Breathless

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

Breathless (1960), directed by Jean-Luc Godard from a story by François Truffaut, epitomizes the film movement known as The French New Wave (previously noted on this blog in Truffaut’s Jules and Jim). These movies stress the art of making a film, so the style is anti-realistic by shooting life like a documentary with hand-held cameras that follow action instead of cuts to set up scenes, and then subverting the format. There are “jump cuts” in this movie which seem chaotic but which coincide with the main character’s rebellious, anarchic personality, and which in turn show the filmmaker’s desire to break with tradition as to story, topics, and style.

 

The center of attention here is Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a.k.a. Laszlo Kovacs. He is a criminal who happily defies the laws of society which for him is like waving the flag of individual freedom. We first see him at the port in Marseille, France, holding a magazine containing sexual content, showing disdain for appropriateness. His hat is as crooked as is his character. He coolly dangles a cigarette from his mouth and rubs his lips with his thumb (which he often does in the film), which reminds us of Humphrey Bogart, who often played characters that swam alone away from the mainstream of compliance. Later in the film Michel looks at movie posters of Bogart and Michel says, “Bogey” addressing the actor as an actor himself and a character feeling a kinship with the man). 

 

He has a woman accomplice who gives him the “coast is clear” sign, and Michel steals a car. She wants to go with him, but he has little concern for her beyond using her for his own purposes, and speeds off. He sings to himself and talks out loud about getting money and taking Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg) to Italy. He breaks the “fourth wall” and speaks directly to the audience (the movie revealing its dismissal of being realistic and instead is self-referential, calling attention to it being a work of art). He seems to wish to break away from what does not make him happy, in this case the countryside of France, and wants to be in the city. He doesn’t care what others think about his preferences as he shows his contempt for the opinions of others. He sees female hitchhikers on the road but drives on, calling them “dogs.” So, he is superficial in the selfishly sexist way he views women. He adds more disdain for careful females when he says, “Women drivers are cowardice personified.” But here it is because he wants to be daring in the way he lives and doesn’t believe in playing it safe. He is upset about any slowing down of the traffic, saying the car is made to run, not stop. The desire to move swiftly is a metaphor for how Michel wants to experience thrills during the short time that life offers. Even when not in a car, he often jumps and runs around.

 

He finds a gun in the glove compartment of the stolen car and pretends to shoot. But, there are actual sounds of the weapon going off an instant later as the camera points to passing trees. The pretend shooting and the sounds are a premonition of what is to occur. The next scene picks up on the possibility of impending trouble as Michel sees policemen on motorcycles on the side of the road. Instead of being cautious he speeds up to escape, and the police follow him. He pulls off the road behind some bushes. Here we have the first of numerous “jump cuts” that collapse action. We get the quick images of Michel holding the found gun, the sound of the gun discharging (which we heard earlier), a shot cop tumbling to the ground, and then Michel running away. Interspersed with action scenes, such as this one, there are scenes where Michel is inactive which illustrates his “moral sloth, his fatigue” as Dudley Andrew says in his essay, “Breathless -Then and Now.” Augmented by the changes in the musical score, we get a “bipolar aesthetic” during the course of the story.

 

There are more quick cuts of Michel arriving in a cab in Paris, trying to use a public telephone, and of him reading a newspaper while walking (looking for news about the policeman he shot). If shown realistically, time would be consumed doing routine action, but the effect is to speed up events, again stressing the stylized approach to filmmaking. In his essay, Andrew says the film “brings anarchy into the heart of Paris.” That suggests that Paris is a place of traditional style and attitudes and Godard’s approach is to upend that staid way of looking at things. 

 

Michel arrives at Patricia’s apartment, but she is out. He complains that he can’t find cash there because, he says, women never have money, which shows how he uses females for his own benefit. After not finding Patricia he goes to the place of another female acquaintance. Any port in a storm, I guess. He wants her to loan him money, she calls him “rotten,” and he agrees with her. He knows he is not a “good guy” and he doesn’t care, as he does not subscribe to standard morality. He illustrates this fact by saying she can keep the small amount of money she has, but then steals it anyway, making him a liar and a thief. Michel looks at himself in mirrors, suggesting his preoccupation with himself. In this scene Michel holds a toy monkey. Godard was influenced by director Nicholas Ray, and a toy monkey is a key symbol in Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause, the title of that film fitting in well with Michel’s character. The two rebels in these films represent the desire for freedom but with that urge for liberation they become tethered to the Angel of Death. 

