Breathless / À Bout De Souffle (Jean-Luc Godard, 1959, France)
Running time: 90 minutes
Godard's and Belmondo's first film, scripted by Truffaut, was an international success and became the flag-bearer of the Nouvelle Vague. Whilst one can imagine how fresh and iconoclastic this was in its day, its novelties such as its fast and loose play with the narrative with extensive use of jump-cut editing have long since been absorbed into film-making and what's left for those other than devotees of Godard's irreverant and critical approach, are mainly the attractive black and white exteriors of late 50s Paris. Nevertheless it's one of those classics you have to see at least once. The film was inspired by Joseph H Lewis's (also) classic B movie, Gun Crazy (1950) and was re-made with less than stellar results in 1983 with Jim McBride directing and Richard Gere in the lead. BH