no trivia

I really like it because it’s just so weird and fun. Like, it’s very possible it all happened just because Jerry Lee Lewis happened to have a song called “Breathless,” you know? In a way, it’s a very bad idea that they all had the balls to go through with and take really seriously. That rules! Intellectually, there’s just a ton going on in it too. It’s a response to the long tradition of Europeans remaking or retrofitting American “B-movies.” Here, McBride and company remake the height of European art cinema using the tools of a B-movie, which was supposedly what Godard was using in the first place. The circle is complete. In another way, it’s like aggressively American. Like, genuinely anti-intellectual and passionate and in love with neon lights and comic books (Silver Surfer is way more regressive than Bogart) and visceral 50s, pre-Beatles rock. It’s also so much less sexist and nationalistic than Godard’s original. Like you don’t leaving it thinking, “that dumb American bitch” or whatever.

And it’s just really touching and romantic. The scene where he goes into the classroom and throws the table around and freaks out the professors is really good. Also, the tension she feels between really liking him and thinking he’s a goof is so well-done. It’s very passionate. Not cool and detached like Godard’s original. There’s something about the sex scenes too that really work. They have a gritty, realistic feel to them. Look at it this way: No way Jean Paul Belmondo would show is schlong in a movie. Richard Gere though. Also: That one scene where they kiss in the pool and it’s this gorgeous overhead shot with the water and then the camera cuts in for these sloppy, realistic make-out close-ups is kinda the movie’s brilliance in a nutshell. It’s giving you the ideal and the realistic at the same time. The whole movie just fucking goes for it, man.

Let’s also acknowledge that Godard’s Breathless is a very important movie. When I first saw it, I was in like 10th grade, and it totally tripped me out. The jump-cuts, the weird down-time, and just the amateur-in-a-good-way feeling to it was pretty mind-blowing. That said, I think the American version is much more useful and actually has a lot more to say. And if I’m understanding Godard’s typically opaque comment to Carson, he gets that the movie isn’t really a remake. Or rather, it’s more than a remake.