 

Michel catches up with Patricia and the first thing he says is, “Come with me to Rome.” There is no time for foreplay for him because he just wants to keep moving. She is selling copies of the New York Herald Tribune in the street, an appropriate place for the man on the run. He says he doesn’t want to be in Paris because he has “enemies” there, another reason for this outsider to not stay in one place too long. The newspaper doesn’t have a horoscope, and he wants to know the future, which also stresses forward movement. They were only together five days earlier, yet he says the two women with whom he slept since they separated did not “jive” with him the way she did. He obviously gets around in and out of bed. But, it is she that left him, so he doesn’t always have the upper hand when it comes to women. 

 Michel passes by a sign that reads “live dangerously until the end,” which could be his slogan. Those words are appropriately followed by a car hitting a man. The jump cuts in the film are like photographed images strung together without providing the inessential time between them. So, Michel sees the car and then there is the man on the ground. The effect is visceral, as if Godard is punching his audience with quick visuals. Michel makes the sign of the cross as he stands over the dead pedestrian, as if bestowing an outlaw's benediction on a man who did not wither away in old age. 

 

Michel reads in a newspaper that the man who killed the policeman was identified and there is a picture of himself on the page. This development raises the stakes in the plot as Michel is at increased risk of getting caught for his crime, although he acts detached despite the peril he is in. He goes to a travel agency to see a man named Tolmatchoff (Richard Balducci) who has an envelope from someone who owes Michel money, but there is no cash in it. Tolmatchoff says he is “rusting away” in his job. Interestingly, Michel says, “Better rusted than busted,” which shows that Michel would choose a stagnant life of one’s own choosing outside rather than the even more confining existence inside a prison. As Michel leaves, he just misses encountering two men who ask for him. Police Inspector Vital (Daniel Boulanger) knows Tolmatchoff, who he has used to inform on another crook. He knows that Michel has his mail forwarded to the travel agency. He also says Michel used to be an airline steward, which fits his mobile personality. Tolmatchoff says he hasn’t seen Michel, but the receptionist tells the cops that a man was just there talking to Tolmatchoff. The policemen go in pursuit as Vital informs the clueless Tolmatchoff that he can be an “accessory to murder.” Michel is spreading his collateral damage to his unsuspecting acquaintances. 

 To get some extra money, Michel has no qualms about knocking a guy out in a men’s restroom and robbing him so he can take Patricia to dinner. He tells her a story about someone who stole money and took a woman to the Riviera. He told her this man was a thief, but the woman stuck by him and even helped with his robberies. It’s as if Michel is testing the waters to see if Patricia will want to be with him if he admits to his criminal activities. But, Patricia instead says she is late for a meeting with an American journalist, so she is also dating someone else. He is upset and even though he gives her a ride, he tries to convince her to stay with him, even if they don’t have sex. She ignores his praising her looks and tells him to just drop her off. He then is like a rebuffed teenager, telling her he never wants to see her again, and to “Get Lost!” 

 

There is then the first scene without Michel. Patricia meets with the journalist for lunch, and asks, “Am I unhappy because I am free, or free because I’m unhappy?” In any case, she is stating that she is sad. She may be implying that liberation can come from not caring about being happy since the burden to lead a happy life is lifted. And yet, one longs for being bound to something that can bring joy. Godard says in an essay entitled, “I’m Not Out of Breath,” that the film “Accentuates this confusion.” They leave, and Michel stalks them and sees the two kissing in the man’s car.  He is most likely upset because he feels he has been romantically out-conquested.

 

Earlier, Michel saw the couple’s reflection as they left the restaurant. The next day, Patricia looks at herself in a mirror that is in a store window. She finds that Michel has taken the key to where she is staying and she finds him in her bed with a stuffed teddy bear. There is an echo here of the toy monkey, and the possibility that people are caught between childhood and adulthood. He makes odd faces at her and she looks at a mirror and also makes different facial expressions. Again, there is that preoccupation with oneself. But there is also the possibility that the film is commenting on acting and the way movies can reflect the inner aspects of people. 

