Breathless

Jean-Luc Godard

 
Breathless Criterion Blu-Ray

14 Sep 2010

Blu-Ray

1 Disc

SRP: $39.95

Criterion Store price:$31.96

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  • France
  • 1960
  • 90 minutes
  • Black and White
  • 1.33:1
  • French
  •  
  • Spine #408

SYNOPSIS: There was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless. Jean-Luc Godard burst onto the film scene in 1960 with this jazzy, free-form, and sexy homage to the American film genres that inspired him as a writer for Cahiers du cinéma. With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, anything-goes crime narrative, and effervescent young stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, Breathless helped launch the French New Wave and ensured cinema would never be the same.

Cast & CreditsOpen

Cast

Patricia FranchiniJean Seberg
Michel PoiccardJean-Paul Belmondo
Inspector VitalDaniel Boulanger
Antonio BerrutiHenri-Jacques Huet
Carl ZumbachRoger Hanin
Van DoudeVan Doude
LilianeLiliane David
Other inspectorMichel Fabre
ParvulescoJean-Pierre Melville
Used car dealerClaude Mansard
InformerJean-Luc Godard
TolmachoffRichard Balducci

Credits

DirectorJean-Luc Godard
ProducerGeorges de Beauregard
ScreenplayJean-Luc Godard
Based on an original treatment byFrançois Truffaut
CinematographyRaoul Coutard
Camera assistantClaude Beausoleil
Assistant directorPierre Rissient
Script supervisorSuzon Faye
MakeupPhuong Mattret
MusicMartial Solal
SoundJacques Maumont
EditingCécile Decugis
Assistant editorLila Herman
Technical advisorClaude Chabrol

Disc Features

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • Restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director of photography Raoul Coutard (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
  • Archival interviews with director Jean-Luc Godard and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, and Jean-Pierre Melville
  • New video interviews 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, Hôtel de Suède, an eighty-minute French documentary about the making of Breathless, with members of the cast and crew
  • Charlotte et son Jules, a 1959 short film by Godard featuring Belmondo
  • French theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by scholar Dudley Andrew, writings by Godard, François Truffaut’s original treatment, and Godard’s scenario

From the CurrentView the Current »

Film Essays

Breathless Then and Now

By Dudley AndrewOctober 22, 2007

The opening of Breathless is “unprecedented,” in that we never learn what route brought Michel Poiccard to the Vieux Port of Marseille, where he surveys the future Read more »

Breathless

By John PowersJuly 08, 1992

Many great movies are classics. A few stand as landmarks. The merest handful—perhaps four or five in a century—deserve to be called revolutions. Breathless belongs unequivocally in Read more »


Videos


Features

“The Face of the French Cinema Has Changed”

By Jean-Luc GodardApril 21, 2009

Fifty years ago today . . . Godard wrote this New Wave battle cry for the April 22, 1959, issue of the French journal Arts, on the news of François Read more »


Interviews

Into the Archives: A Conversation
with Emmanuel Laurent

May 19, 2010

Plenty of ink has been expended over the years on the turbulent friendship between Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, which helped Read more »


News

Looking at the New Wave in London

July 12, 2010

In March, we let you know about the underheralded Raymond Cauchetier, the unofficial photographer of the New Wave, by linking to an informative essay on cinematographer Read more »

Rodarte and Rialto
Team Up for Breathless

May 06, 2010

The eternally cool Breathless is getting a little more stylish. Rialto Pictures is joining forces with Kate and Laura Mulleavy of the fashion label Read more »

Breathless Is Back

March 10, 2010

Breathless returns to the big screen this spring. Fifty years after the film’s release in France, Rialto Pictures has acquired the U.S. rights to a new 35 mm print of Jean Read more »

Belmondo in L.A.

January 14, 2010

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has bestowed its annual career achievement award on French New Wave icon Jean-Paul Belmondo. The ceremony will be held on Saturday Read more »


Dispatches

Bazin Season

By Colin MacCabeDecember 21, 2008

André Bazin has a curious status in intellectual life. He is everywhere admitted as the founding father of film criticism and theory in general. The magazine he created in the 1950s Read more »


Clippings

Back to Bailey’s Blog:
Cauchetier, Part Two

March 31, 2010

In the Current last week, we linked to the first part of cinematographer John Bailey’s informative, image-laden piece, on the American Society of Cinematographers Read more »

The New Wave’s Photographer

March 25, 2010

The name Raymond Cauchetier may not ring a bell, but if you’re a fan of the French New Wave, and the films by such directors as Godard, Truffaut, and Varda that defined Read more »

Other Editions

Breathless Criterion DVD

DVD

2 Discs

SRP: $39.95

Criterion Store price:$31.96

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