Breathless

Over 60 years have passed since Jean-Luc Godard’s debut feature, one of the first films of the Nouvelle Vague movement, first hit cinema screens, announcing the arrival of a director who has spent the intervening decades striving to redefine and reshape the medium. While the results of his efforts have been often exasperating, occasionally impenetrable, but always intriguing, Breathless retains an iconic status accorded to few films.

The story itself is relatively straightforward; criminal Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), who styles himself after Humphrey Bogart, hides out with American student Patricia (Jean Seberg) following his murder of a policeman. However, it is in the manner of telling that Godard announced himself as a revolutionary auteur, and the film remains fresh and unique.