Steve-O
01-19-2010, 01:26 PM
This week's Noir of the Week is from Ginette Vincendeau. You may know her from her frequent contributions to Critieron DVDs. Le Samouari has always been one of my favorites.
LE SAMOURAI (1967)
The essence of Franco-American noir
Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973) directed thirteen feature films between 1947 and 1972, most of them ranking among the best in postwar French cinema. In particular, his brilliant gangster films Bob le flambeur (1956), Le Doulos (1963), Le Deuxième souffle (1966), Le Cergle rouge (1969), and especially Le Samourai (1967), with their cool, minimalist noir style are defining instances of the French policier. A great Americanophile, the idiosyncratic Melville, who renamed himself after the writer Herman Melville, used to drive round Paris in the 1960s in a Stetson hat and a huge convertible American car.
Le Samourai is the story of Jef Costello (Alain Delon), a Parisian contract killer who realises he is being double crossed by his employers and seeks revenge. The film was highly controversial at its release in 1967. The prestigious Cahiers du cinéma dismissed it as ‘just another thriller’ and later preposterously claimed Melville would be better employed making commercials for raincoats – at the same time, more enlightened critics compared him to Picasso in his modernity. Today Le Samourai is, rightly, regarded as one of the greatest French films.
Le Samourai has been described as both a ‘remake’ of Frank Tuttle’s This Gun for Hire (1942) and as based on a novel by Joan MacLeod called The Ronin. The film’s title and the post-credit quote ‘from the book of Bushido’ (actually a Melville invention), evidently refer to Japanese tradition. But despite this plethora of apocryphal sources, Le Samourai was an original story. Melville sent Alain Delon, then top French male star, the story of Le Samourai, which he had written with him in mind. What happened next, as recounted by Melville, has become legend: ‘The reading took place at his apartment. […] Alain listened without moving until suddenly, looking up to glance at his watch, he stopped me: “You’ve been reading the script for seven and a half minutes now and there hasn’t been a word of dialogue. That’s good enough for me. I’ll do the film. What’s the title?” “Le Samourai”, I told him. Without a word he signed to me to follow him. He led me to his bedroom: all it contained was a leather couch and a samurai’s lance, sword and dagger.’
Alain Delon – homme fatal
Melville’s determination to cast Delon stemmed from his admiration for the star and because ‘there was something Japanese about him’. Delon’s exceptional good looks and the controlled virility of his performance pushed the Melvillian hero towards androgynous beauty, and a cool, almost cruelly smooth surface. This aspect of Delon’s performance meshed with Melville’s idea of the gangster as an image. Delon as both object of the gaze and narrative agent embodied the homme fatal, the femme fatale and the male protagonist of film noir rolled into one. This, to me, is the significance of the short scene towards the beginning, where Delon, in his car, is watched admiringly by a pretty woman. Minimal body language signals that he has noticed her gaze, but having flashed a blank look at her, he turns away, not even gratifying her with a smile. Le Samourai refers to Delon’s stardom in other ways, for example during the ‘clothes parade’ at the police station. In order to test a witness’s statement, the Inspector puts Jef among rows of men and makes them exchange their clothes, so that they end up as a crowd of gangsters in various shades of coats and hats. Among the mass Delon’s charismatic looks leap out at the spectator, just as they do at the witness who has no trouble recognising Jef.
Franco-American detachment: ‘remaking’ This Gun for Hire
While Jef Costello is close to Delon’s star persona, his name, occupation, trenchcoat and felt hat make him a walking ‘quote’ from the classic American noir gangster. Indeed, Le Samourai multiplies Hollywood citations: the line-up at the police station, ‘lifted’ from The Asphalt Jungle, the police station offices, the black and white views of American fire escapes through the windows of Jef’s Parisian flat. These, however, are not ‘copies’, but elements that are self-consciously reworked in Melville’s original design which also includes French icons of modernity, such as the mythical Citroen DS, Jef’s stolen vehicle of choice. Melville’s Franco-American hybrid is, as ever, tongue-in-cheek: as Jef approaches poker players to construct his alibi, the soundtrack begins with accordeon music and ends with American radio. It is thus with justification that Melville said, ‘I make gangster films, inspired by the gangster novels, but I don’t make American films, even though I like the American films noirs better than anything.’
