(Breathless | Ausser Atem)
by Jean-Luc Godard
France 1960
(click to enlarge)
Director:
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Jean-Luc Godard | |
Producer:
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Georges de Beauregard | |
Production Companies:
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Les Films Georges de Beauregard / Imperia / Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) | |
Screenplay:
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Jean-Luc Godard, from an idea by François Truffaut | |
Cinematographer:
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Raoul Coutard (b/w, 1.37:1) | |
Editor:
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Cécile Decugis, Lila Herman | |
Music Score:
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Martial Solal | |
Technical Advisor:
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Claude Chabrol | |
Sound:
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Claude Beausoleil, Jacques Maumont | |
Cast:
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Jean-Paul Belmondo (Michel Poiccard), Jean Seberg (Patricia Franchini), Van Doude (Journalist), Liliane David (Liliane), Claude Mansart (Used-Car Dealer), Henri-Jacques Huet (Antonio Berrutti), Roger Hanin (Carl Zombach), Daniel Boulanger (Police Inspector), Jean-Pierre Melville (Parvulesco), Michel Fabre (Plainclothesman), Jean-Luc Godard (Informer), Philippe de Broca | |
Runtime:
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89 min | |
Premiere:
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16 March 1960 (France) | |
Awards:
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Berlin International Film Festival 1960 Silver Berlin Bear Best Director: Jean-Luc Godard French Syndicate of Cinema Critics 1961 Critics Award Best Film, tied with Le Trou Prix Jean Vigo 1960 Prix Jean Vigo Feature Film |
"Breathless belongs with those films which have changed the course of the cinema. The innovations that so shocked viewers in 1959 hand-held shooting, improvised acting, jagged, "jump"-cutting have become so incorporated into the basic grammar of contemporary filmmaking that, seeing Breathless today, one hardly notices them. "
Pacific Film Archive "Breathless wasnt the first film of the nouvelle vague, but it did crystallise and liberate the energies of the time: rampant cinephilia ..., and the fascination with all things American ... What Godard brings to it is a youthful insolence, an arrogance which commandeers the form and shakes it up (literally: taking cameras on the streets in wheelchairs and baby carriages) and cuts it up (literally: chopping up shots to invent the jump cut)." "All the rules of conventional film making are scorned: Raoul Coutard's camerawork is rough and unrefined and the script and editing are jumbled, rambling, repetitive and inconclusive, full of irrelevances and abruptly changing moods." |
FoxLorber NTSC Region 1 vs. Gaumont-Columbia Tristar Home Vidéo PAL Region 2
R1 screenshots courtesy by Gary Tooze / dvdbeaver.com
Frame 1: Menu
(FoxLorber R0 left, Gaumont R2 right)
Frame 2
(FoxLorber R0 left, Gaumont R2 right)
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Frame 3
(FoxLorber R0 left, Gaumont R2 right)
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Original NTSC 720x480 vs. PAL 720x576 frame size (detail)
Frame 4
(FoxLorber R0 left, Gaumont R2 right)
Frame 5
(FoxLorber R0 left, Gaumont R2 right)
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Original NTSC 720x480 vs. PAL 720x576 frame size (detail)
Frame 6
(FoxLorber R0 left, Gaumont R2 right)
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Average Bitrate FoxLorber R0:
6.58 mb/s
Average Bitrate Gaumont R2:
5.92 mb/s
This is a strictly non-professional and non-commercial DVD review. Don't expect industry reference work! All ChiaroScuro captures are taken under MacOS X.2 using VideoLAN and Snapz ProX. For further methodological remarks see DVDBeaver (click on "Methodology"): "We are not a lab and are doing a good a job as our time and energy permits. Thank you for understanding." |