À Bout de Souffle
Jean-Luc Godard’s Nouvelle Vague highlight in which a fleeing thief bumps into an American student in Paris. Tribute to screen legend Jean-Paul Belmondo (1933-2021).
Young petty thief Michel steals a car en route to Paris and impulsively kills the cop chasing him. In Paris, he bumps into the hip American journalism student Patricia, whom he met earlier in Nice. In his typical inconsiderate way, Michel tries to convince her to run off to Italy together. In the meanwhile, he seems oblivious to the dragnet that is slowly closing around him.
À BOUT DE SOUFFLE, Jean-Luc Godard’s debut, is widely regarded as the pinnacle of the French Nouvelle Vague. Godard was part of a loose collection of directors who were done with the conservative and slick movies that were popular in post-war France. They were looking for vitality, experiment and anarchy. Jean-Paul Belmondo became the face of this movement, as his innate bravado and impressive physicality perfectly matched the transgressive theories of the Nouvelle Vague. More than any other film, A BOUT DE SOUFFLE perfectly showcases his revolutionary presence.