breathless movie review richard gere

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Breathless (1983)

On the way from Vegas to L.A. he won’t stop for a cop, runs himself off a road and somehow the cop gets shot. (I’m not clear how – Jesse left his gun in the car, and seems surprised that it happens.) Oh well. He still goes to track down Monica (Valerie Kaprisky), the gorgeous French architecture student he had a fling with in Vegas. She has a thing with her teacher now and at least acts like she doesn’t want Jesse around, but he keeps following her and picking her locks, and she doesn’t tell anybody.

Who does this guy think he is showing up out of the blue, showering affections on this girl, then when she gives in and is gonna fuck him he gets jealous that she gets a phone message from another dude he already knew about? A few minutes later he has a sudden change of heart thanks to the King. He interrupts her shower to serenade her with “Suspicious Minds,” and is nicer to her from that point on.

Another thing that’s odd about this guy, he’s really into the Silver Surfer (the comic book, not the movie). He shows it to Monica and tries to explain how romantic it is. He also argues with some kid at a newsstand who tells him Silver Surfer sucks. It’s a pretty big issue for him. The kid doesn’t understand why the Silver Surfer wouldn’t use his cosmic surfing powers to leave Earth when the going gets tough, but Jesse insists that it’s because he loves a girl so fuck you you little weiner you don’t know what you’re talking about. This romantic notion parallels his life and encourages him to wait around for Monica instead of running the hell to Mexico before he gets caught. (The opening credits are done in a comics font, calling attention to the significance of the comic book.)

Jesse brings his hot cars to this sleazy guy named Birnbaum. In one scene they meet in a junkyard and Birnbaum is wearing short shorts and a hat with a pinwheel on it and won’t stop sucking on a popsicle. Suddenly I realized that this disgusting sight was Art Metrano, a.k.a. Mauser from POLICE ACADEMY 2-3 . Man, the boys at the Academy would love to get him to the Blue Oyster in this getup.

Jesse is way more of an interesting character than a likable one. But I like poor Monica, with her thick accent, her sudden bursts of intense sexuality and her unfortunate attraction to dirtbags. I know movies love spontaneity and romance and all that shit, but you gotta figure she would’ve been better off following her first boring instinct and just trying to do well in college rather than going on the lam with a lying, mood-swinging criminal because he sang Elvis to her and fucked her in the shower.

But something about their reckless, stupid love is convincing on film. It fuels it as it winds down from a loose, meandering story to an inevitable showdown. I like this movie.

The movie was widely panned at the time though and of course when you say “remake of BREATHLESS with Richard Gere” now it doesn’t sound very respectable. As far as I can tell it doesn’t have much of a reputation, but a buddy of mine tipped me off to it as a major inspiration for Tarantino that hasn’t been talked about as much as some of the other ones.

And man is that correct. So much of what we associate with Tarantino is in this 1983 movie. I believe that Tarantino liked it so much he kinda idolized Jesse, bit his style in his personal life, and then that became Clarence in TRUE ROMANCE . They dress like each other, they talk about the same shit, they try to make it cool to show a girl the romantic part of an old Marvel comic book. Near the beginning of this movie you got a process shot of Jesse driving in an old Porsche, listening to Jerry Lee Lewis, and he puts a gun on top of a copy of Silver Surfer. That’s Tarantino right there!

Even Tarantino’s music seems influenced by BREATHLESS. There’s a prominent use of “Jack the Ripper” by Link Wray and the Wraymen during a chase scene, in much the way Tarantino uses other Link Wray songs in PULP FICTION (and Tarantino’s pal Robert Rodriguez used the same song in DESPERADO ).

I’m not bringing this up in that moronic “this proves that Tarantino is a fraud!” way that has been popular for decades on the internet. I think it’s cool that he was obviously influenced by this mostly forgotten and disrespected movie. I can understand why people don’t want to give it a chance, but it’s a pretty good one.

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32 Responses to “Breathless (1983)”

August 21st, 2012 at 1:59 am

BREATHLESS was very popular here in Scandinavia in the early 80’s, and I remember that it was a lot of talk about the fact that American movies had finally gotten around to having male nudity in them.

August 21st, 2012 at 2:14 am

Is there a review of the original on the cards?

August 21st, 2012 at 4:39 am

wow, the original gets a fucking CRITERION blu ray whereas the remakes get an old MGM dvd, if that doesn’t point out the difference in respect for those movies nothing will

I wonder, does everyone have an obscure, disrespected or unloved movie that they nevertheless love? (and not in a guilty pleasure kind of way)

I have two, Miracle Mile (which Vern has reviewed) and Toys

Miracle Mile is such a great damn little movie, it’s weird just how obscure it is given how awesome it is, it’s a movie that begs to be rediscovered in a big way

and Toys usually gets bad reviews from critics even though it’s a brilliant (and eerily prophetic) satire with eye popping visuals, sure it requires a tolerance of Robin Williams, but I happen to like Robin Williams and I think he’s great in it, he’s silly and funny without going TOO over the top and becoming annoying as he does in many movies

it was one of my favorite movies as a kid and I think was actually hugely influential on both my personality and political beliefs (how many family films do you know have very biting anti-war satire? you’re not gonna see that today)

August 21st, 2012 at 4:44 am

I rewatched the original Breathless a year or so back when the rereleased it into the theaters. Shortly afterwards I came across the fact that there was a remake with Richard Gere, and, as you would expect, my reaction was not positive. However, this review makes it sound kind of interesting. The male characters in both the original and the remake don’t seem all that different. Of course, in this one you can’t chalk up his odd behavior to his Gallic heritage.

August 21st, 2012 at 6:19 am

Yeah, this movie is pretty awesome. I bought it blindly on VHS around the time Pulp Fiction came out when I saw QT on TV saying it was a masterpiece. I was not disappointed. Also, I always wanted to see it just because there was a local theater that closed in ’83 and the poster for Breathless remained out front aging and fading in the sun for years after.

