The Cineverse Podcasts: Breathless

For just over a month now, I had the pleasure of taking part in the weekly podcasts of the CineVerse film discussion group, run by Erik J. Martin who produces the superb Cineversary podcasts commemorating the anniversaries of major films that have had an impact on American and world cinema. I had been a guest on Erik's Cineversary podcasts before for the 50th anniversaries of "Easy Rider" and "The Last Picture Show." So I was definitely excited to join this group of film devotes to discuss an eclectic collection of films, both major blockbusters and small independent films, American films as well as films from around the world. I will be putting up a series of links to the various films we had analyzed recently.

In a bit of a backward order as I'm catching up on blogging, this is the link to our recent discussion of French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's seminal 1960 film "Breathless," starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. The film is recognized as one of the major works giving rise to the French New Wave movement.

Check out the discussion and by all means watch "Breathless." The film is definitely a unique experience, and one I recommend to people and film students to see how they react. Truth be told, it's not a film I greatly enjoy viewing, yet one that needs to be understood and appreciated as an interesting artifact of a certain time and culture. Volumes had been written about "Breathless" and Godard, so suffice it to say here that the film is an odd, intellectual experience. It's very raison d'être is to break cinematic rules, to defy conventions. To that end, the film is full of jarring editing techniques, dialogue, and plot twists and turns that are designed to confuse and confound its viewers. There are moments where the story rushes along at a hyper-paced clip, using a series of off-putting jump cuts, and then there is a very, very long and slow, plodding scene of the two main characters are stuck in an apartment, reciting dialogue that is often confusing and meandering. Overall, the film is forcing its audience to engage with it, to think about what it wants to say about cinematic conventions, and how so many of the conventions we take for granted in films, especially Hollywood films, are artificial constructs.

Again, it's an odd and confounding film, but perhaps one that we can appreciate in an age when Hollywood cranks out little more than mindless superhero epics or preachy virtue-signaling award-bait films that leave little to the imagination and personal interpretation. 

So listen to the podcast and give "Breathless" a try.