Breathless

Breathless

À bout de souffle
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
France / 1960
90 minutes / French / Black & White / DCP

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 that cinema would never be the same. The program serves as a tribute to the charismatic French actor Belmondo, who died on Sept. 6 of last year.

Intro and discussion by Kathy Corley, documentary filmmaker and professor emerita of film at Webster University.