(Breathless | Ausser Atem)
by Jean-Luc Godard
France 1960
(click to enlarge)
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Director:
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Jean-Luc Godard | |
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Producer:
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Georges de Beauregard | |
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Production Companies:
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Les Films Georges de Beauregard / Imperia / Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) | |
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Screenplay:
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Jean-Luc Godard, from an idea by François Truffaut | |
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Cinematographer:
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Raoul Coutard (b/w, 1.37:1) | |
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Editor:
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Cécile Decugis, Lila Herman | |
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Music Score:
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Martial Solal | |
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Technical Advisor:
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Claude Chabrol | |
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Sound:
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Claude Beausoleil, Jacques Maumont | |
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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 | |
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Runtime:
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89 min | |
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Premiere:
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16 March 1960 (France) | |
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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 |
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"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 wasn’t 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
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Distribution:
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FoxLorber / Winstar Home Video Region 0 (North America) |
Gaumont-Columbia Tristar Home Vidéo / Opening / Les Films de ma Vie Region 2 (France) |
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Runtime:
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86:24 min Possibly a PAL-to-NTSC transfer! |
86:24 min (+ 4% PAL Speedup = 90 min) | |
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Video:
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1.31:1/4:3 FullScreen Average Bitrate: 6.58 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s FoxLorber presents a fuzzy, greenish image transfer with little detail and poor definition |
1.29:1/4:3 FullScreen Average Bitrate: 5.92 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s R2 has a much better greyscale, higher resolution, but film stock is grainy and there are many artifacts |
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Audio:
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Français Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono | Français MPEG2 2.0 Mono | |
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Subtitles:
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English (removable) | None | |
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Features:
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• Audio Commentary by film critic David Sterritt • Cast and Crew Filmographies for Godard, Belmondo and Seberg • Weblinks |
• Documentary about the producer Georges de Beauregard (06:57 min) • A propos du film • Filmographie JL Godard • Revue de presse • Theatrical Trailer (01:55 min) |
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| DVD Release Date: 20 November 2001 Keep Case Chapters: 16 DVD Encoding: NTSC Region 1 SS-DL/DVD-9 |
DVD Release Date: 20 April 1999 Keep Case Chapters: 22 DVD Encoding: PAL Region 2 SS-SL/DVD-5 |
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Also available from Optimum/StudioCanal in the UK and from Kinowelt/Arthaus/StudioCanal in Germany:
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Frame 1: Menu
(FoxLorber R0 left, Gaumont R2 right)
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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)
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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
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Disclaimer by 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." |
Last update: 30 Sep 2002