Thoughts on Jean Seberg?

Love her particularly in Breathless and Lilith but I actually love her for what she represents to me, she is very much connected to the way I view American film and culture even. The notion of the "failure" is crucial to America in one way and in another it doesn't exist - we're a success culture.

But failure, artistically and culturally, is in many ways the national consciousness and always has been. See, we don't "have" to talk failure, why talk about an obscure artist when you have ___________? But in every Art form in America - EVERY one, it's the failures, the pushed aside, the looked over, that shape their Art form regardless of what the form is.

Jean Seberg is that American actress far more than her work or physical allure - it's the idea that America raised her to stardom first and cast her aside and an entire other culture raised her back......there's real beauty in that and that it happened when it did, in Breathless, in the dawn of the exploding American actress era (and film era). Of course her story and how it ends is a sad story, how could it not be, but it is distinctly beautifully American.

Much of my favorite Art period is represented by this idea - the "failure" and in what she went through.........she's like a touchstone figure to me in that way.