A Bout de Souffle

A BOUT DE SOUFFLE

(Breathless)

France, 1959

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Production: Impéria Films, Société Nouvelle de Cinéma; black and white, 35mm; running time: 89 minutes. Released 16 March 1960, Paris. Filmed 17 August through 15 September 1959 in Paris and Marseilles; cost: 400,000 N.F. (about $120,000).

Producer: Georges de Beauregard; screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard, from an original treatment by François Truffaut; photography: Raoul Coutard; editors: Cécile Decugis with Lila Herman; sound: Jacques Maumont; music: Martial Solal from Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, K.622; artistic and technical advisor: Claude Chabrol.

Cast: Jean Seberg ( Patricia Franchini ); Jean-Paul Belmondo ( Michel Poiccard, alias Laszlo Kovacs ); Daniel Boulanger ( Police Inspector Vital ); Henri-Jacques Huet ( Antonio Berrutti ); Roger Hanin ( Carl Zombach ); Van Doude ( Journalist Van Doude ); Liliane Robin ( Liliane ); Michel Favre ( Plainclothes inspector ); Jean-Pierre Melville ( Parvulesco ); Claude Mansard ( Used car dealer, Claudius ); Jean Domarchi ( Drunk ); Jean-Luc Godard ( Informer ); André-S. Labarthe, Jean-Louis Richard, and François Mareuil ( Journalists ); Richard Balducci ( Tolmatchoff ); Philippe de Broca; Michael Mourlet; Jean Douchet; Louiguy; Virginie Ullman; Emile Villon; José Bénazéraf; Madame Paul; Raymond Ravanbaz.

Awards: Prix Jean Vigo, 1960; Best Direction, Berlin Film Festival, 1960.

Publications

Scripts:

A bout de souffle (screenplay plus Truffaut's original scenario and quotations from reviews) in L'Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), March 1968; also published separately, Paris, 1974.

Books:

Taylor, John Russell, "The New Wave: Jean-Luc Godard," in Cinema Eye, Cinema Ear , New York, 1964.

Egly, Max, Regards neufs sur le cinéma , Paris, 1965.

Goldmann, Annie, Cinéma et société moderne: Le Cinéma de 1958 à 1968 , Paris, 1971.

Vaugeois, Gerard, and others, A bout de souffle , Paris, 1974.

Monaco, James, The New Wave , New York, 1976.

MacCabe, Colin, Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics , London, 1980.

Walsh, Martin, The Brechtian Aspect of Radical Cinema , London, 1981.

Lefèvre, Raymond, Jean-Luc Godard , Paris, 1983.

Douin, Jean-Luc, La Nouvelle Vague 25 ans après , Paris, 1984.

Bordwell, David, Narration in the Fiction Film , London, 1985.

Weis, Elisabeth, and John Belton, Film Sound: Theory and Practice , New York, 1985.

Godard, Jean-Luc, Godard on Godard: Critical Writings , edited by Jean Narboni and Tom Milne, New York, 1986.

Loshitzky, Yosefa, The Radical Faces of Godard & Bertolucci , Detroit, 1995.

Dixon, Wheeler W., The Films of Jean-Luc Godard , Albany, 1997.

Sterritt, David, Jean-Luc Godard; Interviews , Jackson, 1998.

Sterritt, David, The Films of Jean-Luc Godard; Seeing the Invisible , New York, 1999.

Articles:

Truffaut, François, in Radio-Cinéma-Télévision (Paris), 1 October 1959.

Variety (New York), 4 February 1960.

Le Monde (Paris), 18 March 1960.

Sadoul, Georges, in Les Lettres Françaises (Paris), March-April 1960.

Billard, Pierre, and others, "Petit lexique de la nouvelle vague," in Cinéma (Paris), April 1960.

Chevallier, J., in Image et Son (Paris), April 1960.

Mopuller, Luc, "Jean-Luc Godard," in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), April 1960.

Marcorelles, Louis, "Views of the New Wave," in Sight and Sound (London), Spring 1960.

Seguin, Louis, in Positif (Paris), no. 33, 1960.

Crowther, Bosley, in New York Times , 8 February 1961.

Kauffmann, Stanley, "Adventures of an Anti-Hero," in New Republic (New York), 13 February 1961.

Croce, Arlene, in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Spring 1961.

Gow, Gordon, in Films and Filming (London), August 1961.

Steen, T. M. F., "The Sound Track," in Films in Review (New York), August-September 1961.

Pearson, Gabriel, and Eric Rhode, "Cinema of Appearance," in Sight and Sound (London), Autumn 1961.

Collet, Jean, and others, "Entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard," in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), December 1962.

Feinstein, Herbert, "An Interview with Jean-Luc Godard," in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Spring 1964.

Lefèvre, Raymond, and Jean-Paul Warren, in Image et son: Revue du Cinéma (Paris), September-October 1964.

Solokov, Raymond, "The Truth 24 Times a Second," in Newsweek (New York), 12 February 1968.

A bout de souffle

Barr, Charles, " A bout de souffle ," in The Films of Jean-Luc Godard , edited by Ian Cameron, London, 1969.