from
Fritz Göttler and Tobias Kniebe
It was actually a chance encounter on the street that started Jean-Paul Belmondo’s world fame, but it didn’t get off to a good start. He was approached by a young hipster named Jean-Luc Godard, and as Belmondo writes in his memoirs, he made the mistake of not taking off his sunglasses: “I felt like tearing off his glasses and stepping into the gully.” Belmondo noted “neglected style”, “terrible cigarettes”, “linguistic indolence” and the “impression of a mourning dump”. And then this offer! “Come to my hotel room,” said Godard. “We’re making a film and you get 50,000 francs for it.”