The Death of Le Samourai, Alain Delon

My first contact with the impossibly handsome iconic French actor Alain Delon, was of all things an Italian film–Rocco and his Brothers from 1960, directed by the great Luchino Visconti. I was having a terrible bout with insomnia, so I cued up the Criterion Channel to look for something I knew of but had not seen. Being a boxing aficionado and a Visconti fan, Rocco and his Brothers jumped right out at me. To my surprise (and I shouldn’t have been surprised), while the film certainly had a significant boxing element to it, Rocco and his Brothers gives its true nature away in its title. This is a film about tragedy. About a poor rural family attempting to change their fortunes in Milan. Rocco and his Brothers is an extraordinary film, and much of the picture rests on the character of Rocco, played by Alain Delon, who had no trouble showcasing his ability to do so.

Delon doubled down on that success with Purple Noon, the first film made from the novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” The source material has been adapted many times since. Most notably by Wim Wenders in The American Friend, Anthony Minghella in The Talented Mr. Ripley, and this year’s Ripley as a limited series on Netflix starring Andrew Scott. All three versions are well worth seeing, but Delon got there first, and while his template may have tamped down on certain aspects of Ripley’s character, Delon is still quite wonderful in the film. Purple Noon was a huge hit overseas, and at that point, Delon was off and running.

I got back and forth on my favorite Delon film, but Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse from 1962 is always in the conversation. Following L’Aventura, and La Notte, Antonioni’s L’Eclisse is the final film of a three-picture trilogy about the inability for people, even lovers, to connect. While most understandably turn to L’Aventura, it has always been L’Eclisse that has bewitched me with its air of mystery. Beautifully shot in black and white, much of the film is about whether two aspiring lovers (played by the luminous Monica Vitti and Delon) will be able to commit to one another. For much of the film, nothing seems to happen. Antonioni risks being boring, all the while seeping the film into your skin. The last 15 minutes play like an erotic thriller where no one takes their clothes off, and the only risk is the damage that can be done to two hearts. That finale left me shaking and unnerved. The interplay between Vitti and Delon is expert in the “will they or won’t they fashion.” The ending is devastating. Despite the spiritual connections to the other films in Antonioni’s trilogy, it is L’Eclisse that sticks to my bones.

Delon’s hot streak continued when he returned to work with Visconti on his 19th century historical epic The Leopard starring Delon, Burt Lancaster, and Claudia Cardinale. Visconti’s vision of a slowly fading empire was brilliant to watch, and Delon’s Prince’s walk down a dark alleyway at the film’s close speaks to the death of a way of life. Unfortunately, the film was badly dubbed and edited down extensively for American audiences, and failed miserably on this side of the Atlantic. Seldom has a great film been butchered so badly as The Leopard for an American audience (although Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, and Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate do come to mind). Luckily, because until the cockroaches take over, film is forever, and The Leopard has since been restored to the level of classic that it originally was declared as and has always deserved.

Inarguably, the coolest entry in Delon’s CV is Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1968 neo-noir Le Samourai, an austere film with very little dialogue, but with an impossibly high-level atmosphere. Many point to Godard’s Breathless as the peak of French “new wave” cinema, and I understand why. Godard’s Breathless came first in 1960 and set a high standard, but Melville’s mix of pulp and style is not only narratively stronger, it’s simply more engaging. Much of that engagement belongs to the placid, but oh so cool demeanor of Delon. Just the way he slides his hitman fingers across his fedora speaks volumes to his character’s nature. Le Samourai is also regarded as a classic, and on the short list of the great films created by French filmmakers.

The next year, Delon scored another international hit with The Girl on the Motorcycle with singer and Mick Jagger muse Marianne Faithfull. While the film did well at the box office, it was not critically regarded. That being said, Delon’s star power made the turnstiles swing, despite the film’s poor reviews, and its notorious distinction as being one of the first film’s to receive an X rating.

Much better was 1969’s La Piscine, which went on to be effectively remade by Francois Ozon as Swimming Pool and later Luca Guadagnino as A Bigger Splash (with Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton). Much like Delon’s earlier films, La Piscine (directed by Jacques Deray), is higher on atmosphere than it is on plot. A group of four take a vacation in Saint Tropez, and deep-seeded jealousies rise to the surface resulting in tragic consequences. Along with Jane Birkin, the film starred Delon’s ex-lover Romy Schneider (who would go on to succumb to a heart attack at just 44 years of age), a French-German actress of great acclaim, whom Delon wanted cast in the film in an effort to get her back. It’s hard to know how much the off screen tension translated to the on screen, but one suspects, the impact was not slight. 

Perhaps Delon’s final classic is Le Cercle Rouge, a heist thriller with almost no dialogue filmed by Delon’s Le Samurai director Jean-Pierre Melville. As a recently released prisoner tipped to a possible jewelry heist, the film builds enormous tension in the carrying out of the deed, and the film’s grim finale is one for the ages.

Much of Delon’s post-1970 career is full of more peaks than valleys. Although he was nominated for Cesars (the French version of the Oscar) for Mr. Klein in 1977, Death of a Corrupt man in ‘78, and he won for Our History in 1985. However, despite those honors, none of the films Delon made after his ten-year peak from 1960 to 1970 stood out like that remarkable, if somewhat brief era of stardom. Delon’s status as an icon was cemented over that period, and his rakish good looks stayed with him well into his ‘80s. His turn towards right wing politics in his homeland made him persona non grata with many, but there can be no denying the work. Especially over that magnificent decade, where Delon was the most beautiful actor on earth and he had the chops to back it up. That’s one hell of a two-fer. 

Alain Delon died on August 18, 2024. He was 88 years old.