Jean-Luc Godard (1930-2022)

French film director and screenwriter Jean-Luc Godard (1930) passed away today, 13 September 2022. He was one of the most important members of the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave). Godard first received global acclaim for his feature À bout de souffle/Breathless (1959), helping to establish the New Wave movement. Godard's films have inspired many directors including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Altman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wong Kar-wai. He has been married twice, to actresses Anna Karina and Anne Wiazemsky, both of whom starred in several of his films.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjerberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 6100. Photo: Robert Lebeck / Combi Press, Amsterdam. Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard in Berlin, 1961. The couple was in Berlin for the presentation of Godard's third feature film Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961) at the 11th Berlin International Film Festival. For her role in this film, Karina won the festival's Silver Bear award for Best Actress.


French postcard by Éditions Hazan, Paris, 1996. Photo: Raymond Depardon / Magnum. Caption: Jean Seberg and Jean-Luc Godard after the shooting of À bout de souffle.


French postcard by Editions Cahiers du Cinéma, Paris, 1997. Photo: Traverso. Caption: Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard, Festival de Cannes 1963.


French postcard in the Collection Magie Noire by Éditions Hazan, Paris, 1994, no. 6430. Photo: Bruno Barbey / Magnum Photos. Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, 1970.


French postcard by La Cinémathèque française. Photo: Georges Pierre. Caption: Jean-Luc Godard, photo of the shooting of Pierrot le Fou, 1965.


French postcard in the Collection Magie Noire by Éditions Hazan, Paris, 1988, no. 6077. Photo: Pierre-Olivier Deschamps / Agence Vu, Paris. Caption: Jean-Luc Godard, Mai 86.

Breaking with many then prevailing conventions

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris in 1930. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from a preeminent family of Swiss bankers. The family returned to Switzerland during World War II.

In 1949 he started studying ethnology at the Sorbonne. During this period he got to know François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Éric Rohmer. In 1950 he started a film newspaper 'Gazette du cinéma' with Rivette and Rohmer and collaborated on their films. In January 1952 he started writing for the film magazine 'Les Cahiers du cinéma', which had been founded the year before by André Bazin.

In 1953 he worked as a construction worker at a dam in Switzerland. With the money he earned, he made his first film, Opération Béton/Operation Concrete, a short documentary film about the construction of the dam. In 1956 he returned to France and resumed his work at Cahiers. During that time he made several short comedies and tributes to Mack Sennett and Jean Cocteau.

In 1959 he directed his first feature film, À bout de souffle/Breathless (1960), based on a screenplay by François Truffaut. This film played a key role in the birth of the Nouvelle Vague. It broke with many then prevailing conventions, with its references, influences from the American (gangster) film, the low budget, and the rough editing.

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg starred and the film was a huge success with audiences and critics. Godard won the Silver Bear for this film at the Berlin Film Festival 1960. Jean Seberg was nominated for a BAFTA Award. That year Godard also married Anna Karina, who would appear in many of his films. In 1964 they formed a production company, Anouchka Films. They divorced in 1965.


French postcard in the Collection Cinéma series by Editions Art & Scène, Paris, no. CF 29, 1995. Photo: Raymond Cauchetier, 1959. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in A bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).


French postcard in the Collection Cinéma series by Editions Art & Scene, Paris, no. CF 83, 1995. Photo: Raymond Cauchetier, 1959. Jean-Paul Belmondo in A bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960). In the background: the French poster for the American film Ten Seconds to Hell (Robert Aldrich, 1959). The caption translates as 'Right up close to Satan' comes very close.


French postcard by Editions Art & Scene, no. CF 98, 1996. Photo: R. Cauchetier. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in A bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).


French postcard by Éditions Art & Scène, no. CF 107, 1996. Photo: R. Cauchetier. Jean Seberg in À bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).


British postcard by Pyramid, Leicester. French poster for À bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).


French postcard in the Collection Cinéma by Editions Art & Scene, Paris, no. CF 102, 1996. Photo: R. Cauchetier. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina and Jean-Claude Brialy in Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961).

Making political films political

In 1961 Jean-Luc Godard made his first colour film, the comedy Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (1961) starring Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy, and Jean-Paul Belmondo. It is a tribute to American musical comedy, filmed in cinemascope. Godard proved to be very productive during those years.

His first flop, the war film Les Carabiniers/The Carabineers (1963), was a tribute to Jean Vigo. That year he also made one of his greatest successes, Le Mépris/Contempt (1963) with Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, and Fritz Lang.

Then followed Bande à part/Band of Outsiders (1964) with Anna Karina and Samy Frey, Pierrot le fou/Crazy Pierrot (1965) with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, and the Science-Fiction film Alphaville/Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution (1965) with Eddie Constantine. The film won the Golden Bear award of the 15th Berlin International Film Festival in 1965. Other films from those years were Masculin, feminin (1966) with Jean-Pierre Léaud, and Week-end (1967) with Mireille Darc.

