The only actor Robert Pattinson called “cooler than Bogart”
From teen idol to emerging talent to an established actor in both blockbusters and arthouse projects, Robert Pattinson has been on quite a career journey.
Given the number of highly acclaimed, auteur-led projects he’d been involved with in recent years, it’s hard to imagine a time when he was simply known as ‘that bloke from the vampire movies’.
Pattinson’s love of artsy movies was present long before he started making them. In a 2008 interview with Rotten Tomatoes, he went over some of his favourite films. Alongside One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and an entirely unexpected dumb comedy, R-Patz chose the 1983 French film Prénom Carmen. The movie was directed by the great Jean-Luc Godard, who quickly became the topic of conversation.
This discussion inevitably led to a discussion of Godard’s most revered picture – Breathless. Specifically, Pattinson wanted to talk about its lead actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo. He’s a big fan, describing how there was no point in trying to emulate his mannerisms, because there’d be no way to eclipse his coolness. When the interviewer had the gall to suggest that Belmondo was just copying Humphrey Bogart, the Englishman went into battle mode.
“He’s cooler than Bogart!” he exclaimed. “Another film, Pierrot le Fou – I did everything from those movies. These stupid, random things, like when he says, ‘Can I get two beers?’ And she’s like, ‘Why?’ ‘I want to have one when I finish the other one.’ I was like, ‘That’s so cool! I have to do that all the time!’ There’s this stupid thing from Arizona Dream, with Vincent Gallo and Johnny Depp, where Vincent Gallo does this thing, ‘Two shots, two beers.’ So every time I buy drinks, I go ‘Two shots, two beers!’ I love that film so much.”
Pierrot le Fou was also directed by Godard. Belmondo plays a man who, having grown tired of his average life, goes on the run with a woman named Marianne (Anna Karina) as she is chased by hitmen. The film is right up there with Godard’s best, and routinely comes up in conversations of the best French movies (and movies in general) of all time. If you’re very alert, you can even spot a brief cameo from American director Samuel Fuller, who was a major influence on the Frenchman.
Belmondo worked with Godard on numerous projects in the late 1950s and 1960s. They first collaborated on a short film called Charlotte and Her Boyfriend, before joining him for his feature-length debut. Along with Pierrot le Fou, the two worked together again on the follow-up to Breathless, Une femme est une femme, which is another pillar of the French New Wave movement. Basically, whenever these two got together, something good happened.
The appreciation and knowledge Pattinson has for both Delmondo and Godard proves that he has a much deeper affection for cinema than a lot of people were willing to give him credit for in 2008. You wouldn’t expect the guy from Twilight to be all over a bunch of experimental French films from the 1960s, but the world is a very strange place.