To appreciate the singularity of Le Samourai, it is useful to compare it with its supposed ‘model’, This Gun for Hire, especially since the latter, as James Naremore reminds us, was a key film in the French definition of the film noir canon. The narratives of the two films are close. Alan Ladd plays Philip Raven, a contract killer double-crossed by his employer, who goes in search of the man to avenge himself, helped by a cabaret singer (Veronica Lake). Both films start with the hero in his bedroom. In both cases Raven/Jef puts on a trenchcoat and hat before going on ‘a job’. Yet where Raven’s dingy room is teeming with naturalistic detail (unmade bed, papers, a wash-basin, honky-tonk music), Le Samourai opens on a dark, bare room. The sound of cars swishing by and the darkness suggest winter and rain. It takes some time to detect Jef lying on the bed (first-time viewers become aware of him through his cigarette smoke). The distorted calligraphy of the credits hints at mental disorder and anticipate the famous distortion of space (halting zoom/track) that occurs immediately after. A feeling of otherworldliness is further enhanced by the music, a bleak tune with religious overtones and the forlorn ‘peeps’ of Jef’s caged bird. As Jef gets up, the camera reveals more of the room, whose walls and minimal furniture are a distressed grey. Raven’s room is that of a down-at-heel small-time hitman, Jef’s gives the impression of a cell. This Gun for Hire immediately introduces rapid-fire noir dialogue, Le Samourai emphasizes glacial silence. Where the American film is generic and realistic, the French one is existential and distanced.
Melancholy masculinity
In This Gun for Hire, a shrill and luridly made-up maid enters the room and later Raven falls for the Veronica Lake character. Jef by contrast is alone. Emphatically no woman will cross his threshold and sex with his girlfriend Jane (played by Delon’s wife Nathalie) is, literally, an alibi, while the pianist’s function is to connect Jef with the employer. In the evocative words of a French critic, women in Le Samourai are beautiful but ‘tragically useless’. Melville here pushes his concept of masculinity to an extreme that is so self-enclosed that it becomes autistic. This idea is reprised through a series of metaphors that see Jef, in turn, as wild animal (tiger in the jungle, lone wolf), warrior, dandy, and professional. Jef is akin to the ronin (the wandering, lordless warrior), but he is a samurai in that he abides by a code of conduct inspired by the Bushido, up to the dramatic ending.
LE SAMOURAI (1967)
The essence of Franco-American noir
Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973) directed thirteen feature films between 1947 and 1972, most of them ranking among the best in postwar French cinema. In particular, his brilliant gangster films Bob le flambeur (1956), Le Doulos (1963), Le Deuxième souffle (1966), Le Cergle rouge (1969), and especially Le Samourai (1967), with their cool, minimalist noir style are defining instances of the French policier. A great Americanophile, the idiosyncratic Melville, who renamed himself after the writer Herman Melville, used to drive round Paris in the 1960s in a Stetson hat and a huge convertible American car.
Le Samourai is the story of Jef Costello (Alain Delon), a Parisian contract killer who realises he is being double crossed by his employers and seeks revenge. The film was highly controversial at its release in 1967. The prestigious Cahiers du cinéma dismissed it as ‘just another thriller’ and later preposterously claimed Melville would be better employed making commercials for raincoats – at the same time, more enlightened critics compared him to Picasso in his modernity. Today Le Samourai is, rightly, regarded as one of the greatest French films.
Le Samourai has been described as both a ‘remake’ of Frank Tuttle’s This Gun for Hire (1942) and as based on a novel by Joan MacLeod called The Ronin. The film’s title and the post-credit quote ‘from the book of Bushido’ (actually a Melville invention), evidently refer to Japanese tradition. But despite this plethora of apocryphal sources, Le Samourai was an original story. Melville sent Alain Delon, then top French male star, the story of Le Samourai, which he had written with him in mind. What happened next, as recounted by Melville, has become legend: ‘The reading took place at his apartment. […] Alain listened without moving until suddenly, looking up to glance at his watch, he stopped me: “You’ve been reading the script for seven and a half minutes now and there hasn’t been a word of dialogue. That’s good enough for me. I’ll do the film. What’s the title?” “Le Samourai”, I told him. Without a word he signed to me to follow him. He led me to his bedroom: all it contained was a leather couch and a samurai’s lance, sword and dagger.’
