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À bout de souffle (French)
Location
Main screening room
Date
March 24th, 2026
Duration
90 min
Cycle
History of Cinema

This recurring cycle is an opportunity to watch or re-watch classics from cinema history, or films representative of certain national cinematographies, trends or eras, on the big screen.

Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director, 1960 Berlin International Film Festival

Don't miss: Les nouvelles vagues, a conference by Victor Norek (Le CinématoGrapheur)

Breathless
Directed by
Jean-Luc Godard
Language
French
Actors
Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Jean-Pierre Melville
Origins
France
Year
1960
Duration
90 min
Genre
Drama
Format
35 mm
Synopsis

A small-time car thief kills a police biker, then joins an American woman in Paris with whom he claims to be in love.

Breathless
Awards
I wanted to take a conventional story and remake, but differently, everything the cinema had done.
Jean-Luc Godard
1962

Jean-Luc Godard

Born in Paris in 1930, Jean-Luc Godard grew up on the shores of Lake Geneva, initially developing a passion for painting. After the Second World War, which he spent in Switzerland, his family sent him to study in Paris, but Godard mainly attended film clubs and the Cinémathèque française. In the early 1950s, he became involved with the Ciné-club du Quartier Latin where he met Maurice Schérer (soon to be Éric Rohmer), François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette, among others, with whom he took his first steps as a critic and embarked on the adventure of the Cahiers du cinéma. After directing a few short films, he moved on to feature films in the wake of François Truffaut by directing Beathless (À bout de souffle) in 1960, a film that helped launch the French New Wave. He will not stop shooting until the 2010s, creating an exploratory body of work that has always pushed the boundaries of cinema.

Photo: ©Bertrand Carrière | Collections de la Cinémathèque québécoise

Explore

À bout de souffle est un héritier de L'Atalante. Le film de Vigo se termine par Jean Dasté et Dita Parlo qui s'étreignent sur le lit. Certainement, ce soir-là, ils ont fait un enfant : le Belmondo d'À bout de souffle.
François Truffaut (1963)
Cast
About Jean-Luc Godard
Selected filmography
Jean-Luc Godard en 9 minutes - Blow Up - ARTE
Jean-Luc Godard "Le possible n'est pas impossible" chez Thierry Ardisson | INA Arditube
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