Alcyone Wemaëre 5:00 p.m., September 6, 2021
Key actor of the New Wave in the 1960s, Jean-Paul Belmondo, who died on Monday at the age of 88, chained popular successes during the following decades and largely conquered the hearts of the French.
French cinema is losing one of its greatest icons.
The ace of French cinema is no more.
Jean-Paul Belmondo died Monday at the age of 88 at his home, his lawyer told AFP.
For more than sixty years, the actor has been one of the great French stars of the seventh art.
From arthouse films in his debut to more popular cinema in the rest of his career, Jean-Paul Belmondo conquered the French with characters often endearing, cheeky and full of panache.
Sympathetic on screen as in life, "Bébel" said that fate had fulfilled him.
Back on the itinerary of this spoiled actor.
A child of the ball
Jean-Paul Belmondo was born in 1933 into a family of artists: his father, Paul Belmondo, was a renowned sculptor and his mother painted. At school, little Jean-Paul is a dunce who gets fired regularly. But the unruly student has many friends already. Playing football with his friends as a goalkeeper is what he likes. And then there are also family outings, to the theater and to the cinema. The teenager has found his vocation: he will be an actor.
Laboriously admitted to the Conservatory of Dramatic Art, Jean-Paul Belmondo was not favored by teachers.
His atypical physique and his relaxation do not fit well with the ambient classicism.
Under the pretext that he could not hold a woman in his arms without the audience bursting into laughter, he was relegated to the roles of valets.
Never awarded at the Conservatory, the jury will only grant him a simple accessit in 1955 despite the ovation of his classmates.
Carried in triumph by his band, he leaves the room, addressing a finger of honor to the jurors.
The breath of the New Wave
It was through another arm of honor, cinematographic this one, that Jean-Paul Belmondo rose to prominence in 1960. The scene that opens
Breathless
- the very first film that will reveal it to the general public - is, indeed, a nice snub to "papa's cinema". We can see Jean-Paul Belmondo, at the wheel of a car, addressing the viewer, facing the camera, telling him… "to fuck off".
In this emblematic New Wave film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Belmondo, facing Jean Seberg, shines with his naturalness and simplicity. This cinema which films "life as it is" suits him well. Breathless changes his: now everyone wants to shoot with him. He will be eternally grateful to the filmmaker for having chosen him for this film "without script" and shot in the street. "It was Godard who made me love cinema", he confided to
Liberation
in 1999. With
Pierrot le fou
, in 1965, JLG will give him another of his most beautiful roles, alongside Anna Karina this times.
Belmondo quickly established himself as one of the key players of his generation.
In
A monkey in winter
by Henri Verneuil, his partner is called Jean Gabin.
The dialogues are signed Michel Audiard.
“Kid, you're my twenties!” Gabin says to Belmondo in one of the scenes of the film.
The "Bébel" years
With
The Man from Rio
, signed Philippe Broca, Belmondo switches to another genre: the action film featuring a seductive and humorous hero. The film is a big public and critical success. Steven Spielberg will not hide his inspiration for his Indiana Jones saga. In this second part of the 1960s, Belmondo still alternated arthouse films and popular films: in 1969, for example, he was featured in
Le Cerveau
by Gérard Oury and
La Sirène du Mississippi
by François Truffaut. .
In the 1970s and 1980s, Belmondo turned mainly in films of pure entertainment: thrillers, comedies, adventure films ... With
La Scoumoune
,
Le Magnifique
,
L'Animal
,
Le Professionnel
and again
L'As des as
, he played box office success.
Criticism is more and more pouting.
In 1988, his performance in
Itinerary of a Spoiled Child
, a film by Claude Lelouch, earned him a César… which he refused to go looking for.
Stroke and controversial love affairs
In 2001, while in Corsica with his friend Guy Bedos, Belmondo was struck by a cerebrovascular accident (stroke). The Ace of Aces is difficult to recover. It is after this stroke that we see him more and more regularly on the front pages of celebrity magazines. He who had always fiercely protected his private life poses with "Natty", an ex-Coco girl married in 2002. The sultry Barbara Gandolfi will succeed him, causing the embarrassment of those around him.
Despite the mediatico-legal imbroglios, the Belmondo clan will always remain close to the patriarch. His son, Paul, and his daughter Florence, of course, but also lifelong friends: Jean-Pierre Marielle, Jean Rochefort, Pierre Vernier… Guest of Europe 1 on the occasion of the publication of his memoirs,
Mille vies worth better than one
, "Bébel" said to himself "born with morale": "My mother and my father always told me, 'if you have problems, you will conquer them', and I have always conquered."