À bout de souffle

by

Daniel Biltereyst

• LAST MODIFIED: 20 August 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0380

Introduction

Few films have garnered as much scholarly and critical acclaim as Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle (Breathless, 1959). Revered as one of the most influential works in postwar European modernist cinema, Godard’s debut feature stands alongside cinematic landmarks such as Roberto Rossellini’s Roma città aperta (Rome Open City, 1949), Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita (1960) and Otto e mezzo (1963), and Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966). Alongside François Truffaut’s Les 400 coups (The 400 Blows, 1959) and Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Godard’s groundbreaking film played a pivotal role in heralding the arrival of the French Nouvelle Vague, or New Wave. This cinematic movement sparked a revolution among filmmakers, both within France and beyond its borders, challenging traditional narrative conventions and elevating the filmmaker to the status of an auteur. As one of the most iconic films of the New Wave and European auteur cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, À bout de souffle left an indelible mark on subsequent generations of filmmakers. Its innovative techniques, unconventional narrative style, and exploration of rebellious youth culture, cinephilia, American culture, and modernity continue to inspire directors across different decades through homage, direct references, and indirect influences. The film’s legacy is evident in numerous articles, monographs, volumes, documentaries, and film essays, with Mark Cousins’s monograph The Story of Film (2004) and his monumental documentary series, The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011), serving as notable examples, highlighting its impact on filmmakers worldwide, including John Cassavetes, Arthur Penn, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and others in the United States, as well as in India, Italy, Japan, Poland, and Senegal. The breadth of literature dedicated to this film is expansive and varied, ranging from passing mentions in volumes celebrating cinematic classics to comprehensive, book-length analyses devoted solely to unraveling its complexities and significance. This body of work encompasses a diverse array of formats, including essays, scholarly articles, interviews, monographs, multiauthored collections, online blogs, and commentaries on both the script and the film itself, alongside exhibition catalogues. As a seminal work in the history of world cinema, À bout de souffle has firmly entrenched itself in critical and scholarly discourse for more than six decades, transcending the confines of Godard studies. It continues to offer fresh perspectives on its position within Jean-Luc Godard’s oeuvre, its place within modern cinema, and its enduring influence on global cinema, as well as its nuanced exploration of, and commentary on, themes ranging from modernity to Western society and colonialism.

General Overviews

The works in this section serve as key texts for a comprehensive study of Godard’s À bout de souffle. They include primary sources such as the treatment and the script of the film; interviews with, and biographies of, Godard, François Truffaut (who wrote the first treatment), and other collaborators like cinematographer Raoul Coutard; and book-length analyses exclusively dedicated to the movie. One of the earliest printed versions of the script was featured in the French journal L’Avant-Scène Cinéma in 1968. Vaugeois 1974 also includes stills and set photos from the film, an interview with Godard from 1962, and reviews from French newspapers and magazines. French film scholar Michel Marie is a prominent scholar on Godard and his debut feature, with several books dedicated to À bout de souffle. Marie 1999 (updated in Marie 2006) delves into the film’s production and reception history, also providing a detailed analysis of its narrative structure. Another significant reference is Andrew 1987, which contains a complete English-language continuity script of the film and François Truffaut’s original treatment. Additionally, Fotiade 2013 offers an in-depth examination of the production context surrounding À bout de souffle.

• Andrew, Dudley, ed. Breathless: Jean-Luc Godard, Director. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987.

  Contains the complete continuity script of À bout de souffle, together with François Truffaut’s original treatment, as well as a biographical sketch, translated interviews with Godard, and a fine selection of reviews and criticism from the French, British, and American press. In his strong introduction, Dudley Andrew goes into the film’s intertextual references, calling Breathless “a quintessential New Wave film” characterized by the “energy with which it speaks.”

• Bergala, Alain. Jean-Luc Godard au travail: Les années 60. Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, 2006.

  Book on Godard’s 1960s films, with one chapter devoted to À bout de souffle. Includes stills from the movie and pictures from the set, as well as posters and letters. Sort of a glossy, but well-documented and interesting, book for a wider audience.

• Fotiade, Ramona. À bout de souffle. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013.

  DOI: 10.5040/9780755694372

  Besides going into the movie’s production and reception contexts, this monograph offers an in-depth analysis of À bout de souffle’s aesthetics, underlining how Godard’s debut feature deliberately challenged the tradition of both the French film industry and classical Hollywood.

• Marie, Michel. À bout de souffle. Paris: Nathan, 1999.

  After giving a long biographical note on Godard, this monograph goes into the production and reception history of À bout de souffle and contains a detailed analysis of the film’s narrative structure. Marie highlights its formal innovations and narrative strategies, and he gives a detailed analysis of several key sequences, such the National 7 sequence in the beginning of the film and the controversial hotel room sequence.

• Marie, Michel. Comprendre Godard: Travelling avant sur À bout de souffle et Le Mépris. Paris: Colin, 2006.

  An updated version of Marie’s (out-of-print) 1999 monograph on À bout de souffle, as well as an analysis of Godard’s Le mépris (1963), calling the first a “manifesto film” capable of “capturing the present.”

• Special Issue: À bout de souffle. L’Avant-Scène Cinéma 79 (March 1968).

  Issue of the French journal L’Avant-Scène Cinéma devoted to À bout de souffle. The issue contains the full script, set and other photos, and other documents on the film.

• Vaugeois, Gérard, ed. À bout de souffle. Paris: Balland, Bibliothèque des classiques du cinema, 1974.

  Volume comprising stills and set pictures from the film, as well as an interview with Godard from 1962, reviews from French newspapers and magazines like Arts, Cahiers du cinéma, Le Monde, La Croix, and L’Humanité. It also presents a biographical notes on several of À bout de souffle’s collaborators, including François Truffaut, cinematographer Raoul Coutard, and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.