Jean Paul Belmondo dies at 88
The French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo has died at 88.
Quite a few of the tributes to Belmondo call him “handsome.” That surprises me, because I never thought him handsome. He was something else – unique and compelling and magnetic. I didn’t see many films of his, and yet I knew his name, because for a while he was that famous. I did see “Breathless,” the film that had made him a star, but to me it wasn’t all that great.
The movie of his that I did see, and which I loved (and loved him in it), was one in which he had a much more atypical role: he played the sensitive young eye-glassed man who falls in love with Sophia Loren in “Two Women.” That film made a huge impression when I saw it in 1960 – in a movie theater, at an age I consider way too young to have seen it. I think I was taken by an aunt, but at any rate I went, and was terrified by the film while at the same time I thought it was a masterpiece.
I can’t find a video segment online from “Two Women” that highlights Belmondo, despite there being quite a few video compilations of his greatest roles. But I guess everyone has either forgotten that one or considered it dismissable; it’s certainly atypical for him. But this short trailer for the film does show a bit of him here and there:
I see now that Belmondo said this of his role in that film:
It may disappoint those who’ve got me typed,” said Belmondo. “But so much the better.
Well, it sure didn’t disappoint me. But then, I had no prior idea of who he was and I had no expectations.
Why was Belmondo playing an Italian in that movie? Well, he was actually half Italian, with an Italian father born in Algeria. And Belmondo came by his busted nose in the old-fashioned way, as an amateur boxer before he became an actor.
Here’s a video about Belmondo’s other films. It helps if you speak or understand French. I don’t:
RIP.
Actually, it was Belmondo’s father who was an Italian born in Algeria. He himself was born in a Paris suburb.
John Paul Belmondo and Mary Quant, got stoned to say the least (Sunny South Kensington, Donovan song)
ha–JimNorCal, exactly what popped into my mind. I don’t think I knew who either of them was at the time (age 18).
Neo, I’m also of the Not All That Great opinion about Breathless. Maybe if I’d seen it at the time I would have liked it, but since I was in at least my late ’50s when I first saw it I mostly saw sad and bad ’60s impulses at work. Nice to look at, though.
tcrosse:
Thanks, fixed.
Cartouche (1962) was a swash-buckler send-up, with Belmondo leading a merry band of bandits. It seems to have disappeared, but it was hilarious.
I’ve not seen Two Women. Two Women has Vittorio de Sica (the director) and Casare Zavatini as collaborators on the screenplay. Those two are masters of putting emotional content into films. Another very emotional example of their other work would be Umberto D.
I’ve never seen the famous Breathless and I was a little surprised to see the list of names involved in it.
Director
Jean-Luc Godard
Writers
François Truffaut (original scenario) Jean-Luc Godard(screenplay) Claude Chabrol (original scenario)
I knew it was a Godard film, but that’s a who’s who of the French “New Wave” film makers. Perhaps they were too busy breaking all the rules to be bothered with making a film with mass appeal.
I always liked Truffaut and Chabrol. Chabrol always seemed to approach the same over-arching theme, the French upper middle class, from different angles.
TommyJay:
I haven’t seen “Two Women” in many many years but I highly recommend it. Loren is extraordinary.
I never caught the fire for French art house films. I’ve never seen Belmondo except in the first “Casino Royale,” a totally mad film, which involved almost everyone in 60s cinema and I didn’t notice him.
Roger Ebert was quite keen on “Breathless”:
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Modern movies begin here, with Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” in 1960. No debut film since “Citizen Kane” in 1942 has been as influential. It is dutifully repeated that Godard’s technique of “jump cuts” is the great breakthrough, but startling as they were, they were actually an afterthought, and what is most revolutionary about the movie is its headlong pacing, its cool detachment, its dismissal of authority, and the way its narcissistic young heroes are obsessed with themselves and oblivious to the larger society.
There is a direct line through “Breathless” to “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Badlands” and the youth upheaval of the late 1960s. The movie was a crucial influence during Hollywood’s 1967-1974 golden age. You cannot even begin to count the characters played by Pacino, Beatty, Nicholson, Penn, who are directly descended from Jean-Paul Belmondo’s insouciant killer Michel.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-breathless-1960
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Almost makes me want to see it.
The Abq library has the Criterion version. I can touch base with it for free.
Neo, I’ll have to look it up. I found a copy on Plex. One of these days I’m going to drop either Amazon Prime or Netflix and do a Criterion Channel subscription.
TommyJay, neo:
Any relationship between “Two Women” and Robert Altman’s “3 Women”?
The latter was quite dream-like and disjointed. It struck me as something of a European film. Though I may be on the wrong track.
huxley:
No connection, as far as I know. “Two Women” is a realistic tale of a mother and young daughter in Italy during the war. It is harrowing, but Loren is a force of nature.
Has no one else here seen the film?
Two Women was not the feel-good film of 1961, but back then it was a must.
Well, that Ebert review (I only read what’s posted here) articulates what was only a sort of “bah humbug” reaction on my part to Breathless. “…its cool detachment, its dismissal of authority, and the way its narcissistic young heroes are obsessed with themselves and oblivious to the larger society.”
Right. Bah.
