American Accent, Pixie Haircut: Instructions for a Translation of New York to Paris, via The Herald Tribune

Breathless (1960)

When out of the city, shoot at the country sun out the window of a Ford.

Return to the city, having killed a man.

More cigarette smoke in the face. Or less. Equal number of harbors at night. More carburetors.

Check your thumbed-mouth gesture in every mirror.

Have recreational sex. Sleep around. Talk openly about sleeping around.

Study Bogart.

Repeatedly ask for the definitions of the French slang and idioms. Note how all the figures of speech center around violence.

Tell her you hate the city; tell her you’re sick of the city.

When a stranger dies on the black & white street, nudge him with your shoe.

Mostly, lie around the tiny apartment decorated with cheap posters of Picasso and don’t go out.

Glide down the Champs all mirror-lit, the globe streetlamps aglow mysterious and at once.

Find a famous puffy novelist and shout press conference questions at him about the soul.

When shot at by the cops, jazz clarinet the melodrama down the street as far as you can go. Be followed by a girl in white pumps.

Go see a Western.

You want to be an action mystery thriller, but don’t stop talking about fear and Faulkner and fucking. Don’t answer any of your lover’s direct questions.

Look in the mirror again instead.