Jean-Luc Godard’s A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) is one of the brightest stars to shine from the French New Wave. The plot reads almost like a crime thriller typical of the 1930-40’s. However intriguing the plot is, it is secondary to the presentation. Revolutionary at the time, the whole movie was shot on hand-held camera, with the inclusions of jump-cuts which still surprise and delight today.
‘A Bout de Souffle’ is the films original title and is used here, inspired by how it appears in the credits. Mimicking it’s meaning, ‘Breathless’ is placed, almost secondary, in brackets in a seperate color. The shade of yellow features predominantly on the international poster as does the font in which ‘Breathless’ is written. The use of ‘old fashioned’ filming techniques inspired the composition of the poster. The image and layout resembles that of a Polaroid – the square photo and white underlay, as a tribute to Goddards techniques.
