RETRO FILM REVIEW – Jean-Pierre Melville’s elegant French noir has inspired everyone from Michael Mann to John Woo. The film’s new 4K restoration is not just a cornerstone of film noir but a true cinematic classic, particularly in light of Alain Delon’s recent passing. SPOILER ALERT: The following essay discusses key plot points, including the ending.

Yesterday, I watched Le Samouraï for the sixth or seventh time, enjoying the new 4K restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece, which is available for purchase on Amazon.

Many people think of this film as a Japanese samurai movie, which is an understandable assumption given the film’s title, even though the 1967 crime classic is set in Paris, nearly a century after the end of Japan’s samurai era. I first saw Le Samouraï in the late ’80s. John Woo, the Hong Kong director, later praised the film: “The closest thing to a perfect movie I have ever seen.” I agree (Woo considers the film an inspiration for A Better Tomorrow and The Killer, and hence many Hong Kong films as well). I would also add that the lead role is played by one of the most handsome actors ever to grace the screen, the late Alain Delon, who passed away yesterday.

A Killer’s Code of Honor

The enigmatic title refers more to the protagonist’s mentality than to his profession: the expressionless Delon’s portrayal of Jef Costello is that of a hitman who kills on command. His master is the one who pays, and his motivation is simple: because he was paid. “What kind of man are you?” asks Valérie (Caty Rosier), the nightclub pianist who sees Jef leaving his boss’s office after a murder. Later, when Jef needs to be identified during a police lineup, Valérie lies to the officers and testifies under oath that she did not see him. Regardless of Valérie’s motive, her decision makes Jef indebted to the jazz musician, as he is guided by a code of honor that surpasses his own interests. Jef’s internal moral sense overrides his contract, setting the stage for the film’s iconic ending.

Le Samouraï marked a new type of role for Delon. Up to that point in his career, the star had worked with giants such as Luchino Visconti (Rocco and His Brothers), Michelangelo Antonioni (Eclipse), and René Clément (Purple Noon), but his collaboration with Melville elevated him to another level, and Delon regarded the strict, war-hero director (who changed his name from Grumbach due to his Jewish identity) as his mentor. The pair made three films together: Le Samouraï, Le Cercle Rouge, and L’Ordre et la Morale. This partnership transformed Delon’s career, establishing him as an international action star alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo, who also appeared in three Melville classics (including Le Doulos, which can be seen as an early version of this film).

“There is no deeper loneliness than that of the samurai, unless it be the tiger’s in the jungle” is the opening quote of the film, attributed to “The Book of Bushido (The Samurai Code).” As it turns out, Melville made up this quote himself, as he did with Joan McLeod’s The Ronin, from which he claimed to have adapted the story. No such novel exists. Nevertheless, Melville was clearly inspired by Eastern philosophy, particularly the code by which samurai placed the lives of others before their own. Variations on this theme echo throughout his filmography.

Obsession

At the same time, Melville’s greatest obsession was American cinema. In fact, “obsession” is not a strong enough word to describe how much he adored Hollywood films, as Melville – who wore a Stetson hat and sunglasses behind the wheel of his Ford Galaxy convertible – watched several films daily, carefully cataloging them in his mind. Melville maintained a list of 63 pre-war American directors whom he admired (to be included on the list, it was enough for a director to make just one film that Melville truly loved), and as a tribute, he incorporated many elements from their work into his own. Long before Quentin Tarantino made genre film parodies fashionable, Melville had already stolen and repurposed elements that fascinated him. Accordingly, Le Samouraï represents a crossover of American crime films and Eastern chivalry, transplanted into the streets, subways, and darker corners of Paris.

What might seem Zen-like to some can also be interpreted as Melville’s attempt to achieve what Alfred Hitchcock called “pure cinema”: the visual storytelling of the narrative, without dialogue. Many scenes in Le Samouraï unfold without words, with only jazz music or the chirping of the protagonist’s little finch in the background. Moreover, Melville intentionally limited the color palette, adhering to an aesthetic of “black-and-white in color” (this approach even extended to the bird in Jef’s apartment: Melville chose a female finch because its colors are less vivid than those of the species’ orange-breasted male).

Melville and Delon: The American Noir’s French Embodiment

Both Bonnie and Clyde and Le Samouraï end with their protagonists riddled with bullets, although the two films are quite different otherwise. Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow could hardly be more attractive, charming the audience with his brown eyes and dazzling smile (I have always found it ironic and not very convincing that this Hollywood heartthrob played a character who was impotent). Arthur Penn’s film is warm and sunlit, brimming with life. In contrast, in Le Samouraï, Delon deliberately tones down his natural charisma. He plays Jef with as much expressionlessness as possible, which perfectly suits Melville’s cool, methodical style.