August 21st, 2012 at 6:54 am

I don’t know about being a “masterpiece,” but I guess this version of BREATHLESS is more entertaining that the remake of another French classic from ten years later, Clouzot’s DIABOLIQUE. Gere’s BREATHLESS feels like a riff on the Godard classic and captures something of the spirit of the original; Sharon Stone’s DIABOLIQUE feels like a desecration, especially the decision to change the original’s brilliant ending for something really, really boneheaded.

August 21st, 2012 at 10:22 am

I really like this remake. I think it does something all its own, while harkening back to the spirit of the original. McBride also made a couple of really fun follow-up films with Dennis Quaid – the neo-noir “The Big Easy” and the Jerry Lee Lewis bio-pic “Great Balls of Fire”. After that he kinda dropped off the map. Before that, back in 1967, McBride was partof the early generation of kids like DePalma to make an influential riff on the French New Wave when he directed “David Holzman’s Diary”. Like a lot of artifacts from the early indie and arthouse scenes it doesn’t hold up all that well (hello “I Am Curious”) but it’s still an interesting piece of cinema history.

August 21st, 2012 at 10:35 am

for the record, I’ve never actually seen a Jean-Luc Godard movie and I can’t say I have a strong desire to

my tolerance for “arthouse” movies is a little random, I like David Lynch, but I like strange, surreal stuff in general

however someone like Godard seems too high-falutin even for me, my golden rule is that a movie should always be entertaining in some way, that doesn’t mean there have to be gunfights and explosions in every movie, but it does mean that there has to be SOMETHING about the movie that makes you want to watch it, I don’t like movies that feel like a big “fuck you” to the audience for even watching it (like the movies of Harmony Korine or Gaspar Noe) or films that scream” look how artistic I am!” (like I suspect the films of Godard must be)

I can guarantee you Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark are better than any of Jean-Luc Godard’s films anyway

August 21st, 2012 at 11:10 am

Griff: If only there was some way you could find out for sure if you liked them. But I’m not sure if the technology will be available in our lifetimes.

August 21st, 2012 at 11:20 am

Vern – haha, what I’m saying is I don’t have the interest to watch them in the first place, there’s thousands of other movies on my “to watch” list

August 21st, 2012 at 11:49 am

Sad thing isa, you’re basing your dislike on a bunch of old and lazy clichés, Griff.

August 21st, 2012 at 12:45 pm

@Griff: Godard is the most innovative and brilliant filmmaker of the last 60 years. Maybe ever. He completely changed the way I watch and think about movies. I was kind of befuddled, annoyed and bored initially by the first few movies of his that I saw, but when I saw Pierrot Le Fou I started to get it. Then I went back to the ones I’d seen and got way more out of them, and from there proceeded to plow through everything else by him that Netflix had in stock. Now I’m a disciple. He does pull perverse and aggravating stuff, and is unapologetically brainy in a distinctly French way and after a certain point barely interested at all in telling a conventional story. Even the ones that do tell semi-conventional stories don’t necessarily hang together in the way you expect movie stories to hang together. But if you can get into the spirit that motivates his work–a belief that movies have the potential to be an all encompassing art form where pop and high culture combine and recombine with jazzy abandon–he’s exhilarating, hilarious, and wicked cool. And if you think he’s pretentious that has more to do with your cultural prejudices than anything in his movies.

August 21st, 2012 at 2:20 pm

I have mixed feelings about Godard myself, but I do think he’s a unique and fascinating talent. And honestly, as difficult as some of his work is (difficult enough probably not to be worth for the casual viewer), much of his early stuff is actually pretty entertaining. Although his work has grown increasingly abstract, noncommercial & difficult, early on he was at least vaguely interested in telling a coherent story with characters, and his work can be pretty funny as well. If you’re ever curious, I’d recommend checking out BREATHLESS or A WOMAN IS A WOMAN, two of his funniest and most accessible films.

I agree with JF that his work tends to improve with multiple viewings, and that’s probably just not worth it for most folk.

Godard’s an interesting cat. His films can be maddeningly impenetrable, irritatingly didactic & self-righteous, off-puttingly political and worse. But they are also often bold, stylish, witty, provocative, dense and original. I’ve never seen a Godard film I’ve wholly loved, but even the ones I kind of hated were interesting and worthy of my time and contemplation. For what it’s worth.

August 21st, 2012 at 2:37 pm

Griff— just want to echo what others say above about Godard. I am by no means a scholar on the dude’s work, but I do know he wasn’t interested in saying ‘Fuck you’ to the audience for watching his movies. If there was anything he was saying ‘Fuck you’ to, it was preconceptions in general. I’ve only seen a few of his movies, but there were plentiful moments of entertainment and exhilaration to be found in all of them.

August 21st, 2012 at 2:42 pm

Speaking of Godard, does anyone know how one might be able to see GERMANY YEAR 90 NINE ZERO? That one always sounded interesting to me but doesn’t seem like it’s available to buy or watch anywhere.

August 21st, 2012 at 2:48 pm

Griff, I’m not a Godard fan and I did not like the original Breathless. Having said that, I still appreciated it, but appreciation and entertainment are not the same thing.

Having said that, I think even the most die hard Godard fan should be able to groove on what McBride did. He flip-flopped the setting and the nationalities of the characters and updated it, but kept it thematically the same.

I still think Godard did an OK job on that Masters of the Universe movie. Oh wait, that was Goddard, never mind.

