A Bout De Souffle

Godard's explosive directorial feature debut sees Michel (Belmondo) as a movie-loving hood on the way to pick up some money. After he kills a troublesome cop, Michel tracks down an old girlfriend, Patricia (Seberg), in Paris and the two briefly rekindle their doomed affair.

The film launched the New Wave of young French directors - Godard's fellow critics from the influential film magazine 'Cahiers du Cinéma' were involved in the production, Truffaut devising the story, Chabrol serving as artistic and technical adviser. And it's a film in love with movies themselves. Michel is an amoral chancer who consciously styles himself after Bogart, while the film itself is in part a homage to Hollywood film noir, making a particular nod to Joseph H Lewis's seminal love-on-the-run movie Gun Crazy.

Godard the novice is already toying with narrative convention, making telling use of, among other techniques, the jump-cut. He also allows himself a cameo appearance in the film, turning up towards the end of the action as an informant whose appearance hastens Michel's fate.