Alain Delon – homme fatal
Melville’s determination to cast Delon stemmed from his admiration for the star and because ‘there was something Japanese about him’. Delon’s exceptional good looks and the controlled virility of his performance pushed the Melvillian hero towards androgynous beauty, and a cool, almost cruelly smooth surface. This aspect of Delon’s performance meshed with Melville’s idea of the gangster as an image. Delon as both object of the gaze and narrative agent embodied the homme fatal, the femme fatale and the male protagonist of film noir rolled into one. This, to me, is the significance of the short scene towards the beginning, where Delon, in his car, is watched admiringly by a pretty woman. Minimal body language signals that he has noticed her gaze, but having flashed a blank look at her, he turns away, not even gratifying her with a smile. Le Samourai refers to Delon’s stardom in other ways, for example during the ‘clothes parade’ at the police station. In order to test a witness’s statement, the Inspector puts Jef among rows of men and makes them exchange their clothes, so that they end up as a crowd of gangsters in various shades of coats and hats. Among the mass Delon’s charismatic looks leap out at the spectator, just as they do at the witness who has no trouble recognising Jef.
Franco-American detachment: ‘remaking’ This Gun for Hire
While Jef Costello is close to Delon’s star persona, his name, occupation, trenchcoat and felt hat make him a walking ‘quote’ from the classic American noir gangster. Indeed, Le Samourai multiplies Hollywood citations: the line-up at the police station, ‘lifted’ from The Asphalt Jungle, the police station offices, the black and white views of American fire escapes through the windows of Jef’s Parisian flat. These, however, are not ‘copies’, but elements that are self-consciously reworked in Melville’s original design which also includes French icons of modernity, such as the mythical Citroen DS, Jef’s stolen vehicle of choice. Melville’s Franco-American hybrid is, as ever, tongue-in-cheek: as Jef approaches poker players to construct his alibi, the soundtrack begins with accordeon music and ends with American radio. It is thus with justification that Melville said, ‘I make gangster films, inspired by the gangster novels, but I don’t make American films, even though I like the American films noirs better than anything.’
To appreciate the singularity of Le Samourai, it is useful to compare it with its supposed ‘model’, This Gun for Hire, especially since the latter, as James Naremore reminds us, was a key film in the French definition of the film noir canon. The narratives of the two films are close. Alan Ladd plays Philip Raven, a contract killer double-crossed by his employer, who goes in search of the man to avenge himself, helped by a cabaret singer (Veronica Lake). Both films start with the hero in his bedroom. In both cases Raven/Jef puts on a trenchcoat and hat before going on ‘a job’. Yet where Raven’s dingy room is teeming with naturalistic detail (unmade bed, papers, a wash-basin, honky-tonk music), Le Samourai opens on a dark, bare room. The sound of cars swishing by and the darkness suggest winter and rain. It takes some time to detect Jef lying on the bed (first-time viewers become aware of him through his cigarette smoke). The distorted calligraphy of the credits hints at mental disorder and anticipate the famous distortion of space (halting zoom/track) that occurs immediately after. A feeling of otherworldliness is further enhanced by the music, a bleak tune with religious overtones and the forlorn ‘peeps’ of Jef’s caged bird. As Jef gets up, the camera reveals more of the room, whose walls and minimal furniture are a distressed grey. Raven’s room is that of a down-at-heel small-time hitman, Jef’s gives the impression of a cell. This Gun for Hire immediately introduces rapid-fire noir dialogue, Le Samourai emphasizes glacial silence. Where the American film is generic and realistic, the French one is existential and distanced.
Melancholy masculinity
In This Gun for Hire, a shrill and luridly made-up maid enters the room and later Raven falls for the Veronica Lake character. Jef by contrast is alone. Emphatically no woman will cross his threshold and sex with his girlfriend Jane (played by Delon’s wife Nathalie) is, literally, an alibi, while the pianist’s function is to connect Jef with the employer. In the evocative words of a French critic, women in Le Samourai are beautiful but ‘tragically useless’. Melville here pushes his concept of masculinity to an extreme that is so self-enclosed that it becomes autistic. This idea is reprised through a series of metaphors that see Jef, in turn, as wild animal (tiger in the jungle, lone wolf), warrior, dandy, and professional. Jef is akin to the ronin (the wandering, lordless warrior), but he is a samurai in that he abides by a code of conduct inspired by the Bushido, up to the dramatic ending.