 

She tells him that the journalist is getting pieces for her to write, so she had to go with him, but insists that she didn’t sleep with the man. He says he loves her, but still puts the emphasis on the sexual part of their relationship. She says she wishes they could be like Romeo and Juliet, and Michel is exasperated by the female desire to turn love affairs into idealistic tales, where one lover can’t live without the other. But, the insertion here of the names of the characters in the tragedy by Shakespeare may be a bit of foreshadowing. And so might Michel’s fake threat of strangling Patricia unless she gives him a smile (echoes of Othello?). The appropriate follow-up to that is when he asks her if she thinks about death, and he admits he thinks about it all the time. In his essay, Godard says that people “every second stage their own executions in one way or another.” So, in that sense his movie is about “death.” Since one’s mortality is inevitable, it is just a matter of how an individual plays out the steps to that end that matter. 

 

Patricia asks him to say something nice and he can’t do that at first, since being sweet is not in his makeup. The best he can do is tell her he wants to sleep with her because she is beautiful. She says that is not true, and then he says it’s because she is ugly, and says both are the same. Again, we have that confusion, that “bipolar” feeling of irreconcilable opposites. She calls him a liar, and he is that, since he lies about his fake passport with his alias, Laszlo Kovacs, on it by saying the document belongs to his brother. He then says it’s better to tell the truth when playing poker because others think you are bluffing, and then you win. It is a cynical comment on how people assume others are dishonest and the forthright person can use that frankness for selfish reasons. Then they switch from skeptical adults to childlike innocents again, playing a staring game. She looks at him through a rolled-up poster, and the effect is to simulate seeing Belmondo through a camera lens, as the movie continues to reference filmmaking. 

 

The two kiss, and then Patricia says she might be pregnant and Michel would be the father. His response is a cold, selfish criticism that she should have been more careful, as he takes no responsibility for his actions. He is only interested in getting some money from Antonio, who owes him. She says she told him about her possible pregnancy to see how he would react. He obviously didn’t pass the test. He phones Tolmatchoff who tells him the police questioned him about Michel. As Michel and Patricia talk, a police siren is heard in the background, an omen that the authorities are closing in on him. He previously picked up her skirt and she smacked him. He now grabs her behind, and receives another smack. He doesn’t change despite punishment for his transgressions. 

 

This story is a modern romance, as they have sex first and then get to know each other afterwards. He finds out she is twenty years old, and she learns he sold cars in New York (which shows his attachment to things that defy being stationary). He asks about how many men she has slept with and she says not that many, holding up seven fingers. He flashes multiple digits and also says it’s not a large sum. The movie suggests that men and women have different perspectives on the extent of their sexual experiences. Michel spouts more sexist opinions about women, rating them on a scale of one to ten, and how available they make themselves for sex. But he does seem to give more weight to a woman being “charming” compared to her appearance. He loves to see Patricia in profile, as he expresses an almost artistic view of how he sees her. She says she wants him to love her, but is afraid of that love because she is independent. Perhaps this American aspect of her, the desire for individual freedom, is one of the reasons he is attracted to her. She says she wants to know what is behind his face, but would she want to know the criminal part of his personality? He pulls the sheets on the bed over his head, possibly a metaphor about how he is hiding his lawbreaking actions.

 

There is again that “confusion” in life that Godard spoke of when Michel says Patricia is “sweet, gentle,” but when she says he doesn’t know her, he states opposite characteristics, calling her, “mean, stupid, heartless, pathetic, cowardly, despicable.” He is being playful, but it also shows that when she doesn’t respond to his seductive kindness he then swings to the other side of the attribute pendulum. He is like a child having a tantrum when he doesn’t get the candy he wants. She hopes to write a novel, using everything she experiences as grist for her imaginative mill, so she doesn’t care about his criticisms. They are in many ways opposites, as she asks if he knows William Faulkner, and he wants to know if he is someone she slept with. (Men seem to want to have sex with many women but don’t want those women to sleep with other men, wishing to claim intimate ownership over their females). She is associated with traditional artistic forms, but the soundtrack favors jazz when Michel is the focus, and he prefers pop culture, like films. Michel says that, “I always get interested in girls who aren’t right for me,” which is a reference to The Maltese Falcon, and weds this film to the film noir tradition, as Michel is the outsider anti-hero). So, opposites attract sometimes, and maybe he wants her to desire him despite his lack of cultural refinement, and she is attracted to his raw sexuality and untethered lifestyle. 

