Breathless

'Breathless' is 50 years old. It is the Kong of the French new wave era. Directed by Jean Luc Godard, 'Breathless' was the alternative in-your-face masterpiece that turned classic French cinema on it's ear. No longer willing to pander to audiences with narratives and precision editing, the new wave era stamped each film with the director's style. Across the Atlantic, Hawks, Ford and Nicholas Ray were admired for their cinematic style. Shot on shoe string budgets, and on location, the young French directors used friends as extras, and improvised dialogue and shots on the fly. 'Breathless' was filmed in Paris and starred a handsome, pouty, lip ( Jagger lips before Jagger) smoking Belmondo, and a Hollywood actress who had previously been thrashed by critics for her film performances in America, Jean Seberg. Seberg was sensational in 'Breathless.' Breaking into French with an American accent, Seberg's, Patricia, was complex. Raoul Coutard, director of photography, captured every Seberg nuance as Godard extracted and Seberg delivered the performance of her life. The characters of Belmondo and Seberg were new wave protagonists...young and rebellious, living outside the boundaries of society. Their story was vibrant; romance that danced along the cliff's edge; jazz notes which filled the screen; long tracking shots and jump cuts filled with natural light. The Euros loved it. Even today, Belmondo's death scene remains a film studies classic. Altman, Scorsese, Coppola and the great Chinese director, Wong Kar Wai have said they were influenced by the French new wave. In his first film, 'Reservoir Dogs' QT dedicated it to Godard. Jean Seberg making questionable choices in her acting career, and constantly involved in abusive serial relationships, died in 1979 at the age of 41 in the back seat of a car in the 16th arrondissement in Paris of alcohol and drugs. She will however, always be the woman that Raoul Coutard's camera loved. 1960. Breathless and immortal, always forever young.