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It’s not surprising that Breathless remains fresh more than 60 years after its Paris premiere in March 1960—if by “fresh” we mean somehow still in sync with contemporary cultural trends and mores. With its too-cool-for-school bevy of film and literary references, Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece both foresaw and helped to launch the now-dominant notion of pop-culture obsession as badge of honor.

We may smile at Michel Poiccard’s (Jean-Paul Belmondo) rapt idolization of Humphrey Bogart, for instance, but it’s more knowing grin than disconnected smirk. Then there’s the ooh-la-la chic of Raoul Cotard’s black-and-white cinematography; the simmering yet self-aware dance of seduction enacted with such arch grace by Michel and Jean Seberg’s Patricia Franchini; the casual fatalism that never seems to go out of style, especially when spoken in French and accompanied by swirls of cigarette smoke. As a source of modish pleasure, Breathless retains its appeal to a remarkable degree.

2020 marks the 60th anniversary of the original release of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (À Bout De Souffle), the epitome of cinematic cool which inspired a generation of moviemakers, featuring iconic performances from Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg as the central, most delightful and insolent couple in cinema history – young, effortlessly stylish, and in love in Paris.

To celebrate the anniversary and the release of the 4K restoration of this timeless classic we are giving away the 4K Uhd Limited Collector’s Edition courtesy of Studiocanal’s Vintage World Cinema collection.

Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only

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This Collector’s Edition plus standard Blu-ray, DVD, Digital will be released on 9th November 2020 and is available to order Here

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Open to UK residents only The competition will close 19th November 2020 at 23.59 GMT The winner will be picked at random from entries received...

Leading producer-distributor Studiocanal, which boasts one of the biggest film libraries in the world with more than 5,500 movies, is gearing up for a slew of major theatrical and DVD releases sure to titillate fans of classic cinema, among them Jean-Luc Godard’s beloved 1960 film “Breathless.”

The company has enjoyed recent successes with re-releases of such classics as David Lynch’s 1980 Victorian drama “The Elephant Man,” Volker Schlöndorff’s 1979 Oscar-winning “The Tin Drum” and Mike Hodges’ 1980 sci-fi extravaganza “Flash Gordon.”

Studiocanal is expecting similar success with its newly restored reissues.

“Breathless” is “one of our biggest upcoming catalog releases,” said Juliette Hochart, Studiocanal’s executive VP of library.

The film will be released in theaters in France on Oct. 28, in Germany the following day and in the U.K. on Nov. 13. It will also be reissued in other territories, such as Italy and Japan, in 2021.

A new Uhd collector’s edition...

Today being international jazz day, there will be much celebrating of the greatness of its history. I’ve done that in the past; it is a great history. But it is not all back in historical times; jazz lives, and evolves, and continues to be great. Yet how many lists of the greatest jazz albums include anything from the current century?

That they do not is no indictment of them; only sixteen percent of the years when recorded jazz has existed (not counting the present year yet) are in the twenty-first century, after all, and some prefer to bestow the label of greatness after more perspective has been achieved than sixteen (or fewer, for newer releases) years.

Nonetheless, if people are to respect jazz as a living art form, a look back at the best of its more recent releases seems worthwhile. Here’s one man’s “baker’s dozen...

This concludes my look back at 2015 with the newer new albums -- the ones with new, or at least contemporary, compositions, most by living composers.

1. Soloists/Warsaw Boys' Choir/Warsaw Philharmonic Male Choir/Warsaw Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra/Antoni Wit Penderecki: Magnificat; Kadisz (Naxos) Naxos' invaluable Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933) project continues to bring us conductor Antoni Wit's impeccable renderings of the Polish composer's complex and challenging music, especially excelling in the choral works, as here. One of the longer settings of this text (here nearly 45 minutes), Penderecki's Magnificat (1973-74) is also epic in sound, written in a high-avant style similar to his iconic St. Luke Passion, with extended singing effects (especially long glissandi, but also speaking and whispering), highly disjunctive melodies, extremely dense dissonance, and colorful cluster interjections by the orchestra, especially the winds.

