EDIT of September 6, 2021: Jean-Paul Belmondo died on Monday at his home in Paris at the age of 88. Sacred monster of French cinema, “Bébel” has appeared in 80 films and leaves behind unforgettable roles. Here are the favorite films of the culture department of 20 minutes, available since 2020 on Netflix.
Tou Doum and Toc toc badaboum… As of this Sunday, around fifteen films with Bébel join the Netflix catalog. The ace of aces, The misfit, Cartridge, Cops and robbers appear in this “Jean-Paul Belmondo Collection” and are added to Pierrot le fou Where Breathless already available on the platform for several months. A perfect pretext to dive back into the actor’s filmography, by seeing cult films again (The professional, The magnificent…) and discovering the most unknown Stavisky (total flop when it comes out) or The body of my enemy… And because we all have a favorite Bébel, the journalists from the culture department of 20 minutes take the opportunity to dive back into their memories and deliver their viewing recommendations.
“” The Professional “, a moving film”
Benjamin Chapon, head of the culture and media department of 20 minutes : “ the professional, it is above all great music by Ennio Morricone. Oh yes,
that of the Royal Canin ad the ? Good, the professional, it is above all a great scenario signed Jacques Audiard. Oh yes, the story all blown up Count of Monte Cristo at the time of Françafrique? Alright, anyway the professional, it is above all a great Belmondo. Ha yes, is it good with this film that he was not even nominated for the Caesar? Short, the professional it’s a great adventure film like we don’t do anymore.
We’re not going to pretend we’re not spoiling. The film has become cult because in the end, the hero in the spotlight, after taking revenge, is killed with a burst of submachine gun in the back. This scene, filmed in a backward tracking shot from a chopper, closes a cold film, with a silent hero and an ultra-rigorous staging. And yet, it upsets this end. I even know some who cried.
Here is, the professional, it is above all a moving film. “
“A” Magnificent “balance between action and self-mockery”
Caroline Vié, cinema journalist : “I owe to Gorgeous many laughs and a scar on his forehead. Rarely has Jean-Paul Belmondo (with whom I was very much in love but I was 9 years old) has found such a beautiful balance between action and self-mockery than in this comedy in which he seduces Jacqueline Bisset. The staging of Philippe de Broca, who co-signed a clever screenplay with Jean-Paul Rappeneau and Francis Veber, mixes reality and fiction like the appearance of the housekeeper of the hero writer in the middle of the shooting that he writes. I did the same by opening my head on the steps of the metro at the exit of the screening, no doubt to reproduce the delusional scene where blood flows freely in a staircase in the film. “
The seventies charm of “Peur sur la ville”
Fabien Randanne, culture and television journalist: “The memory goes back to the time of the Sunday Cinema on TF1, in the early 1990s. I was not 10 years old, too young to meet the disturbing Minos on the screen. This serial killer was spreading the Fear over the city, giving its title to the film by Henri Verneuil. Jean-Paul Belmondo played the investigator after him, never paralyzed by the jitters. I have not escaped the collective fascination generated by his crawling on the roofs of Galeries Lafayette or the metro.
I saw the film again about fifteen years ago. The dread had dissipated, but the charm remained intact. The intrigue woven into the Parisian geography fed my fantasized vision of the capital where I ended up settling. When I joined 20 minutes, the editorial staff was on Boulevard Haussmann: I found myself surveying the sets of the film, the seventies aesthetic of the Auber station not seeming to have moved from an orange tiled floor. At the same time, I discovered
the giallo, that sub-genre of Italian cinema from the 1970s. I devoured these thrillers where the murderers are leather-gloved and the crimes stylized. As in Fear over the city, clearly under transalpine influence. “
The impossible love story of “Léon Morin priest”
Anne Demoulin, culture and series journalist : “A pas de deux where everything can waver!” Léon Morin priest, adaptation of the Prix Goncourt by Béatrix Beck in 1952, follows the story of the impossible love between Barny (Emmanuelle Riva), a young communist widow and a handsome resistant priest (Jean-Paul Belmondo). Barny visits him every evening and engages in heated debates on faith and the call to God. From the gate of a confessional to a ray of light that divides the room through the railing of a staircase, the breathtaking staging of Jean-Pierre Melville constantly reminds them that any physical rapprochement is forbidden to them. The heroes’ inner struggle is replayed on a large scale in the historical context of the film, namely the German Occupation, with its small cowardice, its daily worries and its terrible sorrows. Melville meets Belmondo for the first time on the set ofBreathless where the filmmaker makes a cameo out of friendship for Godard. He goes to the set of La Ciociara by Vittorio De Sica to convince the actor, initially reluctant, to don the cassock. With good reason, Jean-Paul Belmondo, completely inhabited, signs in this funny, spiritual work and tinged with feminism his most beautiful performance. “