142: Breathless ’83 (with Aaron and Carlee from Hit Factory)

Aaron and Carlee from the Hit Factory podcast return from San Francisco for a deep dive into the underrated 1983 American remake of Jean-Luc Godard’s landmark film Breathless, directed by Jim McBride.

Assailed at the time of release for being a shallow exercise in style, to watch Breathless 40 years later is to see a work arguably as influential on the next generation of American filmmakers as Godard’s original had been on the New American Cinema of the 1970s; the remake’s cocktail of retro cool, fast cars and meta-textual pop culture references mark it as a clear influence on Tarantino, Lynch and Paul Thomas Anderson among others.

In an inversion of the original plot, Richard Gere plays Jesse Lujack, a petty criminal in Vegas obsessed with Jerry Lee Lewis and Silver Surfer comics who steals a Porsche, shoots a highway patrolman on his way to LA and as the manhunt develops, hides out with a French architecture student he’d recently had a fling with named Monica, played by the 19-year-old actress Valérie Kaprisky.

Breathless ’83 is extremely sexy so at the constant risk of being thrown in Horny Jail, the three of us discuss the intense on-screen chemistry between Gere and Kaprisky, McBride’s use of vivid color, rear-screen projection and music to heighten the cinematic experience, what the film has to say about toxic masculinity and male narcissism, and we discuss the Silver Surfer-obsessed Jesse Lujack as a cautionary tale about becoming Marvel-poisoned.

Breathless is currently streaming on Criterion Channel and Tubi.

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‘Breathless’ (1983): A Stylish Remake of Godard’s 1960 Film as an Accurate Portrayal of Male Narcissism - by Koralika Suton, for NeoText

Flat open matte 35mm trailer for Breathless (Jim McBride, 1983)

X performing “Breathless” on Late Night with David Letterman, 1983