Photo: Getty Images1/8Brigitte Bardot, Contempt, 1963
Brigitte Bardot always exuded a perfect blend of innocence and sex, often complimented by sweeping cat-eyes, big hair, and glossy, plump lips—especially in Contempt, which was about a Hollywood couple and their failing marriage.
Photo: Getty Images2/8Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina, 1960
The Denmark-born Anna Karina, who hitchhiked to Paris at age 17 only to be scouted shortly thereafter, married Godard and went on to star in much of his earlier work, including the playful Bande à Part. Despite being the city’s It couple in the 1960s, their relationship unraveled due to drugs and adultery.
Photo: AP Images3/8Jean Seberg, Breathless, 1960
For Godard’s first feature-length film, one that brought him to the Cannes Film Festival for the first time at age 29, Seberg played an American in Paris; her short pixie haircut, though blonde, is reminiscent of a young Winona Ryder.
Photo: Everett Collection4/8Macha Méril, A Married Woman, 1964
The French actress and writer, not to mention former princess, rocked a bob in Godard’s 1964 film A Married Woman, which was about an insecure girl named Charlotte who jumped between her husband and her lover.
Photo: Everett Collection5/8Anne Wiazemsky, La Chinoise, 1967
Wiazemsky was still a wide-eyed student, with brunette bangs hitting at the brow, when she first met Godard and starred in his 1967 film about young Parisian Maoists, La Chinoise. The two married later that year.
Photo: Everett Collection6/8Marina Vlady, Two or Three Things I Know About Her. . ., 1967
In one of Godard’s most radical films, a bare faced, high-browed Vlady, with long lengths parted down the middle, portrayed a day in the life (cooking, cleaning, shopping) of an actress named–wait for it–Marina Vlady. His version of a narrative documentary filmmaker would come to mirror the reality TV shows we love to bingse today.
Photo: Getty Images7/8Mireille Darc, Weekend, 1967
Darc, a mainstream French TV actress with a tucked-away short blonde bob, portrayed a wife with a wandering eye in the black comedy Weekend.
Photo: Getty Images8/8Juliet Berto, Le Gai Savoir, 1969
Berto, with her skinny brows, plump lips, and fringed brown lengths, was mainstay in the French New Wave, and starred in three of Godard’s films, including Le Gai Savoir, which was about two students amid the Vietnam War who contemplate the purpose of life.