It has a prominent if intermittent role for solo bassist (here Wojtek Gerlach), surprising...

Breathless is not playing at this year’s Classic French Film Festival, but St. Louis classic French film fans get to see it on the big screen anyway! It’s part of the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum’s series A Critical Eye: Avant-Garde Cinema of the 1960s and is screening this Tuesday night (March 24th) at the Tivoli (6350 Delmar Blvd. University City, Mo). The show starts at 7pm. Admission is Free!

Breathless was remade in 1983 with Richard Gere and Valerie Kaprisky (remember her? Me neither). The remake, directed by Jim McBride, is excellent but has been hard to see in recent years. It will be available on Blu-ray on April 7th, which means this is a perfect time to take in the original to compare and contrast.

The part that Jean Luc-Godard played in The French New Wave was tremendous. Breathless (1960), with its innovative jump-cuts, catapulted Godard into international fame.

Paul Motian passed away at age 80 yesterday after complications from the bone-marrow disorder myelodisplastic syndrome. In a career that exceeded five decades, Motian was one of the most respected drummers in jazz history as well as a superb composer and adept bandleader. Critic Art Lange called him "that rare commodity, an intimate drummer." And here's a bit of trivia: Motian played at Woodstock, in Arlo Guthrie's band.

Even music lovers largely unfamiliar with jazz have heard his work with pianist Bill Evans, whose trio Motian played in from 1959 to 1964. Other piano greats who availed themselves of Motian's subtly swinging sense of rhythm included Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, Carla Bley, Lennie Tristano, Mose Allison, Martial Solal, Enrico Pieranunzi, and Marilyn Crispell.

On his own records (perhaps to avoid comparisons?) he favored guitarists instead, most notably Bill Frisell. After graduating from their '80s apprenticeships in Motian's trio and quintet,...

There are some moments in a person’s life that forever change the said person’s life.

The first time you hear The Beatles.

A first kiss.

For me, it came one faithful night in the North B living center on the campus of Grand Valley State University, and involved me, my DVD player, and a copy of the film that would, just 90 minutes later, become the film I deem the greatest of all time, Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless.

Now, my love for the film has been rather vocal and even on the record (and this is far from a review, as you’ll see it’s a bit more of an ode to a classic), but one thing has always seemed to elude me: seeing this absolute masterpiece on the big screen, the way the film was meant to be seen.

However, thanks to the wonderful people at Janus Films,...

I hate the idea of saying "My favorite film is..." but if I was to ever attempt to compile a list of a my favorite films Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless would undoubtedly be on it. I knew it just as soon as I watched it for the first time on April 11, 2009. Yes, I remember the day. The story and performances are one thing, but this is a film of mood, atmosphere, ego and music. It's more of a feeling than anything else and I feel absolute enjoyment just in hearing Martial Solal's score, coupled with Raoul Coutard's cinematography and the face of Jean Seberg.

Since my first viewing almost a year-and-a-half ago I've now seen eight of Godard's films and while the likes of Vivre sa vie, Band of Outsiders and Contempt are also films of his I enjoy, Breathless is so far above and beyond there's hardly room to compare.

The Palais des Festivals, which is where I watched all of the press screenings

Photo: Brad Brevet I will be posting a complete wrap-up of my time at the Cannes Film Festival in the next day or so as I am right now sitting in the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on a 10 hour layover. To top it off, once I land in Seattle I have four hours to get to a screening of Cyrus followed by a screening of Sex and the City 2 one hour later. In fact, I will be operating on 14 straight days of movie screenings, which will end on Tuesday with a screening of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Including the festival it will make for 26 movies in 14 days... not too shabby eh?

As for the video promised in the headline, below is an eight minute look at my time in Cannes beginning with my departure from Seattle's Sea-Tac airport,...