August 21st, 2012 at 3:43 pm

@ Dan Prestwich:

GERMANY YEAR 90 NINE ZERO was on YouTube, dunno if it still is. I watched it once, found it impenetrable (the subtitling isn’t ideal and even if it were it would still be elusive) but very beautiful. Which is pretty much my uniform reaction to seeing a later Godard the first time around. Except For Ever Mozart. In that one those accusations of him being a bitter crank (usually way overstated and a cheap way of avoiding having to understand what he’s doing) are entirely founded, though I really like the part where a girl screams “oui” in the wind.

August 21st, 2012 at 4:20 pm

I just say pride yourself on trying out different things instead of the other way around. I used to always say that people should give a shot to Jean-Luc Godard AND Jean-Claude Van Damme. I hate when people look down on the “lowbrow” shit that I prefer, but I also think people on my side should be open to appreciating the other stuff. I don’t know much about that new wave that the French had, but I’ve sampled a little of it and have an idea what I like and don’t like about it, and am open to seeing more. I understand if it doesn’t seem interesting to you or worth your time, but being close-minded to it shouldn’t be a point of pride. Around here let’s try to learn new shit and grow as people.

Also, if you haven’t seen the movie, or even the movie it’s remade from, and also refuse to see any movies even by the director of the movie that it’s remade from, that would be a time when you wouldn’t necessarily have to add a comment. You can just comment on the ones where you have something about the movie you want to say. Unless your goal is to be shamed into watching PIERROT LE FOU.

August 21st, 2012 at 4:34 pm

@Griff – I’d like to see a review of Hercules Returns – the Australian film. Underappreciated and underseen.

August 21st, 2012 at 4:55 pm

oh ok, you guys are right, I’m being too hard on the old Frenchman

I still say Harmony Korine is a pretentious douche though

August 21st, 2012 at 5:01 pm

and for the record, I tried watching both Julian Donkey Boy and Gummo once and both movies really rubbed me the wrong way and they just screamed “look how arty and subversive I am!” (although I will admit parts of Gummo were unintentionally funny)

however, I haven’t seen the movie, nor do I really even know what it is, but anyone that names a movie “The Diary of Anne Frank Part 2” and think that’s some kind of clever, subversive joke is a douche in my book

August 21st, 2012 at 5:16 pm

Griff if you thought GUMMO was warped (and it is) you haven’t seen anything till you’ve seen Korine’s TRASH HUMPERS. That is such a bugged out piece of WTF that it makes ANTICHRIST & A SERBIAN FILM seem conventional. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell it was even about and I’ve seen it twice.

Harmony Korine is interesting to me because it truly seems like he doesn’t give a shit. He just points and shoots; there is definitely a lot of pretense for the sake of pretense in his work though. With that said I really look forward to seeing what the hell his new movie will be like on account of it having 2 former Disney Channel princesses (including Mouth’s dream girl) and James Franco playing Riff Raff. I can’t even fathom what type of shit he’ll came up with for those mainstream actors to do. He probably traumatized them.

August 21st, 2012 at 6:30 pm

I saw this one so long ago the only things I remember is when Gere accidentally shoots the cop (I liked how the window shattered and it took a few seconds for him to find out exactly what he did) and the part where someone (Art Metrano?) sees Gere’s plaid pants and asks if he’s in disguise as an asshole. I still use that line. I hope it’s close to the way I remember it. Nothing is worse that loving a line or scene forever and finding out you totally embellished it in your mind. Well, a lot of things are actually worse than that, but it’s still pretty bad.

August 21st, 2012 at 9:27 pm

Finally! It’s long been my dream to voice my feelings about Jean-Luc Godard (I set my bars as low as humanly possible).

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Godard, as he is one of the greatest directors in the history of the medium, and yet he annoys me to no end. His early stuff is extremely inventive and fun, and shot through with a film nerds’ love of cinema. His later stuff is… beyond concepts of good and bad. They exist in a void, totally indifferent to the idea that anyone might actually watch them.

So if anyone out there is reluctant to get into his stuff… I understand that completely, but you’re missing out. I humbly recommend ‘Band Of Outsiders’ to anybody who hasn’t seen it before. And ‘Alphaville’, though I’m told ‘Alphaville’ is an acquired taste.

August 24th, 2012 at 1:18 am

Griff, to your first question, I have tons of movies i love that are or were at the time generally maligned:

Hudson Hawk Mr. destiny Memoirs of an Invisible Man Heart and Souls Hero (the Dustin Hoffman one) The Chase (no longer holds up though)

All from the same era it seems.

My favorite Godard film is WEEK END. That was meta and I was disappointed more of his films weren’t like that. I didn’t care for BREATHLESS but I’m fascinated by the idea of a Godard remake. It’s in my long Netflix queue. One day maybe.

August 24th, 2012 at 6:50 am

Griff: Maybe start with Truffaut’s SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER. It’s pure pulpy goodness with a melancholic heart and will lay the groundwork for Godard’s stuff, none of which is as arty or difficult as you might think. I think you’ll be surprised how watchable Godard is, especially if you appreciate the technical aspects of film; his innovations aren’t stuffy and difficult like Renais. ALPHAVILLE in particular is a hoot. And WEEKEND is a masterpiece.

August 28th, 2012 at 7:47 am

As for Godard. Breathless has a great Film Historical Relevance,but i cant say that i love it. I used to like some of Godards Work when i was younger.Pierrot le Fou and Weekend for instance. But today i rate the Classic French Directors higher than the Cahier Boys.I love Films like “Pepe le Moko” and “Le Salaire de la Peur”. I saw McBrides Breathless Remake when it came out.Dont remember that much about it,so i guess i have to rewatch it. But i used to love McBrides “The big Easy”.It Introduced me to Cajun Music and The Neville Brothes.

