Breathless- Amanda Carman

In Rear Window, Hitchcock used a casting decision to make a voyeuristic character both sympathetic and uncondemned by its audience.  Similarly, Breathless employs several techniques to create a complicated sympathetic relationship between the audience and Michel, a police-killer with what appear to be sociopathic tendencies.  Michel is an atypical protagonist; he regularly steals cash and cars, he murders a police officer, he's sexually promiscuous, and he appears to be involved in some manner of larger criminal group or organization.  Unlike Hitchcock, Godard's casting decision for Michel does not instantly generate the necessary sympathetic connection with the audience; even his physical appearance is unconventional and oddly untrustworthy.  Instead, much of the sympathy for Michel is generated by the sympathetic connection the audience has to Patricia.  Unlike many female protagonists, Patricia is neither helpless nor entirely conniving.  She uses sex as a means to an end, but she is also an open and honest character on the whole, which creates a trusting relationship with the audience.  Though her actions toward the end of the movie are reminiscent of a femme fatale, there is something guileless about her that allows the audience to forgive the double-crossing.
Because Patricia has this relationship with the audience, when she forms a connection with Michel the audience also feels this connection.  Before she comes on screen, the audience has no idea how to feel about him; even the editing is designed to confuse and disorient with its frequent cuts during his car theft and murder.  Once Patricia enters the story, the shots become longer and more coherent, cutting more frequently when she is conflicted about her feelings toward him.  Thus the audience takes its cues for its opinion on what should be an entirely unsympathetic character from a very sympathetic character in a complicated and indirect fashion.