Solid actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, especially Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless”, died Monday at his home in Paris He was 88 years old.
His lawyer, Michel Godest, confirmed the death in an interview with the French television news channel BFM. No reason was given.
Like Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, and James Dean—three American actors with whom he is often compared—Mr. Belmondo has earned his reputation playing tough, unemotional, even antisocial characters who break with bourgeois society. Later, as one of France’s leading stars, she took on more crowded roles, but without giving up her magnetic arrogance altogether.
Like Bogart, Mr. Belmondo brought a realistic counterpoint to the classically more handsome romantic stars, with craggy features and a simmering rage on the screen. Like Dean, he became one of the most imitated pop culture figures of his era. And like Mr. Brando, he often ignored the pretentiousness and arrogance among filmmakers.
Eugene Archer wrote in The New York Times in 1965: “No actor since James Dean has inspired such intense identification. . Belmondo is a later manifestation of youthful rejection—and more disturbing. His separation from a society formed by his parents is complete. He accepts corruption with a mocking smile, not even bothering to struggle. He is completely on his own to get whatever he can get as long as possible. The Belmondo type can do anything.”
His lead role in “À bout de suuffle”, released in the US in 1961 under the name “Breathless”, was instantly considered a trendsetter, and subsequent imitators only reinforced its importance. Belmondo’s unruly hair, his way of looking at the world through a swirling web of cigarette smoke, and the way he obsessively massaged his thick, feminine lips with his thumb were so vivid and evocative that they quickly became signs of global revolt.
Mr. Belmondo was 28 years old and Mr. Godard was 26 when the movie “Breathless” was filmed. The film was based on an idea by François Truffaut, another icon of nouvelle obscurity, and began shooting in Paris without a script. Except for street scenes, where he sometimes mounted the camera on a borrowed wheelchair, Mr. Godard used a handheld camera and let everyone improvise. The resulting film was rough and unformed, but there was a sense of emotional honesty and truthfulness that made it electrifying. Many mainstream critics weren’t sure what to make of it.
Bosley Crowther wrote in The Times: “He goes to his unattractive subject matter in an eccentric photographic style that sharply conveys the tense pace and emotional disorganization of the story he tells. And through American actresses Jean Seberg and a hypnotically ugly new young man named Jean-Paul Belmondo. reflects two downright scary characters.”
Many critics found Mr. Belmondo’s amoral anti-hero a little too strong. Others, however, found a raw accuracy and thematic boldness in the role that contradicted most of what came out of Hollywood studios.
Mr. Belmondo quickly followed up on “Breathless” with a series of famous spins for other New Wave directors and was soon seen as the movement’s leading interpreter – telling interviewers in later years that he found some of his most intellectually ambitious endeavors. be boring
When she starred opposite Jeanne Moreau as a steelworker in director Peter Brooks’ “Moderato Cantabile” (1960), she said that Marguerite Duras’ script was too intellectual for her liking. Mr. Brooks has often expressed his ambivalence for esoteric directors such as Alain Resnais and Michelangelo Antonioni.
He played a Hungarian romantically involved with a Provençal family in Claude Chabrol’s “Double Tour” (1959), a young country priest in “Leon Morin, Priest” (1962), and helped lead actress Sophia Loren win an Academy Award. he did. In “Two Women” (1961) by Vittorio De Sica.
By the mid-60s, Mr. Belmondo was having trouble playing the young anti-hero in movie after movie.
“Most of the time, I would be out with a chick and some kids wanted to give me a bad time,” Mr. Belmondo told an interviewer. “I used to fight them. Same now. Everyone wants to say he flattened Belmondo.”
A full obituary will appear soon.