In Two Men in Manhattan, a cigarette pack carelessly thrown on a bed was Godard's brand (Boyards); Godard returned the tip-of-the-hat in Breathless, and moreover signalled his admiration for Melville and Bob-le-Flambeur by casting Melville as the writer Parvulesco who is interviewed by Jean Seberg. (He played it like Nabakov: "subtle, pretentious, pedantic, naive.") One almost has to see Breathless's homage to/parody of the American thriller as filtered through Melville's. Russell Merritt called Breathless "the outlaw artifact of the nouvelle vague. In Breathless, Godard captured the spirit of a disillusioned generation and fashioned a style-a melange of past movies, books, jump-cuts, film noir posters and postcards-to parade that disillusionment. The theme of the film, like the essence of its driven hero, is precisely the futile struggle to be original 'in the manner of something or someone else.' The notion of individuality and of forthrightness is as American as the movies, and as fully processed."