you're watching film sometimes. But then Godard will put in some heavy-duty melodramatic music and you laugh because you remember. There is a plot, which almost seems not to matter, mostly about a criminal on the loose. The film is of the beat generation, so fairly loose in its morals, and that keeps us edgy because we're not sure what the characters will do next. We like them but we don't understand why they keep doing such awful things, especially at the end of the film. Try to ignore Seberg's French accent. She does a fairly good job except for those hard American R's.

original title: À Bout de Souffle
year: 1960
length: 87 min.
rating: 3.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053472/combined