September 13th, 2012 at 4:29 pm

To Griff, who this thread seems to be about at this point:

1. The original Breathless has more in common with the macho action films that you gravitate toward than you have any idea of, being too proud to watch it. It’s about guns, girls, and cars, for pete’s sake, and stars Jean Paul Belmondo, the coolest dude who ever lived. He makes Steve McQueen look like, well, Harmony Korine. Refusing to watch Godard’s Breathless is hollowing out a huge gap in your own life. The only one to suffer for it is you.

2. If you think the funny bits in Gummo were unintentional–i.e., that you’re so much smarter than Harmony Korine that you can see more clearly what he’s doing than he can–once again, you’re making a false virtue out of ignorance. Like him or hate him, Korine is pretty fucking skilled at twisted humor. Your deciding that his twisted humor is unintentional and is therefore more to be scoffed at that enjoyed is, again, no thang at all to anyone but you. If ignorance is the only thing you have to be proud of, you should spend some time looking inward.

3. Breathless 1983 is worth watching if only because it was directed by Jim McBride, whose Glen and Randa is one of the weirdest naked-hippie postapocalypse movies I’ve ever seen. Whether his Breathless succeeds or not (I think it does, on its own surreal terms), clearly McBride is a director whose unique vision makes him more interesting than 99% of the thoughtless hacks churning out the garbage that clogs the media landscape, to coin a pretentious phrase.

4. Seriously? You’re gonna write 5 posts in a thread about a movie you’ve never seen, a remake of another movie you’ve never seen, just to boast about how refusing to see either before you criticize them somehow makes you smarter than everyone who’s been gullible enough to actually watch the movies before discussing them? Seriously? This snobbery of prideful ignorance baffles me, almost as much as it entertains me. Please continue.

September 13th, 2012 at 5:29 pm

ok, jeez, I’m sorry, I take back what I said about both Godard and Harmony Korine, I’ll check out Breathless one day, ok?

I’m not an anti-arthouse guy, I love Eraserhead and The Holy Mountain for example

September 13th, 2012 at 5:32 pm

I LOVE Harmony Korine, and I think, “The Diary of Anne Frank Part 2” is one of the funniest titles ever. The title is its’ own story. There’s actually a lot going on in those six words and one numeral.

Also, Godard is brilliant and *you* are the pretentious one for dismissing him so summarily.

Give Week End, Contempt and Breathless a chance. If you like Tarantino, you should like Godard. Literally everything QT does stinks of the Frenchman.

September 13th, 2012 at 5:33 pm

Except the foot fetish. I think that’s a Tarantino original.

September 13th, 2012 at 5:58 pm

Guys, Griff doesn’t have to watch Godard or Korrine movies if he doesn’t want to. I, personally, have never seen any of either of their films because they don’t interest me. Maybe someday that’ll change. Until then, though, I’m not gonna talk shit about them because I’d be coming from a place of ignorance, and I’m gonna look like an asshole when somebody who knows what he’s talking about shows up and shuts me down.

So maybe that’s the lesson. You don’t have to watch a movie just because everybody tells you you should, but if you’re not interested in it, leave the discussion to the people who are. Maybe you’ll learn something.

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Breathless Reviews

• 52   Metascore
• 1 hr 40 mins
• Watchlist Where to Watch

Godard's classic gets artificial respiration in Los Angeles, with Richard Gere as the strutting antihero dodging police and romancing a French student (Valerie Kaprisky). Parmental: John P. Ryan. Birnbaum: Art Metrano.

Remaking a movie is always a dicey proposition. Remaking a classic is even dicier. This version of BREATHLESS? No dice. The original burst upon the scene in 1959 and blew us all away, and even though we've become somewhat used to its tricks, it can still suggest its original impact. Godard took big chances then with technique, content, and casting and it paid off in spades. The new BREATHLESS features Gere as the wanton criminal Jesse (the Jean-Paul Belmondo role) and Kaprisky as Monica (Jean Seberg's original part). This version follows Godard and Truffaut's story of Jesse's escalating crimes and his involvement with Monica, but pays far too much attention to it, whereas the point of any Godard film is not what is told but how. Rather than trying to recapture the France of the late 1950s, the talented director, Jim McBride (DAVID HOLZMAN's DIARY) was probably right to switch locations to 1980s Los Angeles and make both characters American. In an attempt to duplicate Godard's feel for contemporary culture, McBride also adds bizarre colors and more than a dozen pop tunes, but the attempt is only modestly successful. The gradually increasing use of violence is effective in an oddly cartoon-like sort of way, but all involved fail to really impress their own creative slant on the project. Gere gives a flashy and not uninteresting performance and shows off his body a lot; Kaprisky shows hers too, though she fails completely to make her character really compelling. In keeping with the tentativeness of the entire enterprise, the ending is one of the great cop-outs in modern moviedom.

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Directed by Jim McBride

He's the last man on earth any woman needs...and every woman wants.

Jesse, a small-time criminal, high-tails it to Los Angeles to rendezvous with a French exchange student. Stealing a car and accidentally killing a highway patrolman, he becomes the most wanted fugitive in L.A.

Richard Gere Valérie Kaprisky Art Metrano John P. Ryan William Tepper Robert Dunn Garry Goodrow Lisa Jane Persky James Hong Waldemar Kalinowski Jack Leustig Eugène Lourié Georg Olden Miguel Piñero Henry G. Sanders Bruce Vilanch Robert Mark Quesada Nora Gaye Andres Aybar Isabel Cooley L. Jerry Greenberg Javier Grajeda Robert Snively John Wyler Jeni Vici Carl Munoz Christopher White Brien Varady Keith Addis Show All… Martin Erlichman Peggy Ann Stevens Raymond Bear David Carson Tracy McBride Jesse McBride Helen Kelly Jennifer Leigh Rice Bruce Scivally

Director Director

Jim McBride

Producer Producer

Martin Erlichman

Writers Writers

Jim McBride L.M. Kit Carson

Original Writer Original Writer

François Truffaut

Casting Casting

Elisabeth Leustig Jane Jenkins

Editor Editor

Robert Estrin

Cinematography Cinematography

Richard H. Kline

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

Keith Addis

Lighting Lighting

Larry D. Howard

Camera Operator Camera Operator

Albert Bettcher

Production Design Production Design

Richard Sylbert

Set Decoration Set Decoration

George Gaines

Stunts Stunts

Everett Creach Jeff Imada Gilbert B. Combs

Composer Composer

Jack Nitzsche

Sound Sound

Frank E. Warner Bruce Bisenz Donald O. Mitchell Kevin O'Connell Rick Kline

Costume Design Costume Design

J. Allen Highfill

Makeup Makeup

Hairstyling hairstyling.

