19 - JEAN SEBERG AND JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO

JEAN SEBERG AND JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO Scene from Jean-Luc Godard’s film *Breathless*, 1959. Photograph, vintage silver print, captioned and annotated on the back. 13 x 18.5 cm. Small tear in one corner and a paperclip mark. Note: In *Breathless*, Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature film, Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Michel Poiccard, a young delinquent fascinated by Humphrey Bogart who is on the run after killing a police officer. Having taken refuge in Paris, he meets Patricia Franchini, an American student played by Jean Seberg, who sells the *New York Herald Tribune* on the Champs-Élysées and dreams of becoming a journalist. Amid a mix of nonchalance, attraction, and mistrust, their relationship leads to betrayal and ultimately to Michel’s death. Filmed on the streets of Paris with a lightweight camera, using natural light, and marked by Cécile Decugis’s jarring editing, the film breaks with classic narrative conventions. Released in 1960, it became a seminal work of the French New Wave and established Jean-Paul Belmondo as a star.