Breathless Review by Philip French

Review on Philip French's review of Breathless

Breathless is a 1960 film by one of the most famous and influential French New Wave directors,  Jean-Luc Godard. The review of the film was written by Philip French, a British film critic, who won the “Critic of the year” award in 2009. He had been writing reviews for The Observer before his 2013 retirement and this particular review of Breathless was published in The Observer’s daily “sister” The Guardian in 2006.

The article is written in a formal style, he used appropriate language in it, and he also used special terms in connection with films. In my opinion his analysis is a little bit dry and it only contains a few sentence of personal opinion. The review is clearly organized, it is divided into 5 paragraphs. Firstly, French mentions the background of the film – the French New Wave, its’ directors and technical innovations. Secondly, he briefly summarize the plot of the film before he continues the review with a little criticism and his arguments. In the last paragraph he writes about Godard’s influence on future films and Breathless’ status in film history.

One of French’s main arguments is that the new things which were announced in New Wave films, such as jump cuts, or natural lightning were rapidly assimilated and become a common part of movies. He also mentions that although Breathless is a landmark in the film history, just like Citizen Kane or Intolerance, it is also just a period piece. Then he lists Godard’s later masterpieces and in the last sentence he say that Godard “recreated the grammar of cinema, before becoming the eccentric, egocentric, self-indulgent, obscurantist sideshow that he remains to this day.”

Although French’s review is well developed, in my view most of his arguments are poorly - or even not – supported and his review lacks his personal opinion except of the last sentence. I also missed the critic’s opinion about Semberg and Belmondo’s performance, and an overall impression of the film. I like the plot description part which is written very briefly, but contains every important part of the film, and I also like the part about the importance and influence of the French New Wave.

In my opinion, it is really hard to write a good review of an almost 50 year-old movie but this review by French is not the best exemple of it. It was really hard to decide what was French’s opinion about the film and Godard, as he did not directly wrote down whether he liked it or not and only the last sentece gave some information of his judgement. In my view some criticism of the actors and the film was also missing from French’s review and he should also made more emphasis on the new techniques that Godard used in this film.