 

She reads from Faulkner who says that between grief and nothing, he would choose grief. Not great options there. She asks which would Michel choose, and after evading the question, says he would pick nothing, because “grief’s a compromise. I want all or nothing.” His response is consistent with his drive to let no rules or boundaries confine his desire for self-gratification. If it leads to “nothing,” death, then so be it. Existential philosophy plays a role in the movie, as the main characters seem to be dealing with Jean-Paul Sartre’s book Being and Nothingness. Existentialism states there are no preexisting absolutes, and thus there is the possibility that “hell is other people,” as noted in Sartre’s play No Exit. Others try to define you, box you in as to how to be. So, the reality is that “existence precedes essence,” which means one acts in the world and then makes sense out of the actions afterwards. The film has those quick sequences and then there are these long scenes that reflect on life.  

 

This slowed down scene ends with a jump cut that speeds things up and there is an indication that the couple had sex. After the almost claustrophobic bedroom scene we get a contrasting aerial view of Paris. Michel lies again about going to get his car, but he actually steals one. More infractions on his part. As they drive, she continues with her introspective wonderings, saying she is “scared of aging.” His take is “being afraid is the worst sin.” For him, fear of anything diminishes how many thrills one can squeeze out of living. 

 While stopped as Patricia goes to her office, Michel sees a man (Godard himself) looking at him while holding a newspaper that has Michel’s picture on it and a story calling him a cop killer. He and Patricia drive away and the man approaches two policemen and points to the departing car as the music gets louder, suggesting trouble is increasing for Michel. Michel then drops Patricia off at a press conference at the airport. The writer, Parvulesco (the filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville) fields questions there. Godard presents us with himself as a character to stress his art over realism, and another real filmmaker, Melville, portraying a different kind of artist who comments, as art does, on life.  Parvulesco says that American women dominate the men but that is not yet the case with French women. Perhaps this comment relates to the American Patricia not being submissive and Michel finding her an intriguing challenge. When Patricia finally gets to ask Parvulesco what is his greatest ambition, he says he would like to be immortal and then die. More of that “confusion,” that Godard talks about. Here the contradictory statement implies the desire for complete freedom, even from death, followed by the wish for the ability to then choose nothingness to escape that “grief” which is part of existence that Michel despises. 

 

Michel drives to a junkyard (a possible metaphor for the deterioration of the social structure). He is trying to get money for the Ford Thunderbird he stole from Claudius Mansard (played by Claude Mansard, the almost identical name showing the Godard is not trying to present his film as a version of reality). He buys the car from Michel, but says he can’t pay him until later, and then shows him his picture in the newspaper. He has leverage because of Michel’s infamy, and may even believe Michel will get caught before he has to pay him. Michel’s response about his being in the newspaper is, “So what?” It goes back to him not wanting to live his life in fear. Michel finds out that he is to meet Antonio, the man who owes him money, later in the day. Michel tries to continue his thievery by going through Claudius’s desk, but the man is careful and says he keeps his money on him. Michel has the audacity, despite his unscrupulous behavior, to ask for a loan, which, of course, is refused. Claudius removed the distributor cap from the car so Michel could not drive it away. But the unrestrained Michel hits Claudius, and steals money for his “cab” fare. 

 

 In the cab, Michel wants to get to his meeting with Antonio, and as usual, he doesn’t care about anybody else as he tells the cab driver, “Never mind the pedestrians. Just move it!” He bullies the cab driver with backseat driving, not wanting anything to interfere with his needs. He says, “Don’t use the brakes. Cars are made to go, not stop!” We again see his disdain for anything holding him back from what he wants. Monetary responsibility is an annoyance that hinders him, and he stiffs the cabbie as he pretends he will be right back to pay him. He says to Patricia he hates cab drivers because they are afraid to scratch up the car. He is showing how he does not tolerate fear even if recklessness results in damage.  He is, however, late and Antonio left. Patricia is with him, and he continues to lie to her, fraudulently covering up his darker self, saying there was an accident, and the Thunderbird was damaged. He again shows his antisocial behavior by momentarily jumping out of the car and lifting the skirt of a female pedestrian, as he did earlier with Patricia. In answer to his question as to why she works at the newspaper, she says wittily to make enough money not to have to rely on men. She shows how she is not willing to submit to his will, which makes him want her more.

