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bout de souffle
aka Breathless
Screening: Monday 1 May, 6:30pm
France
1959
Director/Editor: Jean-Luc Godard
Production co: SNC
Producer: Georges de Beauregard
Screenplay: Franois Truffaut
Cinematography: Raoul Coutard
Sound: J. Maumont
Music: Martial Solal
Michel: Jean-Paul Belmondo
Patricia: Jean Seberg
Police inspector: Daniel Boulanger
Author: Jean-Pierre Melville
Minouche: Liliane David
Antonio: Henri-Jacques Huet
Editor: Van Doude
In French with English subtitles
90 mins
B & W
35mm (1.37:1)
R16 cert
ADMISSION STRICTLY MEMBERS ONLY
Forty years on and Breathless remains a stylistic tour de force. Filmed on the streets of Paris using hand-held cameras, it captures the youthful spirit of the French capital. Godard tears up the rule-book of classical Hollywood style, fragmenting his story with jump-cuts which constantly remind us weíre watching a movie...
Michel Poiccard (Belmondo), aka Lazlo Kovacs, steals a car in Marseille and heads to Paris, gunning down a cop en route. In the capital, the Bogart-obsessed hoodlum tries to contact various criminals to cash a cheque, while he hangs out with an American student Patricia (Seberg), who sells copies of the International Herald Tribune on the Champs-Elysee. Michel is trying to convince the girl to run away with him to Rome, but the police are closing in fast.
deserves the label revolutionary because it changed the way films were made. Shot quickly and cheaply, it's an affectionate pastiche of American gangster flicks alongside an existential enquiry into love and death, freedom and betrayal. - Total Film
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Presented with the generous support of the French Embassy and Creative New Zealand
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