There was before BREATHLESS, and there was after BREATHLESS. With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, crackling personalities of rising stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and anything-goes crime narrative, Jean-Luc Godard's debut fashioned a simultaneous homage to and critique of the American film genres that influenced and rocked him as a film writer for Cahiers du Cinema. Jazzy, free-form, and sexy, BREATHLESS ( A bout de souffle) helped launch the French new wave and ensured cinema would never be the same.
