Movies
Breathless
What Jim McBride has done with the Jean-Luc Godard original, whether by conscious choice or by native temperament, is to translate it back into the film noir idiom from which Godard first snatched it. It is a pretty straight Americanization, in other words, of what was a Frenchification of something American to begin with. In essence, it swaps brains for brawn: bold camera moves, sturdy compositions, strenuous action scenes, including the love stuff. But while it is always watchable, it is never quite justifiable. The thing that marks the Godard film as a poor candidate for a remake is that its toehold in cinema history has nothing to do with reproduceable narrative ingenuities. And there is something rather pathetic about seeing simply a fuller-bodied and smoother-flowing treatment of still so skimpy a story. With Richard Gere and Valerie Kaprisky. 1983.
— Duncan Shepherd
Reader Rating:
- MPAA Rating: R
