Breathless

…À bout de souffle (1960; Breathless), which was produced by François Truffaut, his colleague on the journal Cahiers du cinéma, won the Jean Vigo Prize. It inaugurated a long series of features, all celebrated for the often drastic nonchalance of Godard’s improvisatory filmmaking procedures. Breathless was shot without a script;…

An example occurs in Godard’s Breathless (1960), in which scenes change in rapid sequence (“jump cuts”) to create a jerky and disconnected effect. Although it was never clearly defined as a movement, the New Wave stimulated discussion about the cinema and helped demonstrate that films could achieve both commercial and…

…A bout de souffle (1960; Breathless) that Belmondo delivered his landmark performance. His portrayal of a disaffected, amoral street punk combined the cynical world-weariness of Humphrey Bogart with the naïveté of a bumbling crook, incorporating a compelling mixture of toughness, spontaneity, and comic timing. The film and the character he…