The Birth Of Cool

In 1960, Jean-Luc Goddard introduced Jean-Paul Belmondo to audiences worldwide in "À bout de souffle".
Written by François Truffaut, the cinematic masterpiece follows Michel, a Bogart-and-Jazz loving petty thief who shoots dead a policeman after being pulled over on the side of the road.
On the run in Paris, Michel steals money from an old girlfriend, mugs a stranger in a restroom and finally looks up Patricia (the exquisite Jean Seberg), an american journalist he's drawn to who hawks the New-York Herald Tribune on the Champs-Elysees (which leads to the most brilliant, stylish and cinematic scene).

While Goddard stylized jumpcuts and led the way to the iconoclastic French New Wave, Belmondo embodied the spirit of it with his cocky attitude and bruising good looks.
He was imperturbable, irreverent and utterly modern.
Soon after, London started swinging, The Beatles wore their classic, fashionable (and still up-to-date) swanky suits and a whole fashion-obsessed subculture was born, watching French and Italian films in search of the hedonistic cult of the hyper-cool.