Breathless

À bout de souffle (French for "out of breath", normally shortened to Breathless for English audiences) is a 1960 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It is one of the best-known films of the French New Wave.

Synopsis

Michel is a young thug who romantically models himself after Humphrey Bogart. While driving a stolen car, Michel shoots a policeman who follows him onto a country road. Penniless and on the run from the police, he turns to his U.S. girlfriend Patricia, a student and aspiring journalist. The ambiguous Patricia agrees to hide him and the two spend their time evading the police, making love and stealing cars to raise money for a trip to Italy. As the police net tightens, Michel's bravado and desperation increase.

Related Topics:
Humphrey Bogart - U.S. - Italy

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The film is very self-referential; it is, in a sense, more about film itself than anything else. For example, Michel is nothing more than a Humphrey Bogart copy; Patricia comments on this when she tells him that he is only an image and should say more about himself. His depth consists in his relation to other films, rather than any individual traits. At the time this was very new, and was a precursor to many poststructuralist notions of text.

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This self-referentiality would become a New Wave theme.

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