...and then there was this:

oldhollywood:

Anna Karina & Jean-Luc Godard, 1964

[Karina & Godard] set off for Switzerland to start work on Le petit soldat, which turned out to be one of the longest productions of his fast-moving career, “at least three months”. During this time, the chemistry developed: “I guess we were in love, but we were kind of looking at each other like animals…” She hesitates, amends: “Sweet animals.”

“At that time I was with somebody else, a painter. So one night, a friend was giving a party in Lausanne, not very far away from Geneva where we were filming, so we went there, me with my painter and all the crew, and we sat there and had dinner, and suddenly on my knee, there’s a hand. It was Jean-Luc. And he gives me a piece of paper in my hand, and he leaves the room. Well, I wanna see what’s in the paper, and I go into the next room, and there it’s written: ‘I love you, rendez-vous à minuit au Café de la Paix.’ Then my painter came into the room and said: ‘Give me it! He gave you something under the table, I saw it,’ and he starts to break my hand.”

She broke away, demanded to be driven back to Geneva, where she packed her bags. Her painter pleaded with her – “Why are you doing this to me?” “Because I love him…”. “I couldn’t help it, like. Totally hypnotised. It was like a coup de foudre… in slow motion. So I went to the café, and he was sitting there reading – I mean, pretending to read the newspaper – at midnight, you know! And after a while he said, ‘Ah, here you are. Shall we go?’ And we went to the hotel…” The next morning, Godard had vanished, but he came back shortly afterwards carrying a dress – the dress she was to wear in the film. “It was like a wedding dress…”

(via)