| Films Around the World (I) | Release Date: February 7, 1961 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
24
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Breathless is pure, it is moral, it is true. It doesn't impose anything on man and it doesn't distort man: it studies man, humbly without pretensions. [13 Jul 1961, p.13]
What shapes Breathless as such an influential and long lasting ‘classic’ of French cinema is Godard’s ferocious delivery of simplistic subject matter, his direction of iconic actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and his all-out gallantry in creating the first of many films that broke all the rules, both in his homeland and overseas.
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Breathless is not an antique or a classic. It is still a new film, because it makes you feel cinema is still new. [18 Nov 2007, p.N9]
It's a low-budget romance-thriller that changed the face of cinema. [14 May 2000, p.8]
The glory of "Breathless" lies less with its narrative, though, than with its style, a self-conscious blend of drawn-out conversational scenes and rapid-fire cuts of action. [14 Dec 2001]
The film is light and playful and off-the-cuff, even a little silly. Yet the giddy, gauche characters who don't give a damn...are not only familiar in an exciting, revealing way, they are terribly attractive.
Godard's technical innovations have become so commonplace that they no longer jolt. But the aura of urban fatalism remains compelling, and so does the acting by Jean-Paul Belmondo as a Bogart-worshipping fugitive and especially Jean Seberg as his amoral girlfriend. [02 Aug 1991, p.24]
It baffled popular audiences outside Europe, but its insouciant style, amoral attitudes and cultural sophistication made it an influential milestone of post-war cinema. [28 Apr 1996, p.14]
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