Breathless
’80s Remakes (and Their Originals!)
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1h 40m
Directed by Jim McBride • 1983 • United States
Starring Richard Gere, Valérie Kaprisky, Art Metrano
Remaking Jean-Luc Godard's French New Wave landmark (itself an homage to American gangster films) was surely one of the more audacious cinematic gambits of the 1980s, but director Jim McBride (DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY) approaches the challenge with a postmodern sensibility that makes for a fascinatingly self-reflexive, deliriously stylized update. Richard Gere plays the dirtbag Las Vegas car thief obsessed with comics and ’50s rock ’n’ roll who hightails it to a neon-dreamland LA after killing a cop. There, he hooks up with his French lover (Valérie Kaprisky) for a sexed-up crime spree that quickly spirals out of control.
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