I started reading Brody's Everything is Cinema about Jean Luc Godard. It turns out he had a very up and down background before making Breathless which was his breakout hit and most remembered film of the French New Wave. After reading the first few chapters of the book I decided to re-watch Breathless. I had already seen it several times, but now the details became so much more obvious. The references to Switzerland, the characters names, the details of the story it was based on after reading the book and watching this film made the film more enjoyable and more understandable.
The film goes into how Godard didn't use a script which as an aspiring screenwriter I find interesting. It turns out he wrote the scenes for the day on the day of the shoot which caused his producer to become agitated. There was even a fistfight between JLG and his producer. Turns out he was shooting so short a time that the producer got nervous about how much money he was wasting.
The film talks about the buzz that started to surround the film. People; critics and others started to talk about Godard's film. Soon enough people said he was doing something great and all of Paris wanted to see his film.
Godard refused to be interviewed for the doc film. The rest of the film concerns getting Jean Seberg to star in the film. At first she was attached to a major studio. Eventually they agreed to let her do the film for a small fee. At first she didn't want to do the film. At the time Godard was an unknown and she didn't think much of the role. She came around and, of course, the rest is history.
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