Why is it that watching Jean Seberg meander along the Champs d’Elysees crying “New York Herald Tribune!” is so damn hypnotic? Perhaps our eyes are busy feasting upon Godard’s glorified Parisian streets. Maybe it is her iconic New York Herald Tribune sweater that made style news around the globe that captures our attention. It is possible that we are taken with the restless velocity of Godard’s directorial style that sparked a cinematic revolution and marked the birth of the French Nouvelle Vague?
Somehow, all those elements miss the mark. We are mesmerized because this woman, this American—an interloper in the rues of Paris—carries herself in a way that demands nothing less than absolute devotion. She consumes our hero, John-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard. A small-time crook already enamored with Humphrey Bogart, our petty criminal sets his sights of Patricia Franchini (Seberg) and pursues her relentlessly until his dying breath.
The original French gamine—this Iowa-native’s beauty has no problem translating. The actress who inspired a million pixie cuts possesses a devil-may-care attitude that the Parisians warmly embrace. Miss Seberg spends the entire film vacillating between looking charmingly innocent and deviously erotic. Our young heroine is a mastermind of “the chase,” giving Belmondo the run-around with a precision and grace that ultimately leads to his demise.
The power of Breathless remains undiminished. After 50 years, the film still has the power to shock—from the anything-goes crime narrative to the movie’s grittiness to the careless sexiness of Godard’s young stars. While the story is far from extraordinary, the “two lovers on the run” narrative is sprinkled with references to old movies, quotations from Faulkner to Melville, and a kinky self-awareness that renders the simple affair between Belmondo and Seberg heartbreakingly beautiful. The film plays on the love-hate relationship (like all good histoires d’amour) between France and America in a way that our She is French followers will undoubtedly appreciate.
Mes amis, Godard’s Breathless can still hold its own, even in today’s landscape of big blockbusters and mega-stars. At one point Belmondo asks our brave heroine her age, to which she replies coyly, “A hundred.” Without missing a beat, our bad-boy retorts to his belle: “You don’t look it.” We could say the same of you, Breathless! The film possesses an animating spirit that can only be characterized as resolutely timeless.
–Lily la Tigresse