Vivian McAteer Joe Torrenueva

Orion Pictures Breathless Associates Miko Productions

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English Spanish

Releases by Date

13 may 1983, 15 jun 1983, 16 jul 1983, 06 sep 1983, 27 oct 1983, 20 jan 1984, releases by country.

• Theatrical R18+ https://www.classification.gov.au/titles/breathless-5
• Theatrical U
• Theatrical 16
• Theatrical 15

South Korea

• Theatrical 18
• Theatrical R

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Popular reviews

Review by baradetski ★★★★★ 1

Godard’s is one of the most innovative films, but this is one of the horniest films, and is therefore more integral to the history of cinema.

Review by theriverjordan ★★★★½ 39

Cinema repeats itself; first as tragedy, then as farce. 

“Breathless,” directed by Jim McBride, is a farce. But by its end, it earns its tragedy. 

A remake of Godard’s New Wave defining original film, McBride re-envisions “Breathless” as a pop culture-saturated postmodern work of excess. 

McBride swaps nations and nationalities for his interpretation of the story, setting the action in Los Angeles, with the French Valérie Kapirsky and American Richard Gere as its star crossed lovers on the lam. 

Godard’s film ran on a noir-laced fuel of classic American culture; all steely cool, just like Bogart’s smile. McBride, with his work unfolding in the city that pumps out American dreams, drenches his “Breathless” in a flood of national iconography from…

Review by SilentDawn ★★★½ 4

Richard Gere is off-the-rails in this American reinterpretation of Jean-Luc Godard's classic film. The DNA of Tarantino's jukebox comic book ethos of the 1990s is definitely found here, as are the painful remnants of the 1970s. Uneven in spots, but it has romance and style to spare.

Review by Justin LaLiberty ★★★★½ 4

this is The Thing (1982) of 80s French New Wave remakes and/or movies co-starring Richard Gere's penis

absurd that this is somehow still not hailed as a masterpiece

Review by John Frankensteiner ★★★★ 4

The fact that I love the Richard Gere Breathless remake is one of the biggest plot twists of my life. I never saw this coming.

Jim McBride took the basic premise and ran wild to create his own thing that feels as influential on the next decade's auteur sensibility as Godard. There's Tarantino's entire catalogue in this, which means so is Stone's Natural Born Killers and Scott's True Romance , as is Lynch's Wild at Heart , Boyle's Trainspotting and countless others, really. Gere is completely out of control, the opposite of his sleepy persona that he's been doing for the past 30 years. He's like a ticking time bomb with 10 seconds to go for the entire duration. L.M. Kit Carson's…

Review by Swartacus ★★★★★ 6

Don’t be foolish, nothing lasts. Not even the power cosmic. Hip shake for hitch-hike. Remote control gunplay foreplay. Surf music and Elvis. A cherry red Tarantino prototype out for a Sunday drive. Hotwire your destiny.  Caught in a trap. Can’t walk out.  A junkyard gigolo. Paying for every dance and selling each romance. Boo! Love is the power supreme. There will come a day when youth will pass away.  Don’t disguise yourself as an asshole.

Review by eddie ★★★½ 1

oh so when Tarantino said he was influenced by Godard, he just meant this. it works because the only man more swagged out than Jean-Paul Belmondo is Dr. T from Dr. T and The Women

Review by Liz ★★★★ 1

Replaces the insufferably toxic macho posturing of the (sorry, inferior!) original with something so much endearingly dorkier and laughably pathetic -- and manages to somehow eroticize Richard Gere more than Looking for Mr. Goodbar and American Gigolo combined at the same time. This wound up being a great accidental pairing with Araki's Nowhere -- especially in the way both films use L.A.'s giant murals to stage their lurid pulp stories as comic books.

Review by shookone ★★

godard: moi je luv zhe imagérie d'états unides!

hollywood: we can do this too, dude! I mean using our own cool stuff for fancy european stuff! watch!

Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★ 1

In the grand scheme of classic films Hollywood is obsessed to remake, never in my life would I thought a Goddard flick would be one of them. And yet, here we are.

A remake of the pretty revolutionary French New Wave classic, Richard Gere does a decent job replacing Jean-Paul Belmondo and while he doesn't have Belmondo's charm and magnetic persona, Gere persona captures both the free-spirit nature of the character while delivering on the much douchy persona. In many ways it reminded me to Mickey Rourke on Barfly . Valérie Kaprisky is no Jean Seberg and to be honest her character doesn't have really much to do but to whine and just been dragged into trouble by Gere's Jesse.

Review by Kaleb ★★★★½ 5

Why does this movie have such awful scores? 5.9 on IMDB?! I found myself completely immersed in this movie. I wanted to check it out because Tarantino says it’s one of his favourites and one of coolest movies. I agree it’s a very cool movie. Richard Gere gives his most charismatic performance, as an unlikable asshole. The soundtrack is just a blast, and the direction is great. A very underrated flick.

