Jean Seberg can make a reserved response as absorbing as someone else’s swagger. Her restraint makes Breathless worth watching closely, though we would not pretend it never looks stiff.
Fi1m perspective
In Breathless (1960), Jean Seberg lets Jean-Paul Belmondo do most of the swaggering. Her Patricia Franchini responds to his Michel Poiccard with a reserve that makes us wait for her, rather than simply follow him. We sometimes see stiffness in that limited expression, but we also keep looking because she gives so little away. Michel has enough charm to get through an exchange on his own terms; Seberg makes sure he cannot quite manage it. The pleasure is in watching the two actors adjust to each other.
Early reviewers were much less forgiving of her stiffness. Otto Preminger chose her for the title role in Saint Joan (1957), and the notices criticised her inexperience as well as the film. His Bonjour Tristesse (1958) was also poorly received, before Breathless brought her breakthrough. Godard gave her a part in which being hard to read could keep another actor’s charm from becoming the only thing we noticed.
We were moved by the bedroom scene because all that time spent talking brings Patricia and Michel no closer to understanding each other. Jean-Luc Godard lets the conversation run long enough for their charm to wear thin, and Seberg and Belmondo make the resulting loneliness felt. His patience gives us time to notice responses that a brisker crime romance would pass over. The clever talk can become tiresome, and neither lover grows easier company as we stay with them. We still want to watch the actors, even when we have had enough of the characters.
Her later work moved between French and Hollywood productions, including Lilith (1964), Paint Your Wagon (1969) and Airport (1970). The later career has been judged uneven, with Lilith singled out for the strength of her dramatic performance. That gives us reason to look beyond Patricia, though we would not turn one fine performance into a recommendation for the entire catalogue. Begin with Breathless, and keep watching Patricia when Michel seems to have taken charge.
Biography
Jean Dorothy Seberg was an American actress born on 13 November 1938 in Marshalltown, Iowa. She died on 30 August 1979 in Paris, France.
Seberg made her screen debut in Saint Joan (1957) and appeared in Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and The Mouse That Roared (1959). She gained international recognition for her role as Patricia Franchini in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960). Other credits include Lilith (1964), Paint Your Wagon (1969) and Airport (1970).
Seberg was targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO programme in the late 1960s and early 1970s owing to her financial support for the Black Panther Party. She was the subject of a false story planted with the press regarding her pregnancy. Her second husband, Romain Gary, publicly attributed her subsequent mental health difficulties to the campaign. Police ruled her death a probable suicide.