Around the student uprisings of 1968, Godard became interested in Maoism. At that time he started an experimental political phase, which lasted until 1980. In the summer of 1968, together with Jean-Pierre Gorin, among others, he founded the Dziga Vertov Group, which wanted to make "political films political".

Some films from that time are Le Gai Savoir (1968), Pravda and One Plus One/Sympathy for the Devil (1968), the latter of which includes a unique recording of the studio build-up by the Rolling Stones of the classic 'Sympathy for the Devil'. In 1972 he made Tout va bien (1972), with Jane Fonda and Yves Montand in the lead roles, followed by Letter to Jane, a film about a photograph of Jane Fonda, which Gorin and Godard discuss. In 1972 he also met Anne-Marie Miéville, his later wife, with whom he made many films. This phase ended in 1980.


Dutch postcard by Hafbo film, no. 162. Anna Karina in Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961).


French postcard. French poster for Vivre sa vie/My Life to Live (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962).


French postcard in the Collection Cinéma series by Editions Art & Scène, Paris, no. CF 101, 1996. Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli in Le Mépris(Jean-Luc Godard, 1963).


French postcard by BS, no. 31, 2005. French poster for Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) starring Brigitte Bardot. Poster design: Pierre Okley, 1963.


French postcard, no. 5979. Reproduction of French poster for Le Mépris/Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) starring Brigitte Bardot. Poster design: G. Allard.


French postcard in the Collection Cinémathèque Suisse by CVB Publishers. French poster for Une femme mariée/A Married Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964).


French postcard by La Cinémathèque Française. Photos: DR / Georges Pierre. Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina during the shooting of Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965).


French postcard by La Cinémathèque française, no. CF 5006, 1998. Photo: UGC Da International. Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965).

Dismissed as blasphemy by the Catholic Church

After twelve years of low budget, militant left-wing, and otherwise experimental film and video projects outside of commercial distribution, Jean-Luc Godard's first film that was more mainstream and accessible again was the drama Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Every Man for Himself (1980) with Isabelle Huppert, Jacques Dutronc, and Nathalie Baye.

His films after that time are more autobiographical. For example, in Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Every Man for Himself there was a character named Godard. In 1982 and 1983 he made three related films Passion (1982), Prénom Carmen (1983) and Je vous salue, Marie (1984). The latter film was dismissed as blasphemy by the Catholic Church.

The film King Lear (1987), which he made with Norman Mailer, also caused controversy. It was a bizarre postmodern take on the Shakespeare play, with theatre director Peter Sellars as a descendant of Shakespeare, Burgess Meredith as the mobster Don Learo, Jean-Luc Godard as the professor, and Woody Allen as a character called Mr. Alien. Not entirely coincidentally, Mr. Alien was also nicknamed Jean-Luc Godard.

From 1989 to 1998, he made the series Histoire(s) du Cinéma, about the twentieth century and the history of film. His most recent film was the avantgarde essay Le Livre d'image/The Image Book (2018).

Jean-Luc Godard passed away in 2022 in Rolle, Switzerland. He was 91.


French postcard by La Cinémathèque française. Photo: Georges Pierre. Jean-Paul Belmondo in Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965).


French postcard in the Collection Cinémathèque Suisse by CVB Publishers. French poster for Pierrot le fou/Pierrot Goes Wild (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965).


French postcard by Editions Le Malibran, Saint-Dié, no. CF 30. Photo: Georges Pierre. Anna Karina in Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965). Photography: Raoul Coutard.


French postcard in the Collection Cinémathèque Suisse by CVB Publishers. French poster for Alphaville: une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution/Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965).


Swiss postcard by CVB Publishers / News Productions, no. 56935. Photo: Collection Cinémathèque Suisse. Reproduction of French poster for Masculin féminin (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966). Caption: the sex and youth of today's France.


French postcard in the Collection Cinémathèque Suisse by CVB Publishers. French poster for Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle/Two or Three Things I Know About Her (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967).


Swiss postcard by CVB Publishers, no. 56936. Photo: Collection Cinémathèque Suisse. Reproduction of Franco-Italian poster for Week-end (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967).


Swiss postcard by CVB Publishers. no. 57132. Photo: Collection Cinémathèque Suisse. Reproduction of French poster for Tout va bien/Just Great (Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972).


Vintage postcard by News Productions, Baulmes & Stroud / Filmwelt, Berlin, no. 56528. Photo: Collection Cinémathéque Suisse, Lausanne. Anna Baldaccini and Isabelle Huppert in Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Every Man for Himself (Jean-Luc Godard, 1980).


French postcard by La Cinémathèque française, no. CF 5009, 1998. Photo: UGC DA International. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in A bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.

