Breathless

Just ordered new 2-disc Criterion Collection version of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. It's great to see a CC version of this film out—but it always kills me a little when I have to buy a new copy of something I already own. I had to do the same thing with Carol Reed/Graham Greene's The Third Man last spring, when the Criterion Collection released a 2-disc version of that. In the case of the new CC The Third Man, it was absolutely worth it, if only for the hour-long BBC documentary: "Graham Greene: The Hunted Man." I suspect the same will be true of the CC Breathless, which comes with a Seberg documentary and, most intriguingly, Charlotte et son Jules, a 1959 short film by Godard—an homage to Cocteau starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Collete.

For the true film masochists out there (and I may be one of them), I should note that Criterion is releasing Fassbinder's 15-hour Berlin Alexanderplatz next week.

OK, since I now have an extra copy of Breathless—the 2001 Fox Lorber release—on my hands: a give-away. I will randomly select a winner from the first ten comments entered on the question, "What's the best—or, at least, your favorite—Criterion Collection release ever?"

Comments

[Danny]

I've got to go with Seventh Seal for it's overall effect and perfection. Stray Dog a close second for the movement.

[Wyl]

Most definitely The Cranes Are Flying.