Jean-Luc Godard’s restless crime romance is worth seeing for its editing and its difficult, funny lovers. Belmondo and Seberg hold our attention even when the clever conversation begins to wear thin.
Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless is still a pleasure to watch, provided we do not expect its young lovers to be good company. It uses the conventions of an American gangster film, then repeatedly stops to let people talk. The interruptions are funny, revealing and sometimes tiresome, which seems a fair account of spending time with the young and self-absorbed. There is a crime story here, but Godard is at least as interested in how Michel and Patricia behave together.
Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Michel Poiccard with enough charm to make his vanity tolerable. His performance makes the character’s self-importance funny, partly because we can see the effort behind the swagger. Jean Seberg’s Patricia Franchini is more reserved, and that difference keeps the pair interesting. Her limited outward expression can look stiff, but it also stops Michel from dominating every exchange. That reserve makes us pay closer attention to her responses.
Raoul Coutard’s handheld photography gives Paris a sense of activity beyond the demands of the plot. The camera’s nervous movement suits characters who seem unlikely to stay settled for long, and it keeps conversation from becoming a succession of formal speeches. The movement helps us stay interested when the characters are giving us reasons to dislike them. Faces and movement continue to hold our attention when the talk begins to repeat itself.
Cécile Decugis’s editing is the sharper provocation. The jump cuts let action skip forward within a scene, making us notice how much a conventional edit usually conceals. At first they catch the eye; soon their impatient rhythm feels right for these people. We notice the missing joins without losing interest in the performers, whose presence keeps the cutting from becoming merely distracting. Martial Solal’s jazz score gives the film another source of movement, its musical restlessness working well alongside those abrupt cuts.
The long bedroom scene is where the film got to us. We were unexpectedly moved by how long the lovers talk without seeming to understand one another any better. Godard gives them enough time together for the charm to become wearing, then lets their uncertainty become apparent. Belmondo and Seberg make that duration useful: staying with them allows us to see the loneliness that a faster crime romance might hurry past.
The trouble comes when Godard seems too pleased with the dialogue. His writing can make a conversation feel like an occasion to display cleverness, and that weakens our interest in the people having it. His screenplay, with story credits for François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol, occasionally gives both lovers more to say than we want to hear. The film’s 90 minutes can feel longer during these stretches, despite all the activity in the cutting.
Godard borrows the swagger of American thrillers, then spends enough time with his lovers to make their selfishness tiring. It is a useful way of questioning the genre’s fondness for attractive criminals, and the actors keep it from turning into a lecture. The film remains enjoyable when it is being difficult, because there is so much pleasure in watching these performers respond to each other. See it for Belmondo and Seberg, and be prepared to lose patience with the people they play.