Jean-Paul Belmondo (1933-2021)

'Bébel' has died today, 6 September 2021, in Paris. Jean-Paul Belmondo (1933-2021) was a big comedy and action star in France from the mid-1960s till the mid-1980s, but he was initially associated with the Nouvelle Vague, the French New Wave of the 1960s. Despite his unconventional looks, including a broken nose, he was often polled as one of the sexiest men in the world. For nearly 50 years Belmondo remained one of the most popular and best-loved personalities in France. He was 88.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 328. Photo: Sam Lévin.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/345. Photo: Gérard Decaux.


Italian postcard in the series Artisti di sempre by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 355.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 77. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine/Chinese Adventures in China (Philippe de Broca, 1965).

Bébel

Jean-Paul Belmondo was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, in 1933. He was the son of Paul Belmondo, a sculptor of Sicilian descent.

Young Jean-Paul did not perform well at school but developed a passion for boxing before he decided that his future lay in acting. After a number of attempts, he finally gained admittance to the Paris Conservatoire in 1952, although his tutors were not overly optimistic about his prospects. It was here that he acquired the nickname 'Bébel'.

In the mid-1950s, he appeared in a few theatrical productions, often to great acclaim, before beginning a film career in 1956 with Les Copains du dimanche/The Sunday Friends (Henry Aisner, 1956-1958). The film was never played in public cinemas though and his episodes in À pied, à cheval et en voiture/On Foot, on Horse, and on Wheels (Maurice Delbez, 1957) were even cut before release.

Soon bigger roles followed in the spoof thriller Sois Belle et Tais-Toi/Be Beautiful But Shut Up (Marc Allégret, 1957) - his first co-starring role with Alain Delon, the hit Les Tricheurs/The Cheaters (Marcel Carné, 1958) and À double tour/Web of Passion (Claude Chabrol, 1959) with Madeleine Robinson.

It was in 1958 that the 25-year-old Belmondo attracted the attention of a former critic turned filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. The latter was impressed by the actor’s spontaneity and cast him first in a quirky short, Charlotte et son Jules (1959).


Dutch postcard by SYBA, no. 44/364.


French postcard in the Collection Cinéma series by Editions Art & Scene, Paris, no. CF 83, 1995. Photo: Raymond Cauchetier, 1959. Jean-Paul Belmondo in A bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).


French postcard by Editions Art & Scene, no. CF 98, 1996. Photo: R. Cauchetier. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in A bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).


French postcard in the Collection Cinéma by Editions Art & Scene, Paris, no. CF 102, 1996. Photo: R. Cauchetier. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina and Jean-Claude Brialy in Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961).


French postcard by La Cinémathèque Française. Photos: DR / Georges Pierre. Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina during the shooting of Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965).


French postcard by La Cinémathèque Française. Photo: Georges Pierre. Jean-Paul Belmondo in Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965).

Breathless

Stardom came in 1959 when Jean-Paul Belmondo took the lead role of a sympathetic gangster in Godard’s landmark feature debut A Bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).

At AllMovie, Lucia Bozzola writes: "Belmondo perfectly embodied the cool youthful rebellion guiding Godard's trailblazing cinematic style, rendering Belmondo the Gallic James Dean and heir apparent to Michel Simon and Jean Gabin." This film launched not just Belmondo’s film career but also the 'Nouvelle Vague', the New Wave of the French cinema.

Belmondo would play a major part in the Nouvelle Vague during the early 1960s with roles in Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961) and Pierrot le fou/Pierrot Goes Wild (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965).

Besides these classics he also acted in a stream of other excellent films: Classe tous risques/The Big Risk (Claude Sautet, 1960) with Lino Ventura, Moderato cantabile/Seven Days... Seven Nights (Peter Brook, 1960), La Ciociara/Two Women (Vittorio De Sica, 1960) with Sophia Loren, and La Viaccia/The Lovemakers (Mauro Bolognini, 1961) with Claudia Cardinale.

He played a priest in the dark World War II drama Léon Morin, prêtre/Leon Morin, Priest (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1961). Very popular was the Swashbuckler Cartouche (Philippe de Broca, 1962) again with Cardinale. In Un singe en hiver/A Monkey in Winter (Henri Verneuil, 1962) he appeared with Jean Gabin. All that and the two films he made with Jean-Pierre Melville, Le Doulos/The Fingerman (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1962) and L’Aîné des Ferchaux/An Honorable Young Man (1963), which became modern classics of the Film Noir.


West-German postcard by Kolibri / Friedrich W. Sander-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2326. Photo: Gloria-Film. Jean-Paul Belmondo in Lettere di una novizia/Letters by a Novice (Alberto Lattuada, 1960).


