Summary
We see Michel reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette. A car horn begins to honk and as a group gets out of a nearby car, Michel steals it with the help of a spotter. The spotter asks to go with him, but he tells her he has to be on his way. As he drives along a tree-lined road in the countryside, he sings and speaks to himself. "The countryside's nice," he says as he turns on the radio, and begins speaking directly to the camera, speaking about what a beautiful country France is. He then sees two young women who are trying to hitchhike on the side of the road. He slows to see if they are good looking, and when they aren’t up to his liking he drives away quickly, saying, "Oh hell, they're dogs."
Michel finds a gun in the glove compartment, and pretends to shoot other cars with it. Suddenly, we see a grove of trees and hear the sound of gunshots, a momentary depiction of Michel's fantasy. Michel continues to state his opinion on various subjects, saying, "Women drivers are cowardice personified!" He quotes the sportcar maker Bugatti, saying, “My cars are made to run, not stop.” We then see policemen on motorcycles following Michel. Michel pulls the car over and goes into the trunk, when a policeman pulls over and tells him to freeze. Hastily, Michel grabs the gun and shoots the policemen, before ditching the car and running through a large field.
There is a short scene in which we see Michel’s point of view as he is coming back into Paris. We see Notre-Dame and other buildings. Michel goes to a payphone and tries to make a call, frustrated when it doesn't work. He then goes to an apartment building and asks after a Mrs. Franchini, but a young man tells Michel she's out. Michel goes into the lobby, steals the woman's key and goes looking for money in her apartment, to no avail.
Michel goes for a coffee and breakfast, but when he doesn’t have enough money to pay for his meal he tells the woman at the counter that he is going to get a paper and will be right back. He doesn’t return, but finds a paper and reads it briefly, then uses it to polish his shoes. Michel goes to visit a woman's apartment and invites himself in. As she looks for something behind her bed and tells him she has to be at the TV station by 9, he goes through her purse and steals money. The woman emerges from the bed with a radio and plays a song, before asking him what he's been up to. He deflects and asks if she's still making films. "No, you have to sleep around," she replies, and she tells him that she works on scripts with a filmmaker. Michel tells her that he worked as an assistant on a film when he was broke. She asks him if he's ever been a gigolo and he looks in two different mirrors at her vanity. "I wouldn't mind," he says, making faces in the mirror.
After she tells him she smokes Luckies, he abruptly asks her if she can loan him 5,000 francs until noon. She tells him she doesn't have that much, offering him 500, but he declines. As she puts on a dress, Michel takes money from her without her noticing. He leaves.
Michel goes to an office building and asks to meet someone named Mr. Tolmachov. A secretary tells him, "He's here, but he's not here." Outside Michel asks a girl selling newspapers where Patricia is, and she points him towards Patricia, who wanders through the street yelling, "New York Herald Tribune!" to sell the paper. Michel comes up behind her and tells her he loves her. She asks him where he's been and he tells her he's been in Marseilles and that he tried calling on Monday. "I was out of town Monday," she tells him. Michel buys a paper and Patricia asks why Michel is in Paris, since she thought he hated it there. He tells her he's in danger and asks her to come to Rome with him.
He cajoles her into walking him to the corner and searches for his horoscope in the newspaper, but doesn't find one. "I wanna know the future. Don't you?" he says, and Patricia guesses that he's mad at her for leaving a tryst without saying goodbye. He tells her, "I was furious because I was sad." He tells her he's in town to see a man who owes him money, and that he has to see her after. He tells her that he's slept with two girls since her, but he didn't enjoy it, because he is so attached to her. Patricia tells him that her parents have threatened to stop sending her money unless she enrolls at the Sorbonne. He leaves after making a plan with her for that night.
Michel walks past a poster that says, "Live dangerously until the end!" and runs into an activist, a young girl who asks him if he cares about the youth. "I prefer old people," he says, blowing her off. Suddenly, Michel sees a man has been hit by a car, and as he walks away and reads the paper he sees that the authorities have identified the cop killer. He then casually collects money from a man, Mr. Tolmachov, at a travel agency, before calling someone to clear up an issue with the money he's received. As Michel leaves, two inspectors come in looking for Michel. They go and talk to Tolmachov about Michel, identifying him as a former Air France steward on the run who now has his mail sent to the travel agency. When Tolmachov lies and says he hasn't seen Michel, the inspectors ask his secretary if anyone has visited the office recently, and she tells them that someone was there five minutes earlier. The inspectors run out of the office to find Michel.
Analysis
Breathless epitomizes many elements of the French New Wave, a film movement that utilized many experimental and playful elements to heighten and elevate traditional film narratives. The more whimsical and loose elements of the New Wave are on display in the film from the start. The camera changes perspective in many unexpected ways. One moment we are looking at Michel as if from an omniscient point of view; in the next moment the camera is looking at him from the back seat of his car; then it takes his perspective as he weaves the car down the tree-lined road.
Additionally, the wall between audience and character is broken when Michel addresses the camera directly. He turns to his right and speaks to the camera, extolling the wonders of France and saying that if anyone doesn't like the attributes of France, they can "get stuffed." The viewer gets a privileged perspective on this crass and irreverent character. We sit in the front seat and listen to him spout his beliefs. Michel's monologue is interpolated with fragments of his fantasies, such as when he pretends to shoot the gun, and the camera shows a sunny grove of trees for a second, as the sound of gunshots rings out.
Michel is a complex protagonist, at once aggressive and criminal, but boyish and innocent as well. He steals a car, shoots a policeman, and recklessly steals from acquaintances, all indicators of a certain level of desperation, if not sociopathy. His criminality, however, seems less menacing than it is juvenile, almost as if he is a young boy acting out the part of "gangster" to such an extent that he becomes one. Part of this has to do with the actor playing him, Jean-Paul Belmondo: a man with large features, an expressive face, and a thin frame. His body and face betray a certain kind of immaturity, as if his clothes are oversized, matching his oversized ego, which seems to be constantly getting him into trouble. While Michel's actions might ordinarily alienate or frighten the viewer, his countenance and impishness make Michel's crimes seem like schoolboy fantasies rather than major offenses.
Michel's temperament is all the more complicated because he is in such a state of desperation, yet is unable to ask for help in the ways he needs. We see this on display when he goes to visit the woman's apartment and asks her for 5000 francs. She tells him she doesn't have that much, but offers him 500. After he declines, he rifles through her things and takes her money. Michel is unable to accept what is offered to him, but he has no qualms with taking it without permission. This particularly indirect and twisted moral logic is what makes Michel a criminal, as well as revealing the ways that he is emotionally stunted. He finds it difficult to experience straightforward human connection and help.
The film blends genres recklessly in a way that orients it firmly in the New Wave movement. One moment it is a romance, lilting strings accompanying a confession of love between Michel and Patricia, the next the music turns suspenseful and we see a man who has been struck by a car. Philosophical questions about how to spend one's life are positioned next to comedic dynamics. Crime, sex, love, and existentialism are blended together into one composite genre that keeps the momentum of the film moving forward. The viewer is left to puzzle together the seemingly disparate tones in ways that mirror the varied tonalities of life itself.
