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French director Claude Lelouch first broke out internationally with 1966 romance A Man and a Woman, starring Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant as a widow and widower whose fledgling love story is held back by past personal tragedies.

Nearly 60 years later, the soundtrack by late composer Francis Lai – and in particular its title track, which is often referred to as ‘Chabadabada’ for its catchy refrain – remains as famous, if not more famous, than the Oscar and Cannes Palme d’Or-winning feature

That movie would mark the start of a 52-year, 35-picture collaboration between Lelouch and Lai, which was at the heart of a music-themed masterclass by Lelouch at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

The director is at the festival to receive the Cartier Glory To The Filmmaker Award as well as for the premiere of new work Finalement, starring an ensemble cast led by Kad Merad and also featuring Elsa Zylberstain,...

Above: detail from the Argentinian poster for Magnet of Doom. Artist unknown.Jean-Paul Belmondo, the great French movie star who died last week at the age of 88, had a marvelous face. He wasn’t a classic matinee idol like his friend and compatriot Alain Delon but with the combination of his soulful puppy-dog eyes, lopsided boxer’s nose, and luscious feminine lips he could play both hoodlums or heartthrobs (and in Breathless he played both at the same time). A classic tough guy best known outside France for art movies, he was initially synonymous with the angry alienation of the French New Wave and starred in films by Godard, Truffaut, Melville, Malle and Lelouch. But he could play comedy as well as action (he was renowned for doing his own stunts) and was for a while promoted as a French James Bond. By the ’70s and ’80s—when he was...

French New Wave cinema was full of memorable faces, but few were as instantly recognizable, timeless and just plain fucking cool as Jean-Paul Belmondo. The actor got his major break working opposite Jean Seberg in Jean-Luc Godard's sublime "Breathless" and from there, his star would rise. The 77-year-old actor has amassed an unbelievable resumé working with folks like Godard ("Pierrot le fou," "Une femme est une femme"), Jean-Pierre Melville ("Le doulos," "Leon Morin, Priest"), François Truffaut ("Mississippi Mermaid"), Claude Lelouch ("Les Misérables," "Itinerary Of A Spoiled Child," "Love Is A Funny Thing"), Alain Resnais ("Stavisky") and Vittorio de Sica ("Two…...