Said it before and will repeat ad infinitum, go watch Claude Lelouch’s 1995 reinterpretation of Les Misérables staring Belmondo. You won’t regret it.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a film with Belmondo in it and I’ve only seen a few ‘foreign’ films. That said, the original french 1978 La Cage aux Folles is IMO much superior to the remake, despite having Robin Williams.
But even I instantly recognized Belmondo’s name. I don’t think Belmondo was a handsome man either but he did have a quiet, self-effacing yet charismatic magnetism about him. Funny how some people hold your attention without bombastics or over the top histrionics.
Sophia Loren… wow what can be said? Larger than life just standing there.
Wow. My comment is getting deleted repeatedly. Let’s try this. There is a documentary about Italian films from this period. Recommended if you like foreign films. The film “Two Women” is included in the discussion.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0173772/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_35
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Voyage_to_Italy
RE: Robert Altman’s “Three Women”
No. No connection. This is relevant perhaps, or interesting:
Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) was a major influence on the project.
Robert Altman had a believer in the head of production at 20th Century Fox, Alan Ladd Jr.. He felt that he could indulge Altman’s offbeat projects, while the studio’s more commercial films like Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) would make up for any financial loss. Peter Biskind, author of “Easy Riders,” reports in his book that Altman and Tommy Thompson were driving to the airport, when Altman said, “Let’s stop at 20th. I had a dream last night, I want to sell it to Laddie. Keep the engine running, it’ll only take a minute.” Altman darted into Ladd’s office, made a deal for “3 Women,” and was back in the car in time to make his flight.
Robert Altman received a green light from 20th Century Fox without a finished screenplay – and with Altman’s express desire that he make the film without one.
Definitely one of the wild men of cinema.
TommyJay:
Altman was definitely coming out of left field — usually in a good way.
I recommend “3 Women.” I was excited when I saw it in the 70s. I was reading a lot about dreams and surrealism, so it was right up my alley. I was gratified to discover later I was right — the film had come out of a dream.
That said, it’s not your ordinary plot. Like “Persona” it involves two women (Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek) whose identities begin to overlap. However, for me “3 Women” was more organic than European avant-garde films. It made sense, albeit in a dream-logic.
IMDB seems to think Pierrot le Fou is one of Belmondo’s more important films, which I haven’t seen either. A couple things caught my eye. One is that the American director Samuel Fuller makes a cameo appearance as himself.
Trivia
Ferdinand reads, in his bath and later on the Riviera, Elie Faure’s history of art. Jean-Paul Belmondo is the son of classical sculptor Paul Belmondo and he and his siblings have opened a museum of their father’s works in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris.
One of Oliver Stone’s favorite films. As a young student activist, he saw it at least 30 times.
Film Quotes
Samuel Fuller: Film is like a battleground. There’s love, hate, action, violence, death… in one word: emotion.
I just started watching a Sam Fuller film last night called The Naked Kiss, made one year before Pierrot le Fou. If you are interested in exactly what Fuller was talking about in his quote, you should check out the first 90 seconds of that film. Oh my!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_yHcVUdbSI
I saw La Ciociara about 55 years ago in my village in Portugal. Sophia Loren’s character was so powerful that I had completely forgotten that Belmondo was in the movie too.
On the other hand, I never had much interest in the French “nouvelle vague”, while I appreciate the freshness and originality of directors like Rohmer, Téchiné and Ozon.
“Two Women” used to be shown quite often in the 1960s on “Million Dollar Movie” then disappeared for a while but I found it several times on YouTube and saw it on some Independent Film Networks. The scene you are referencing was the violent rape of Sophia Loren and her daughter Eleanora Brown inside an abandoned church by Moroccan soldiers of the French Army in Italy. Sadly the North African solders were notorious for doing that, particularly during the Monte Cassino campaign of 1944. Italian women who suffered the ordeal were said to be Morrachinated.
Handsome in a prototypically French way.
Handsome is a funny word.
Belmondo is not handsome like Cary Grant — classic masculine features near perfection. Belmondo is handsome like Humphrey Bogart — symmetrical features arranged in a striking, attractive way.
huxley:
People can be very attractive indeed without being handsome. In fact, some non-handsome people are far more attractive than some handsome people.
Nevertheless, “handsome” means something, and Belmondo was not that something.
neo:
Belmondo (and Bogart) register as handsome to me.
What definition of handsome are you using?
huxley:
Neither register as handsome to me. Both register as attractive. For both, part of their attractiveness is personality. But they are not the least bit handsome to my way of thinking, and the definition I use has to do with the very conventional definition that includes even features arranged harmoniously.
Good examples of “handsome” would be people such as Paul Newman, extraordinarily handsome guy. He was also very attractive which is not the same thing. Another example of “handsome” is Brad Pitt, whom I don’t find attractive. For me the two things are very different. Steve McQueen was a guy of extreme attractiveness (to me) but not quite handsome. Gary Cooper was an interesting case – very handsome when young (and very attractive as well), later somewhat less handsome but even more attractive.
Your mileage may differ.
“That Man From Rio” is a mad thousand mile an hour rush. Francoise Dorleac is also wonderful.
Handsome is as handsome does.
I nominate Christopher “Superman” Reeve and Gene Kelly.
Or CR in “Noises Off” if you prefer.