À BOUT DE SOUFFLE

english below

Michel Poiccard is een losbandige sociopaat, die een auto steelt en in een opwelling een politieman doodt. Michel slaat op de vlucht naar Parijs en zoekt contact met Patricia, een Amerikaanse studente met wie hij enkele weken eerder een avontuurtje beleefde. Hij vraagt haar mee te vluchten naar Italië. Maar Michel lijkt niet te beseffen dat hij een gezocht man is en blijft roekeloos zijn liefde voor Amerikaanse films en zijn lust voor de Amerikaanse Patricia najagen. Regisseur en Nouvelle Vague adept Jean-Luc Godard maakte met À BOUT DE SOUFFLE een sleutelfilm die de wetten van cinema herschreef.

Bekende filmcriticus Roger Ebert de blikseminslag die À BOUT DE SOUFFLE was in het filmlandschap mooi samen: “Modern movies begin here, with Jean-Luc Godard’s BREATHLESS in 1960. No debut film since CITIZEN KANE in 1942 has been as influential. It is dutifully repeated that Godard’s technique of “jump cuts” is the great breakthrough, but startling as they were, they were actually an afterthought, and what is most revolutionary about the movie is its headlong pacing, its cool detachment, its dismissal of authority, and the way its narcissistic young heroes are obsessed with themselves and oblivious to the larger society. (…) Godard went on to become the most famous innovator of the 1960s. Here in one quick, sure move, knowing somehow just what he wanted and how to obtain it, he achieved a turning point in the cinema (…).”

We vertonen ook Richard Linklaters "making-of" À BOUT DE SOUFFLE, NOUVELLE VAGUE, zijn ode aan de gelijknamige filmbeweging.

ENG
The film is in French with Dutch subtitles

Michel Poiccard is a riotous sociopath who steals a car and kills a police officer on a whim. Michel goes on the run and heads to Paris, where he contacts American student Patricia, with whom he had a short fling a couple of weeks before. He asks her to flee with him to Italy. But Michel doesn’t seem to realise that he is a wanted man and continues to recklessly pursue his love for American cinema and his lust for Patricia. With À BOUT DE SOUFFLE, director and Nouvelle Vague adept Jean-Luc Godard created a key film that rewrote the laws of cinema.

Renowned film critic Roger Ebert beautifully explained the thunderbolt that À BOUT DE SOUFFLE was in the cinematic landscape: “Modern movies begin here, with Jean-Luc Godard’s BREATHLESS in 1960. No debut film since CITIZEN KANE in 1942 has been as influential. It is dutifully repeated that Godard’s technique of “jump cuts” is the great breakthrough, but startling as they were, they were actually an afterthought, and what is most revolutionary about the movie is its headlong pacing, its cool detachment, its dismissal of authority, and the way its narcissistic young heroes are obsessed with themselves and oblivious to the larger society. (…) Godard went on to become the most famous innovator of the 1960s. Here in one quick, sure move, knowing somehow just what he wanted and how to obtain it, he achieved a turning point in the cinema (…).”

We also screen Richard Linklater's "making of" À BOUT DE SOUFFLE, NOUVELLE VAGUE, his ode to the eponymous film wave.