Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless gave France’s nascent La nouvelle vague a solid international underpinning and it has remained a vibrant, stylish and entertaining influence on filmmakers for 54 years. Largely improvised and capriciously photographed, Breathless tore away the final threads that bound films to novels – and the formal elements of novels – leaving each medium a little freer to reach their own respective potentials. The narrative of Breathless, and unlike some later Godard films it does have one, is not dispensed through written dialogue designed to advance plot points but rather a capturing of fleeting ideas and quickly dissolving moments in time. Like life itself, some of these moments are big and important while others simply banal markers on the timeline of existence. Breathless gives equal dramatic weight to the climactic and the mundane, throwing a greasy yet elegant monkey wrench into 1960‘s accepted orthodoxy of what a movie was supposed to be.
- 2/25/2014
- by David Anderson
- IONCINEMA.com
I hate the idea of saying "My favorite film is..." but if I was to ever attempt to compile a list of a my favorite films Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless would undoubtedly be on it. I knew it just as soon as I watched it for the first time on April 11, 2009. Yes, I remember the day. The story and performances are one thing, but this is a film of mood, atmosphere, ego and music. It's more of a feeling than anything else and I feel absolute enjoyment just in hearing Martial Solal's score, coupled with Raoul Coutard's cinematography and the face of Jean Seberg.
Since my first viewing almost a year-and-a-half ago I've now seen eight of Godard's films and while the likes of Vivre sa vie, Band of Outsiders and Contempt are also films of his I enjoy, Breathless is so far above and beyond there's hardly room to compare.
Since my first viewing almost a year-and-a-half ago I've now seen eight of Godard's films and while the likes of Vivre sa vie, Band of Outsiders and Contempt are also films of his I enjoy, Breathless is so far above and beyond there's hardly room to compare.
- 9/21/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Wings Of Desire is a lot like Where The Wild Things Are. Ok, I know that sounds extremely far-fetched, but stick with me here. I know one film involves invisible angels watching humans, their struggles and suffering and the other involves large hirsute monsters with big heads and even bigger tempers making friends with a runaway boy with anger issues, but there are two major common denominators to both films: 1) They’re rooted and invested in human emotions, and 2) Neither adheres to the standard three-act narrative format, forgoing customary cinematic structure and instead drifting and meandering along an (apparently) uncharted course.
I’ve seen Wings Of Desire and Where The Wild Things twice. And in both cases I enjoyed and appreciated the film more after the second viewing, probably because I wasn’t encumbered by expectations of a traditionally told story. Do I think both movies are perfect? No. They...
I’ve seen Wings Of Desire and Where The Wild Things twice. And in both cases I enjoyed and appreciated the film more after the second viewing, probably because I wasn’t encumbered by expectations of a traditionally told story. Do I think both movies are perfect? No. They...
- 11/27/2009
- by no-reply@starlog.com (Allan Dart)
- Starlog
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