Movie Star

"Lilith" May Hold Jean Seberg's Best Performance

 

One of Jean’s more interesting films is undoubtedly Lilith, perhaps because it holds one of her best performances.  However, Lilith was not embraced by American critics and the film was largely dismissed when released in 1964.  A majority of those who rejected the work cited its “ambiguity” as a minus; Robert Rossen’s direction as too “arty”; and Warren Beatty’s “muddled” performance.  Arguably, all three contributed to Lilith’s uniqueness.

The only award the film was recognized for was a Golden Globe nomination for Jean Seberg in the Best Actress Drama category.  Although several films have “slipped through” recognition through the years (including Breathless which was not nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar), Lilith holds several past and future Academy Award nominees and winners: co-stars Warren Beatty (Reds), Kim Hunter (A Streetcar Named Desire), Peter Fonda (Easy Rider), Gene Hackman (The French Connection), and in a small role, Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck). 

In addition, several crew members were also recognized by the Academy for their work: Robert Rossen (All the King’s Men and The Hustler), production designer Richard Sylbert (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), set decorator Gene Callahan (The Hustler), costume designer Ruth Morley (The Miracle Worker), sound Dirck Vorisek (Reds), assistant editor Barry Malkin (The Godfather Part III), cinematographer Eugen Schufftan (The Hustler), and uncredited screenplay writer Robert Alan Arthur (All That Jazz).  Many of them received multiple Oscar nominations for their various works.

The film is a well crafted piece and one does not forget the film after watching it.  Let it be Jean’s performance, the haunting score by Kenyon Hopkins, the moody cinematography, the film is worth watching.  These three aspects surely deserved Academy recognition.

Regardless of the lack of American praise, Lilith remained one of Jean’s favorite films.  It’s interesting to note while the film was in production, Jean remarked to Warren Beatty she didn’t feel he would be truly happy until he directed his own film.  He did a few years later with Bonnie and Clyde and continued to act, produce and write films as well. GM

 

Jean Seberg's "Breathless" Banks Box Office Bucks

Rialto Pictures/StudioCanal

The 50th anniversary reissue of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless opened on Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. and ranked 4th in per screen averages at $13,667, a significantly higher per screen average than major Hollywood releases.

More details here: http://tinyurl.com/2ccjqa7

Jean Seberg's best known film has also received positive notices from a variety of media outlets.  I especially enjoyed this one in the Christian Science Monitor: http://tinyurl.com/2ag8ycj

The warm reception by the public and the media of this French New Wave classic is a testiment to the quality of the creative vision of the filmmakers and performers involved in the project.

KR

"Breathless" to Screen in New York City - NY Times Video Explores Classic Film's Cinema Influences

Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless. (Rialto Pictures/StudioCanal photo)

A pristine restored print of Jean-Luc Godard's classic French New Wave film Breathless will open Friday, May 28, 2010 at the Film Forum in New York City.

The New York Times has also produced an interesting video highlighting cinema references in Breathless.  Check it out here:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/05/21/movies/1247467887456/the-influences-of-breathless.html

KR

Elle Reports on "Breathless" from the Turner Classic Film Festival in Hollywood

http://fashion.elle.com/blog/2010/04/tcm-celebrate-50-years-of-breathless-.html

Jean Seberg's "Breathless" to be Featured in Turner Classic Movies Film Fest

Iowa actress Jean Seberg's co-star Jean-Paul Belmondo will introduce the 50th anniversary screening and North American premiere of a newly restored print of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (À bout de souffle) at the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California on Friday, April 23, 2010 at 8:00 pm.

A full list of events and films is available below:

http://www.tcm.com/festival/_pdf/festival/TCM_FestivalOverview.pdf

Here is the film's description from the TCM Film Festival Website:

"Like Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais' Hiroshima, Mon Amour (both 1960), this French existential thriller had worldwide resonance.  Film-critic-turned-director Jean-Luc Godard told his tale of a car thief and cop killer trying to get back together with his American expatriate girlfriend with a speed and looseness that made most Hollywood films of the era seem stodgy.  Even a conservative critic like the New York Times' Bosley Crowther, who dubbed the film's visual style "pictorial cacophony," had to concede that BREATHLESS captured the hip detachment of young people on the verge of rebellion.  It caught that spirit so well it made international stars of Jean-Paul Belmondo (who introduces the film) and American actress Jean Seberg.  Godard, with François Truffaut, who originated the story for the film, reinvented cinema by drawing on its past.  The film is dedicated to the B-movie studio Monogram Pictures, while Belmondo's character self-consciously apes Humphrey Bogart's image as a hip rebel.  But BREATHLESS also pointed the way to more improvisatory films of the future like Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Robert Altman's M*A*S*H (1970).  With its dazzling handheld camera work by Raoul Coutard, natural lighting and jump cuts (an afterthought created when Godard decided to shorten the film by cutting footage out of almost every scene), BREATHLESS taught people to look at cinema in a whole new way, and has a lasting influence on later filmmakers."

www.TCM.com/festival