Tagged: Michel Poiccard
Belmondo in Breathless: Tweed in Marseille
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard in À bout de souffle (Breathless) (1960).
Vitals
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard, small-time car thief
Marseille, France, August 1959
Film: Breathless
(French title: À bout de souffle)
Release Date: March 16, 1960
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Background
Happy birthday, Bébel! Jean-Paul Belmondo was born 86 years ago today in Neuilly-sur-Seine, west of Paris. Following a brief career as an amateur boxer and his compulsory military service, Belmondo began acting in the mid-1950s and found international stardom after his performance in Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle (Breathless to English-speaking audiences), a seminal example of the burgeoning French New Wave cinematic movement.
Belmondo in Breathless: Camelhair Jacket in Paris
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard and Jean Seberg as Patricia Franchini strolling down the Champs-Élysées in an iconic scene from À bout de souffle (Breathless) (1960).
Vitals
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard, petty thief and killer on the run
Paris, August 1959
Film: Breathless
(French title: À bout de souffle)
Release Date: March 16, 1960
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Background
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard from an original treatment by François Truffaut, À bout de souffle (or Breathless to us Americans) marked a defining moment in the evolution of French New Wave cinema. The lanky, youthful, and energetic Jean-Paul Belmondo shot to cinematic stardom as he became the new face of French New Wave, a term to which he charmingly admitted his own ignorance to P.E. Schneider of New York Times Magazine.
In that 1961 piece, Schneider was profiling Belmondo for a piece called “A Punk With Charm,” referring to the actor’s role in Breathless as the Bogart-idolizing Michel Poiccard, a swaggering and sociopathic walking id. Continue reading