Aside from Delon’s piercing blue eyes, he appears almost passive for much of the film, to the extent that French critics labeled “Delon’s blank expression” (Le Nouvel Observateur) as “as boring as a piece of wood” (Positif). In reality, however, the sharpness of his gaze reflects the character’s tense readiness. Jef is an intensely focused professional, with every movement serving the completion of his task. In the first scene, we see him lying in bed in a gray, rundown apartment, so motionless that we might not even notice him if not for the smoke from his cigarette. (A deliberately disorienting, artistic camera movement, where Melville tracks and zooms in opposing directions, suggests a kind of schizophrenia in the character.)

Melville approached Delon for two earlier projects, but the star turned down both roles. Now, as the director recounted to film critic Rui Nogueira: “The reading took place at his apartment. Delon, leaning on his knees, his face buried in his hands, listened motionless until suddenly looking up at his watch, he stopped: ‘You’ve been reading for seven and a half minutes, and not a single line of dialogue has been spoken. That’s enough for me. I’ll take the part. What’s the title?’ ‘Le Samouraï,’ I replied. Without a word, he gestured for me to follow. He led me to his bedroom, where there was only a leather couch and a samurai spear, sword, and dagger.”

Melville and Delon in Perfect Artistic Harmony

When the director wrote the role for Delon, he intuitively grasped something fundamental about the actor’s personality. Delon minimized everything the audience expects from a star: no backstory, no psychology; his performance is built from deliberate, effective gestures (drawing his gun, adjusting the brim of his Borsalino hat) and the subtlest micro-expressions. This choice, along with the character of Jef Costello, had an immeasurable impact on the film world—even though the film itself was only released in the United States in 1972. This influence can be felt in James Caan’s portrayal of the title character in Michael Mann’s Thief, and it explains Ryan O’Neal’s performance in The Driver and Ryan Gosling’s poker-faced portrayals in Nicolas Winding Refn’s thrillers, such as Drive and Only God Forgives. David Fincher’s The Killer offers a satirical twist on this archetype, with Michael Fassbender filling the silences of his character with a foolish internal monologue.

More than ten minutes pass before the first word is spoken in Le Samouraï, and it comes from Delon’s then-wife, Nathalie. She plays Jane, the woman who would rather die than betray her lover to the police. “Jef?” she asks when the man appears at the door. Jef is setting up a foolproof alibi and needs Jane to say she was present at the time of the planned murder. Their dialogue is terse. Jef speaks in an emotionless, monotonous tone, which viewers reading the subtitles might not notice, but which becomes a trademark in many of Delon’s films (mostly his crime films) going forward.

After the shooting, Jane is brought to the police station by Inspector (François Périer), and she sticks to the story provided by Jef. In most of Melville’s films—which almost always explore the dynamics between complex men—female characters are secondary compared to the unspoken codes between men, whether they are accomplices or adversaries on the opposite side of the law. However, this is not the case in Le Samouraï. Apart from the rundown garage operator who supplies Jef with fresh license plates and weapons, the only people loyal to him are women. Later, in a characteristically Melvillian twist, the police visit Jane at her home and try to coerce her into changing her testimony. “In other words, you want me to testify falsely in exchange for leaving me alone. But if I stick to the truth and stand in your way, I’ll never hear the end of it. Am I right?” the woman retorts to the inspector. (Equally telling is when two policemen break in and plant a wiretap in Jef’s apartment; Melville shows another way the police break the law.)

Ethical Boundaries – Between Crime and Justice

The blurring of moral boundaries between right and wrong, crime and justice runs throughout Melville’s body of work. In his next film, L’Armée des ombres (1969), French Resistance fighters are constantly making tough moral decisions. In his subsequent collaboration with Delon, Le Cercle Rouge (1970), the inspector blackmails a taciturn informant by falsely arresting his son, who eventually commits suicide in prison. Summarizing Melville’s own philosophy, the police chief in this film says, “Every man is guilty. He is born innocent, but it doesn’t last long.”

Having emerged from the French Resistance himself, Melville had comrades in both legal forces and the criminal underworld. He understood the complexities of both environments and did not hold people to the norms prescribed by the justice system. A person’s worth was defined by their actions, and even petty criminals must be treated with respect. This explains the choice Jef makes at the film’s inevitable yet surprising end, which is as precisely calculated as his earlier double alibi. As Melville told Nogueira: “The moment a person says to you, ‘I was wrong,’ I believe that person is completely, absolutely forgiven for their sins.” Thus, Jef’s dramatic act can be interpreted as a symbolic form of seppuku, a poetic self-sacrifice through which this cold-blooded killer ultimately finds redemption.

-Herpai Gergely “BadSector”-