Cool blue

Jean-Pierre Melville's LE SAMOURAI, 1967, is the cinematic embodiment of cool. This film is unlike any Hollywood action treatment of a hitman as we start with Delon's Jef Costello smoking in his dismal run-down room, with only a canary in a cage for company. Does the canary have another function, one wonders - perhaps it warns him when there is an intruder or when the police have been in and wired his room for sound? Paris here is all metallic greys and cool blues, there are hardly any other colours, it is always raining when driving those cars. Costello seems like a throwback to the 1940s with that hat and trenchcoat - fashionably short as it is for the 60s, it should really be a longer 40s version ...

Melville's classic is about a lone gun-for-hire who is hired to eliminate a nightclub owner. He does so, but is witnessed leaving the scene of the crime by the club's piano player (Cathy Rosier). Later that night, during the police round-up, he's taken in as one of 400 or more potential suspects. The cops can't make it stick to Costello, but the superintendent (Francois Perier) isn't fooled by Costello or his airtight alibi supplied by girl of the night Nathalie Delon.. And thus Costello finds himself under police surveillance, and meanwhile, his criminal bosses want him eliminated. In other words, the actual story is simplicity itself and is a French twist on those '40s noirs with the likes of Lake and Ladd on the lam from the cops and the underworld.

Few movies are as spare, dialogue is minimal with long stretches of silence, like during that first 10 minutes or the tense chase on the metro. Finally Costello confonts his destiny, like the Samourai. As the Bushido quote at the start puts it: no-one is as alone as a Samourai, unless perhaps a tiger in the jungle ...  Costello hardly ever says anything, but we're totally compelled by him, thanks to Delon's tight control. There are some exciting chases, and the nightclub girl is nicely depicted (Cathy Rosier, 1945-2004, below, her smiling face a nice contrast to the icy hit-man). I may have to see it again to totally understand the ending: Is she the one he is hired to kill at the end as she is the only witness to the first killing, or is he just saying that (I like that moment when she says "why, Jef?" when she sees him with the gun) - he must be on a final suicide or hara-kiri mission at the end, knowing the emptiness of his life, as he can hardly expect to get away with another shooing in the crowded nightclub, so maybe like the Samourai of old he resigns himself to his fate ...

It is all part of the stark originality of the movie. It is a key Delon role, as iconic as his Tom Ripley in PLEIN SOLEIL in 1960 or those leads for Visconti and Antonioni in ROCCO, THE LEOPARD and L'ECLISSE and the later BORSALINO [Delon, Mr Ripley labels] and those two for Losey and his other tough French flicks like Melville's LE FLIC or LE CIRCLE ROUGE. (I really must get around to watching Delon with Signoret in THE WIDOW COUDERC on that box set of his, which has LE PISCINE and others). The Melville boxset too  has several others I must watch like ARMY OF SHADOWS, LE DOULOS and that Belmondo I liked LEON MORIN PRIEST (French, Belmondo labels).  The movie was released in 1967 -- the start of the hippie era-- but here's Delon anachronistically dressed in a single-breasted suit and a fedora, and getting away with it. A movie to cherish then and absorb oneself back into ... those images as lensed by Henri Decae and that almost Miles Davis-like cool abstract jazz sound (as in Malle's LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD - Ronet label). I thought at the end we would return to that room, with the canary - and the other hit-guy tied to the chair ....

More French soon: those Melville, Delon, Belmondo, Chabrol, Ozon boxsets to continue exploring, Chabrol's LE CEREMONIE, braces of Deneuve and Romy Schneider titles, and more Demy, Malle, Varda - and I just got those 2 other Jean Dujardin 0SS 117 comedies by Hazanavicius - I wonder if the LOST IN RIO one is as fabulous as my favourite Belmondo THAT MAN FROM RIO ? (and also seen some clips from the forthcoming THE PLAYERS)...
Plus those 3 Russian films I have heard so much about for so long: BALLAD OF A SOLIDER, THE CRANES ARE FLYING, THE LETTER THAT WAS NOT SENT, and a trio of Ozu titles too, as well as some Antonioni rarities and those recent Almodovars. There are also some tatty sword-and-sandals movies, another Jean Sorel giallo, Joan's camp classics (HARRIET CRAIG, QUEEN BEE, TORCH SONG etc), and lots more gay interest!