Review by Michael Mann Facts ★★★★

Jim McBride takes the most French movie ever made and makes it more perverted. Comic books, feet, and rock ’n’ roll. A Quentin Tarantino wet dream.

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Take two #11: jean-luc godard’s breathless (1960) & jim mcbride’s breathless (1983).

In a word: balls.

In a word: balls. A quarter-century after its release, pretty much any controversy surrounding Jean-Luc Godard’s debut feature had long passed, and it was a firmly entrenched, immovable classic of the cinema. Which is to say, it was due for the kind of irreverent treatment that Godard himself mastered in the ’60s. I reclined, popcorn in lap, as the 1983 Breathless began, and hoped that director Jim McBride—whose biggest credits include the 1989 biopic Great Balls of Fire! and some relatively recent work directing Six Feet Under —might pick up the original and shake it by the lapels, as Godard’s film had done for gangster and romance movies a generation earlier. For a while, the new Breathless coasts on attitude alone. Then it just coasts.

Rather than the irrepressible Jean-Paul Belmondo, we now get the thinking man’s Keanu Reeves, Richard Gere. In his early work with demanding directors like Richard Brooks, Paul Schrader, and Terrence Malick, it seemed that Gere’s status as a Brando-level talent was all but foreordained; the meaty, emotionally wrought parts just couldn’t come fast enough. As an acting opportunity, playing the lead in a remake of Breathless couldn’t be juicier, and you can almost see the gears cranking as Gere hustles, steals, grifts, flirts, and grins, playing the world’s biggest deluded asshole. This is acting —showy and sweaty and entirely superficial.

The jump cut, Godard’s most notable technical innovation in his debut, is often seen as a revolutionary editing trick, but it’s less heralded for being a landmark development in screen acting, though it ultimately changed our expectations for what constitutes a great movie performance. Belmondo was a fabulously understated actor when he wanted to be (as in Vittorio de Sica’s Two Women ), but in Breathless he’s always on, a big mess of contradictions and schemes. And the jump cuts express this as much as his performance, throwing this tumble of postures and body tics together to show how closely related they really are. There’s an early scene where he comes to visit an old girlfriend purely so he can steal her money and buy breakfast. They talk about her job (he has none, needless to say) as she gets ready for work, and after pilfering the francs in her purse, he plays with a decorative child’s toy and ogles himself in her vanity mirror. This is all shown in a series of quick edits accompanying their slow, meaningless dialogue, which captures perfectly how this man is able to maintain multiple contradictions of character at once; he’s a vane grifter, a self-obsessed socializer, a man-child. And the editing technique requires that Belmondo convey this through small gestures rather than continuous expression.

But you don’t need me to tell you why the original Breathless is good; that job’s been done by every movie in its wake. And thus there are two major reasons why a remake of Breathless makes no sense. For one, its own influences are displayed so brazenly that the film’s entire essence stems from Godard’s precise combination and recreation of his sources. It’s an extended homage to a handful of his American obsessions—film noir, Faulkner, cool jazz, gangster movies, Jean Seberg—and its plot is simultaneously derivative and mundane. For another, its technical influence can be seen in commercial and independent filmmaking alike, to say nothing of advertising, graphic design, and music videos; you can see “remakes” of it every time you turn on the TV, read a novel by Elmore Leonard or Thomas Pynchon, or watch a movie as seemingly disparate as The Bourne Identity .

But no matter; people still cover Beatles songs, so why not give Breathless a new coat of paint in the ’80s? And for a little while, it seems like McBride has the right idea, namely his own multimedia mash-up that wears its clichédness like a badge of honor. He displays a sense of entitlement with his source material that would likely make Godard proud, changing the location to the American southwest and giving his protagonist a Silver Surfer obsession. This is all fun for a while, particularly Gere’s ridiculous and rambunctious performance. But then the lovers begin their doomed romance, the cops pursue, et cetera, et cetera, and McBride lets his initial liberties wither and die from underuse. Besides updating the basic storyline to better match the time period, he does nothing with it. No interesting observations about the different nature of crime between 1960s France and 1980s America; no thoughtful consideration of the relative merits of jazz and rockabilly. An hour or so in, McBride’s liberties start to feel self-satisfied rather than impish, and self-importance is the death of a movie like this.

The performances don’t help. Seberg was the not-so-secret weapon of the original film, balancing Belmondo’s aggressive attitude and centering the director’s go-everywhere photographic approach. As Gere’s French love interest, Valérie Kaprisky brings a sub-Schwarzenegger level of English diction and expression to her role, and though McBride clearly loves the sight of her naked breasts, she’s as uncharismatic an actress as I’ve ever seen. (Her other credits include the softcore Aphrodite and a load of French TV.) The plot lopes along familiarly, even more so than in the original film, and we’re treated to certain niceties of ’80s cinema that simply weren’t allowed in the ’60s—much profanity, plentiful boobs, a Bruce Vilanch cameo.

What exactly was the point of this film? Quentin Tarantino, its lone defender as far as I could find, is often accused of repurposing the French New Wave’s style and effects to little thematic end, but the 1983 Breathless truly plays like the kind of film that his critics accuse him of making all the time. It’s flashy, poorly edited, and too dependent on its own influences to resonate emotionally. But its failure is an oddly effective salute to the original film. Even now, it’s hard to imagine somebody remaking Breathless with a fuck-all attitude to match the original. The 1983 film shows that it’d be foolish to even try.

This article was originally published on The House Next Door.

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John Lingan has written for The New York Times Magazine , The Oxford American , Smithsonian , The Washington Post , and many other places. Often about music, but not always.

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The Big Picture

• Hollywood often chooses to remake successful films, even if they were already perfect, chasing guaranteed success over originality.
• The 1983 remake of 'Breathless' focuses on darker themes of the American Dream and law enforcement, diverging from the original's style.
• Richard Gere's performance as Jesse brings a romantic tragedy spin to the remake, ending in a dramatic sacrifice that contrasts with the original's ironic ending.

