Breathless [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Overview

Dedicated to Monogram Pictures, Jean-Luc Godard's debut feature fused the raw energy of American gangster movies with the lyrical ingenuity of French cinema to kick-start a revolution in international filmmaking. Shot without a script on a shoestring budget, Breathless stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel, a Parisian hood on the lam after killing a policeman. He soon winds up in the bed of an American woman (played by Jean Seberg), who ultimately turns him in to the authorities. Establishing many of Godard's recurring themes -- the love-hate relationship with American culture, the macho bravado, and the obsession with female beauty and deceit -- as well as the free-wheeling, modernist, jump-cutting narrative technique, Breathless is raw and vital, a giddy celebration of film itself. It revolutionized the medium upon its initial release and looks none the worse for wear decades on.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/15/2016
UPC:	0715515190015
Original Release:	1960
Rating:	NR
Source:	THE CRITERION COLLECTION, INC
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:30:00
Sales rank:	3,856

Special Features

Archival interviews with director Jean-Luc Goddard and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, and Jean-Pierre Melville; Interviews from 2007 with Coutard, assistant director Pierre Rissient, and filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker; Two video essays: filmmaker Mark Rappaport's Jean Seberg and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum's "Breathless" as Criticism; Chambre 12, H?tel de Su?de, an eighty-minute 1993 French documentary about the making of Breathless, featuring members of the cast and crew; Charlotte et son Jules, a 1959 short film by Godard featuring Belmondo ; Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Jean-Paul Belmondo	Michel Poiccard
Jean Seberg	Patricia Franchini
Daniel Boulanger	l'inspecteur Vital
Jean-Pierre Melville	Parvulesco
Liliane Robin	Minouche
Van Doude	Journalist
Claude Mansard	Used-Car Dealer
Michel Fabre	Plainclothesman
Jean Domarchi	Drunk
Henri-Jacques Huet	Antonio Berrutti
Jean-Luc Godard	Actor
Richard Balducci	Tolmatchoff
Roger Hanin	Carl Zombach
Jean-Louis Richard	Journalist
Francois Moreuil	Cameraman
Philippe de Broca	Actor
Liliane Dreyfus	Liliane
Andr? S. Labarthe	un journaliste
Jean Douchet	un journaliste
Jacques Lourcelles	Actor
G?rard Brach	un photographe
Raymond Huntley	un journaliste
Liliane David	Minouche

Technical Credits

Jean-Luc Godard

Fran?ois Truffaut

Claude Chabrol

Jean-Luc Godard	Screenwriter
Georges de Beauregard	Producer
Fran?ois Truffaut	Screenwriter
Claude Chabrol	Screenwriter
Jacques Maumont	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

Jean-Paul Sartre declared this a masterpiece at an early Paris screening, and there's certainly no doubt that this is the quintessential existentialist movie in style as well as attitude.... In short, mandatory viewing.