Bonnie and Clyde retains several direct links to Breathless: its influence can be felt in the editing of Bonnie’s bedroom scenes, where nervous jump-cuts suggest her sexual restlessness; in the headlong driving scenes, conveying the exhilaration of the open road; in the exciting acceptance of mistakes, as when a fight spills out of frame and the camera must scurry to catch up. As if to openly state it’s a relationship to Godard’s film, Bonnie and Clyde replicates the scene in Breathless where Michel and Patricia hide from the police in a movie theater, the onscreen dialogue offering ironic counterpoint to the characters’ situation. There’s even an odd reference near the film’s end, when the lens in Clyde’s sunglasses pops loose, just as Belmondo’s does in Breathless.
But by comparing two lead characters from each movie you find major contrasts. On Characteristics alone you have some similarities: Both Clyde and Michel are trying to fulfill the dapper gangster look, by wearing suits and fedoras and fancy sunglasses. The comparisons go deeper than that as well, but more specifically the fact that they both rely on a strong female character for support is a major comparison. Although, with that, it brings to light one of the biggest contrasts: how different each of the lead male character’s relationship with the lead female character is. Michel is a more of a playboy and will lay with nearly anyone he can make a quick buck on. But with Patricia who he has slept with before, one starts to believe that he may actually felt a connection with her. Whereas when Clyde met Bonnie he immediately noticed her beauty and how she was a person who he must have around him. So, with both men finding a love interest, what could be so drastically different? Michel wants to be with patricia but above all he just really wants to sleep with her again, saying anything to get her back