If the recent box office has been any indication, audiences around the world are much more likely to see films that are based on previously existing materials than they are willing to invest in anything original. Sequels, prequels, and spin-offs always have the potential to take a property in a new direction, but the number of truly excellent remakes is few and far between. The reason for this is simple; Hollywood often wants to benefit from the success of a previous hit, even if the original film was already perfect and in no need of updating. It initially seemed completely ridiculous to remake Jean-Luc Godard ’s Breathless , but that’s exactly what director Jim McBride did in 1983 with Richard Gere .

Breathless isn’t just remembered as one of the best projects of Godard’s career , but as one of the most influential films of the 21st century. With its bold visuals, ambulatory pacing, shocking moments of dark humor, ironic ending, and inventive musical score, Breathless ushered in the "French New Wave" movement in the 1960s; this ended up inspiring the similar "New Hollywood" era in the United States within the subsequent decade. Trying to match the cultural significance of the original Breathless may have been an unenviable task, but thankfully, it's not one that McBride seemed to be interested in. Breathless succeeded as a remake because it purposefully inverted all the qualities that had made the original so iconic in the first place.

Breathless (1983)

An American remake of the French classic, Breathless follows Jesse Lujack, a small-time crook who goes on the run after killing a police officer. Jesse's journey is driven by his desire to reunite with Monica, a French student.

What Makes 1983’s ‘Breathless’ Different From the Original?

The biggest changes that Breathless makes to the original are in its locations and characters. Godard’s original film starred Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard, a French criminal who falls in love with the American student Patricia Franchini ( Jean Seberg ) after the two cross paths in Paris. Comparatively, the remake focuses on Gere’s Jesse Lujack, an erratic drifter who begins to pursue the French woman Monica Poiccard ( Valérie Kaprisky ) in Los Angeles after the two meet for the first time in Las Vegas. The key changes aren’t made purely for the sake of subverting expectations, as they are necessary to the themes that McBride is hinting at. If the original Breathless examined a very idealized version of American influence, the remake examines the failings of the “American dream.” Jesse is so distraught at his own failings that he can’t help but romanticize anything that seems “foreign” to him, including Monica.

20 Best Movies About Dysfunctional & Toxic Romantic Relationships

These couples make Bonnie and Clyde look stable.

Breathless commits to exploring the cultural legacy of Los Angeles in the same way that the original film celebrated Paris. Much of the appeal of Godard’s original was seeing Paris at its most active; it seemed like adventure and art were around any corner, as the city itself almost felt like a work of fantasy. However, McBride suggests that there is a deep seediness underneath the shiny surface of Los Angeles in the Breathless remake. Underneath the appeal of popular culture hallmarks such as Marvel comic books and Jerry Lee Lewis music, there’s a city that is so ambitious that there’s never any room allotted for empathy. Godard’s film seemed to be the quintessential “hangout” movie , inspiring such classics as Dazed and Confused and Clerks in the subsequent decades. That sensibility simply doesn’t work in modern-day America, so McBride chose to reformat Breathless into a relentless crime thriller.

The ‘Breathless’ Remake Is an American Tragedy

One of the key issues that McBride faced with his remake of Breathless was that the original film’s stylistic inventions no longer felt as novel as they once were. The tightly edited, erratic narrative of Breathless was unlike anything that audiences had ever seen before in 1960, but it had become commonplace by the time that McBride took on his remake. As a means of inverting these expectations, McBride suggested a far darker side to the American experience, particularly in the depiction of law enforcement as a villainous presence that threatens to come between Monica and Jesse. While it never turns into a straight-up action movie , the Breathless remake contains a lot more suspense and intrigue than Godard seemed interested in incorporating into his original.

The emphasis on Gere’s unorthodox performance is perhaps the most defining aspect of the Breathless remake. In the original film, Michel is more of a comic oaf than anything else, as the audience is forced to keep laughing at his misfortune as he relentlessly tries to woo Patricia. However, Gere’s success in Days of Heaven and American Gigolo had turned him into one of the biggest sex symbols of the 1980s, and thus Breathless transformed into a romantic tragedy. The biggest difference is in the striking way the films end: Godard’s film ends on an ironic note with Michel getting gunned down out of sheer bad luck, whereas McBride’s builds to a dramatic moment where Jesse sacrifices himself. Gere’s commitment to playing an extravagant romantic figure completely changes the way the film closes.

What’s the Value of Remaking ‘Breathless?'

There’s always the opportunity that a remake can surpass its original, even if it was already beloved; James Mangold managed to make an even better version of the classic western 3:10 To Yuma with his 2007 remake. While McBride’s film is unlikely to replace Godard’s in the eyes of many film scholars, the Breathless remake is worth watching as a companion piece to the original. In the same way that the original film can be seen as a representation of the French New Wave, the remake is intertwined with the anti-establishment crime films that grew in prominence throughout the Ronald Reagan administration.

As sacrilegious as it may seem, the Breathless remake has some prominent supporters who prefer it to the original. Quentin Tarantino has cited the 1983 version as a favorite , and the highly respected BBC Radio 4 critic Mark Kermode praised Gere’s performance as better than Belmondo’s . It serves as a testament to the quality of the remake that this debate even exists in the first place, but for those who prefer the 1960 film, the remake is still a compelling counterpart to the original worthy of attention.

Breathless is currently streaming on Prime Video in the U.S.

