Much of the time, if you profess to not like Breathless, a few New Wave devotees kind of sniff and intimate that, obviously, you didn't understand it.The hell I didn't. I was a teenager when the New Wave (Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, Resnais, et. al) erupted. I saw ALL the key films when they came out. I tried very hard to be impressed, to string along with the huge number of critics who oohed with delight about cinema verité, hand-held cameras and improvised dialogue. But I couldn't do it then, and I still can't.I've watched Breathless twice completely and half a dozen times incompletely, over the past 50+ years. Yes, I understand it's a milestone. Yes, the film was a radical departure from standard studio-produced fare. Yes, it broke many so-called 'rules' of feature film-making.But sorry. All that doesn't make for a movie that's good. It bores. It rambles. It irritates by its ineptness. The images are very uneven in quality. The sound is pretty bad. In truth, one is expected, even urged, to admire it for its defects.Jean-Luc Godard (who is Swiss, though considered one of the pillars of the French New Wave) still makes movies today in 2018, at 87 years of age. Still does the festival circuit. And his movies are much improved technically. Almost all have a few pretty good scenes. But by and large, they're not meant to entertain. They're supposed to make you think. To react and reflect on the images and ideas he's throwing out at you.Now, back to Breathless (which a poor translation of the original French title 'A bout de souffle' that really means 'out of steam, out of energy, near the end of the line'.)If you've never seen it, by all means do so, simply for its reputation. And if like me, you were lucky enough to visit Paris in the 1950s and early 1960s, you'll be rewarded by once again seeing the city as it really was. Complete with a girl (the late, beloved Jean Seberg) on foot, hawking the late, beloved International Herald Tribune to American tourists. Just for those delights, my rating is 4/10 - about two points higher than it might otherwise receive from soft-hearted me.PS: If you find New Wave really hard to get through, stick with Truffaut. He rarely bores the way Godard and Resnais do. And how he evolved, year by year, into a master film craftsman is a story in itself.

I was filled with anxiety before beginning Breathless. As someone who is firmly entrenched in the Truffaut camp, #TruffautisLife after all, I was terrified that I would see what is often regarded as the director with whom Truffaut shared an open and intense parting of ways with and see the masterpiece I've always been told it was. Obviously, I know that appreciating a Godard film will do nothing to diminish my love for all things Truffaut, I'm just a loyalist and was worried how I'd feel enjoying a Godard film. Little did I know, I had nothing to worry about. I actively disliked Breathless, I may have even hated it. Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film was important, I suppose, to the burgeoning French New Wave. I'm sure to subject myself to more Godard films in the future as my journey through cinema goes on, but Breathless did not live up to its reputation, for me.This is where the plot would go if there was one. Just kidding, sort of, there are happenings in Breathless but it is clear that there were not many rehearsals with a script taking place. I've read that Godard was rewriting the script each day, removing nearly all of the influence of Truffaut, who had given the film's story to Godard. Godard would then feed the lines to the actors from offset resulting in very little familiarity between the words of the script and the actors speaking them. Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) a self-absorbed narcissistic sociopath, surely modeled after Jean-Luc Godard, steals a car then murders the police officer who chases after him. Needing a distraction and a place to hide out, Michel renews his relationship with Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg) an American in Paris studying journalism whom he met a few weeks prior. Despite their relationship being new and unestablished, Michel expects Patricia to accompany him on his getaway to Italy. Like a true narcissist, Michel is oblivious to the fact that his face is in all the papers and the police are closing in on him as he goes about his way collecting his money and planning his getaway. Focusing his attention on the American films that interest him and his American love interest, Michel ignores the fact that his very life is at stake.During the opening minutes of the film, Jean-Paul Belmondo breaks the fourth wall by looking at and speaking directly to the camera which is a device that almost always works for me. I thought that meant that I may be in for something good, but almost immediately after this scene ended, I nearly ran out of things to enjoy. The jump cuts were amazing and served the story well. I don't give Godard credit for inventing those cuts, as many do, however. An idol, Sergei Eisenstein used jump cuts in film--most memorably in depicting an explosion in The Battleship Potemkin. Georges Melies, whose work I have memorialized on my body also used jump cuts through most of his career in silent cinema. Despite the fact that Godard often gets credit for inventing the jump cut which he surely did not, I can't argue the fact that he used the technique effectively cementing certain aspects of The French New Wave. The music was phenomenal, so kudos to Godard for that. From his first film, however, one can see my biggest criticism of Godard. Godard has no problem excluding his audience. Just listening to Godard speak in interviews, it's clear to discern that he only expects the highest brow of intellectuals to enjoy his films. If an audience member doesn't fit into that category, he doesn't really care. He created terribly unlikeable characters engaging in a plot and a romance that no one could possibly care about, all the while carrying on pseudo-intellectual conversations grating on the last bit of patience I could muster. Obviously, Breathless works for almost everyone except me, but after seeing his debut feature, there's not much encouraging me to try more Godard films.

Still fresh as ever four viewings later, this debut feature from Jean- Luc Godard shows the acclaimed French director at his most experimental while still spinning a half decent story (the same cannot be said of all of his subsequent efforts). A key piece of dialogue crops up around halfway through as lead actress Jean Seberg tells the car thief protagonist played by Jean-Paul Belmondo that she cannot see anything beneath his face, no matter how hard she looks. Belmondo is a man who has modeled himself on the heroes of film noir (twisting his face to match Bogart's face in a photo at one point) and has lost his true identity in a near fantasy existence; Godard's inclusion of gun sound effects as Belmondo imagines firing his gun from his moving car hint at an overactive imagination. Godard's use of jump cuts is also indicative of fragmented thinking. Fascinating as this all may be, 'À Bout de Soufflé' misses the mark for a top tier Godard effort. It is not even of his five best films as it does not spin as tight a narrative as something such as 'Contempt'. The scenes in Seberg's hotel room run too long and as appealing as Belmondo's non-urgency in fleeing the country may be, the film misses the opportunity for thrills and suspense. It also debatable how much sense Seberg's decision near the end makes. There is, however, no flawing the film's music, a mix of different moody styles for a mixed up world in which Belmondo feels many different emotions, and the way we get inside the mind of the film noir-influenced protagonist is superb. Godard's cameo is lots of fun too.

Since there have been a great many conventional reviews of this movie (far more positive than negative), I will address a criticism, that we often praise things that are groundbreaking, even when they are not that good. What, of course, is "that good"? This is by all accounts a simple story. A sociopathic young man kills a cop and feels nothing. This film pretty much made Jean-Paul Belmondo, who muscles his way through life, finding pleasure, while he is being pursued. His bad boy charm attracts the young female and she becomes embroiled in his impulsiveness. There is a love story here but there can be nothing but pain. Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful memory was created here. One could say that D. W. Griffith films are not as good as modern films on the same themes because they were silent and not in color. Even though the jump cuts and other fundamentals of filmmaking were introduced (or at least enhanced) in the French New Wave, there are those who criticize this film for being uninspired and repetitive. While it's hard to have sympathy with the two principles in this film, it does present a dizzying ride.