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha, no. S 125/5, 1966. Photo: Eleonora Brown and Jean-Paul Belmondo in La ciociara/Two Women (Vittorio De Sica, 1960).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2442, 1965. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Échappement libre/Backfire (Jean Becker, 1964).


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 1087.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden-Westf., no. 1334.


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 559.

Mainstream

With L’homme de Rio/That Man from Rio (Philippe de Broca, 1964), Jean-Paul Belmondo switched to commercial, mainstream productions and became a big comedy and action star in France. During the production of their next hit comedy Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine/Chinese Adventures in China (Philippe de Broca, 1965), Belmondo fell in love with his co-star Ursula Andress.

Following the example of Alain Delon, he founded his own production company, Cerito Films, which produced around a dozen of his films over the next decade. Until the mid-1980s, his typical characters were either dashing adventurers or more cynical heroes in such films as Cent mille dollars au soleil/Greed in the Sun (Henri Verneuil, 1964) with Lino Ventura, Le Voleur/The Thief (Louis Malle, 1967), La Sirène du Mississipi/Mississippi Mermaid (Francois Truffaut, 1969) with Catherine Deneuve, Borsalino (Jacques Deray, 1970) opposite Alain Delon, and Stavisky... (Alain Resnais, 1974).

Returning to his athletic roots, Belmondo became renowned for doing his own stunts as well as for his charming screen presence in such action films like the James Bond parody Le Magnifique/The Magnificent One (Philippe de Broca, 1973) with Jacqueline Bisset, L'Animal/The Beast (Claude Zidi, 1977) with Raquel Welch, and Le Professionnel/The Professional (Georges Lautner, 1981).

Belmondo was one of France's biggest box-office stars of his time. He ceased to perform all the stunts himself after an accident during the filming of Hold-Up (Alexandre Arcady, 1985) with Kim Cattrall. He made a spectacular return to the theatre in 1987, appearing in 'Kean'.In the following decades, he continued to perform on stage to great acclaim, whilst simultaneously pursuing his film career.


German collectors card, no. 76. Jean-Paul Belmondo in Cartouche (Philippe de Broca, 1962).


Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 125/6, 1966. Jean Gabin and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Un Singe en Hiver/A Monkey in Winter (Henri Verneuil, 1962).


Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 481. Photo: Jean Rochefort, Ursula Andress and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine/Up to His Ears (Philippe de Broca, 1965).


Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Ursula Andress and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine/Up to His Ears (Philippe de Broca, 1965).


French postcard in the Collection Magie Noire by Éditions Hazan, Paris, no. 6247, 1991. Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo in La Sirène du Mississipi/Mississippi Mermaid (François Truffaut, 1969).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon in Borsalino (Jacques Deray, 1970).

No César

Jean-Paul Belmondo later preferred mostly dramatic roles. In 1989 he was awarded the César for his performance in Itinéraire d'un enfant gâté/The Lion (Claude Lelouch, 1988). He refused to take the trophy because César, the sculptor who designed the award and gave it his name, had once expressed bad opinions about the work of his father.

Another popular dramatic film was Les Misérables (Claude Lelouch, 1995). Jean-Paul Belmondo married twice. In 1953, he married dancer Élodie Constantin, with whom he had three children: Patricia (1958), Florence (1960), and Paul (1963). Paul became a Formula One driver; his eldest daughter Patricia was killed in a fire in 1994.

In 1966, due to the well-publicised affair between Belmondo and Ursula Andress, Belmondo and his wife divorced. Later he had a long relationship with Italian actress Laura Antonelli. In 1989, he met Nathalie Tardivel who was 24 years old at the time. Belmondo married her in 2002. In 2003, at the age of 70, his fourth child Stella was born. In 2008, Belmondo and Tardivel divorced.

In 2001, he suffered a stroke and for years he was absent from stage and screen. In 2007 he became 'Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur' (Commander of the Legion of Honour), France’s highest accolade.

The last film in which he starred was Un homme et son chien/A Man and His Dog (Francis Huster, 2009), a remake of the classic Umberto D (Vittorio De Sica, 1952). It was not well-received.

In 2011, the Cannes Film Festival paid tribute to him by giving him a special Palme d’Or to commemorate his exceptional body of work. Since then he appeared in some documentaries on his work, including Belmondo ou le goût du risque (Jérôme Wybon, 2017).


East-German postcard by Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 105/77.


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, lei 2.


French postcard by Combier, Macon in the Series Les geants du cinema, no. 1. Illustration: Jean-Pierre Gillot.


French autograph card. Photo: B. Charlon.


French autograph card. Photo: Sonneville.


French postcard in the 'Les acteurs français vus par Solo' series by Editions F. Loubatières, Toulouse, no. 6. Illustration: Solo.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 160. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Sources: Lucia Bozzola (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), Wikipedia, and IMDb.