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Richard Gere , Paul Tepper, Valerie Kaprisky, Art Metrano

James Hong , Valérie Kaprisky, John P. Ryan , William Tepper , Robert Dunn, Garry Goodrow , Lisa Jane Persky , Waldemar Kalinowski, Jack Leustig, Eugène Lourié, Georg Olden , Miguel Pinero , Henry G. Sanders, Bruce Vilanch, Robert Mark Quesada, Nora Gaye, Andres Aybar , Isabel Cooley Update Cast

Look for D. Lee Carson, Tracy McBride, Jesse McBride making a cameo appearance!

One of the most criticized and panned movies of the 80's, BREATHLESS has nevertheless attracted a cult following for its strong points; drama, comedy, action, and, most of all, passionate, almost obsessive, romance. At the movie's opening, we are introduced to Jesse Lujack (Gere), a slick Las Vegas hustler with a penchant for auto theft, robbery and assault. Yet, despite these flaws, we are shown that he has a good side. This good side manifests itself in his powerful love for the enigmatic Monica Poiccard (Kaprisky), a beautiful, brilliant French co-ed and honors Architecture student at UCLA with whom he had a short-lived fling while she was spending her school holiday in Vegas. The two are in perfect diametric opposition to each other; She has very definite plans for her future, while he aspires to emulate his hero, the comic-book character the Silver Surfer. Bored with his glitzy Vegas existence, he hits upon the idea of relocating to Mexico – with Monica. You really have to hand it to him; This incredibly gorgeous man (Gere was at the height of his good looks at the time this movie was made) could have anybody, yet has eyes only for her (ooohhh…high romance!). To that end, he hotwires a Porsche and hightails it out of Vegas and through the desert. His destination is Los Angeles, where he will collect Monica and money he is owed. But sometime during his ranting to Jerry Lee Lewis music – his favorite singer – and doing 100 m.p.h. down the barren desert highway, he’s spotted by a highway-patrol officer and is pulled over. As Jesse is ordered out of the Porsche by the cop, he sees a gun that’s in the car and picks it up in consideration of brandishing it. Tragically – and this accident will drag him through a downward spiral till the end of the movie – the gun accidentally discharges and injures the cop. Here we again see Jesse’s good side as, horrified by his actions, he removes his fancy suit jacket, which contains all the money he has, and pillows it under the fallen policeman’s head. He closes the remainder of the distance to LA on foot and breaks into Monica’s apartment, which will serve as his refuge for the next two days. In a brash yet charming move, he disrupts Monica during an important exam at school. Clearly, she’s annoyed that this fling, whom she never expected to see again, has popped back into her life. She can’t understand the passionate obsession he has for her and wishes he’d leave her alone and let her get her Architecture degree. Jesse spends the next few days cajoling and convincing Monica to reciprocate his love and accompany him to Mexico while alternately attempting to cash a clean check which will enable him to start his new life with her there. But the cop he accidentally shot suddenly dies, and two grim detectives from the LAPD begin to shadow his every move. Now, he must also dodge the two detectives while attempting to woo Monica and cash his check. After a passionate pool scene, in which Philip Glass’ beautiful composition “Openings” is played, Jesse at last succeeds in winning Monica over. She is unaware, at this point, that Jesse is wanted for murder. The two lovers impetuously flee the police, who are now hot on Jesse’s trail, on an exciting flight that takes them through the back streets and alleys of LA. They seek shelter in the secluded remains of an abandoned estate until they are able to make good their escape to Mexico the next morning. It is here that Monica is jolted into reality when she sees her picture and Jesse’s on the front page of the daily paper. Overcome by qualms of conscience, she informs the police of Jesse’s whereabouts. Despite her betrayal, he still loves her. Though BREATHLESS verges on soft porn and has B movie written all over it, it’s one of the most passionate movies, if not the most passionate movie, I have ever seen. Jesse is to be admired for having the fortitude to put aside his immaturity and sordid ways to stay true and deeply in love regardless of the consequences. It’s a classic example of 80’s romantic action drama if one can put aside its flaws for a moment.

Passionate, action-packed, suspenseful (check out the ending!), this movie has more going for it than most viewers realize.

Rewind Rating

Director: Jim McBride Writer: François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, L.M. Kit Carson, Jim McBride Producers: Keith Addis, Martin Erlichman Locations Manager:

Release Date: 13 May 1983 MPAA Rating: R Studio: Orion Pictures Production: Breathless Associates, Miko Productions Genre: Romantic Comedy

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Review: ‘Norman’ struggles, but Richard Gere shines

Gere plays a new york ‘fixer’ in a character study that winds up in over its head.

“Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer” goes off the rails, getting in over its head just like its title character. But it makes quite an impression along the way.

In “Norman,” Richard Gere plays the title character, a New York “fixer” who is perpetually gladhanding with bigwigs, making contacts, and chatting up the ranks of the influential. He’s a connector, a guy who always has his business cards on him, eager to introduce himself and desperate to be a part of the scene. He’s not a player, but he likes to think he is; in a group photo of the rich and powerful he’d be shoved so far off to the side he would be cropped out by the frame.

Gere plays Norman as confident but meek; if you blew on him he would fall down. But his quest for consequence pays off when he connects with Micha Eshel (the excellent Lior Ashkenazi), a low-level politician whom he buys an expensive pair of shoes, an investment that pays off when Eshel becomes Prime Minister of Israel. Eshel remembers Norman and his generosity, though his relationship with the Prime Minister eventually leads to his downfall.

And it leads to the downfall of the film, as well. “Norman” is a small character study of a classic wannabe — think “The King of Comedy,” set in the world of Jewish politics — and when it gets bogged down in international intrigue it loses its way. It becomes so unbelievable you wonder if it’s a fantasy sequence and writer-director Joseph Cedar is waiting to pull the rug out from the audience.

But that’s to take nothing away from Gere, who does fine work in a role worlds away from his leading man years. He makes “Norman” feel real, and you walk out feeling like he just handed you his business card.

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Rated R: for some language

Running time: 117 minutes