 

They separate as Patricia goes to the newspaper office where Inspector Vital found her by way of the snitch you pointed her out on the street with Michel. He shows her a newspaper with a large picture of Michel on it identifying him as the man who killed a policeman. It is strange that this journalist is clueless as to what has been in the news. Perhaps it suggests that Patricia wants to believe that Romeo and Juliette love affair can exist despite the facts. Her first response is denial, but she then is honest about having only known Michel for a short time and she doesn’t know where he is staying. She admits that he is looking for someone with an Italian name who owes him money. Vital wants her to contact him if she hears from Michel again. The hiding Michel sees the cops waiting for Patricia to come out of the building and watches as one follows her. He then tails the cop, hiding behind the newspaper that ironically has his picture on it. There is a large gathering of people as President Charles De Gaulle and President Dwight Eisenhower attend an event at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The formality of the orderly established leadership clashes with the threat to lawful order that Michel’s actions pose. 

 

Patricia, a character in a movie, goes into a movie theater to evade the policeman following her. This scene of a film within a film shows Godard reminding us that we are watching his cinematic work. She meets Michel outside, and says she wants to see a western movie. She wishes to escape into an idealized story of good guys versus bad ones, which is not what Michel’s life offers outside of the theater. Inside the movie theater they kiss and there she can pretend that she lives in a romanticized world. As they drive, Patricia finds out that Michel was married once, which he dismisses as the woman being crazy. She is trying to understand his motivations and whether she should stick with this outlaw. So far she goes along as they switch stolen cars. He seems to have a fatalistic philosophy about people, saying informers inform, burglars burgle, murderers murder, and lovers make love. It’s as if he’s saying that people follow their innate nature and can’t change who they are. He might be rationalizing by thinking he had no choice but to be a criminal. 

 

There are flashing news rolls on buildings saying how the police are closing in on Michel, which increases the suspense around Michel’s story. Michel finally locates Antonio Berrutti (Henri-Jacques Huet) at an outside eatery, and Patricia gets more exposure to the illegal life as Antonio photographs a woman he sent to kiss a man so he can blackmail him. They are to hide out at a model’s place, and there she is being photographed, another reference to recording images on film. The model leaves with the photographer, and Michel, still feeling insecure and wanting to claim his territory, asks if Patricia has called it off with her journalist friend. She says she has, but said hello to him at the dining out spot just to make Michel jealous. She does know how to push his buttons. Patricia says before they go to sleep that it is “sad to fall asleep. It separates people. Even when you’re sleeping together, you’re all alone.” She is preoccupied with her unhappiness, and here stresses how emotionally estranged people can be even in intimate situations.

 

The next day Patricia goes out and calls Inspector Vital and tells him where Michel is. She goes back to the model’s house and tells Michel what she did. Her explanation is that she wanted to test herself to see if she was in love with him, and since she did something that will hurt him then she must not truly love him. Apparently, she could not just trust her own feelings and needed to rely on her behavior to see how much she cared about him. She is a femme fatale in the film nori sense since she betrays her love interest, which, despite his rule-breaking ways, Michel would not do, since he has a code that does not allow for informing on other outlaws. They start to have overlapping dialogue with no communication between the two which shows that they are distancing themselves from each other. He shows how they have not solidified their connection when he says, “When we talked, I talked about me, you tackled about you, when we should have talked about each other.” She urges him to leave, most likely so he will not have a hold on her. Michel says he is tired and may now prefer going to prison. It’s as if she has taken away his reason for wanting to run away.

 

The action abruptly shifts to Michel going outside to meet Antonio who urges him to get in his car. But Michel addresses the camera as if telling the audience that he is “fed up,” and “tired.” It’s sort of his way of staying because he doesn’t want to leave Patricia. He will not take Antonio’s gun, probably because he knows that shooting a cop before led him to his current situation. The police arrive and Antonio throws his gun to Michel before driving off. Michel picks up the pistol and one of the cops shoots him in the back as Michel tries to get away, which is what he always tries to do. Patricia runs after him, but he collapses in the street. He makes some contradictory faces at her, one a smile, maybe a mouthing that says he loves her, and then he draws his hand over his face as if Belmondo is drawing a curtain over the performance. He tells her she makes him want to “puke.” We again have that “confusion” of contrasting expressions that make up life. 

 

Michel then dies, and that sign he walked under earlier could be the words that could go on his tombstone: “Live dangerously until the end.” Patricia seems to take on his spirit as she brushes her thumb over her lips, Bogey-style. So, the film ends with a cinematic reference to filmmakers, a sort of gesture of love, a kiss, to those who make movies.

The next film is Sleuth.