Godard’s ‘Breathless’ to be re-released in theaters!

Jean-Luc Godard is still living and he is now 79! God bless him. A living icon. I was planning on seeing it on DVD this weekend, but hell, if I can catch a restored version in theaters then screw the DVD!

For the 50th anniversary release, Rialto has made new 35mm prints from a restored negative supervised by the film’s director of photography, Raoul Coutard – the first restoration of BREATHLESS ever.  Rialto has also added completely revised English subtitles by Lenny Borger, capturing Godard’s playful language like never before.  Borger has just finished working with Godard on the subtitles for the director’s latest film, “Film Socialisme,” which will be shown in the “Un Certain Regard” section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Rialto Pictures will open the 50th anniversary restoration of BREATHLESS on Friday, May 28 at Film Forum in New York [and at Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles], followed by additional cities.

Based on a treatment by François Truffaut and photographed by New Wave legend Raoul Coutard, with no less a crime specialist than Claude Chabrol as technical advisor, Godard’s jazzy riff on American Film Noir features iconic performances from Belmondo, as the on-the-run Bogart-inspired small-time hood, and Seberg as his American, Herald Tribune-hawking girlfriend, who ultimately betrays him.  With a pace that’s non-stop, thanks to its startling new editing techniques, BREATHLESS reinvented the grammar of movies and almost instantly changed the course of international filmmaking.