Le Samouraï . Two windows, overflowing with soft light, balance the composition by providing visual anchors in the center of the frame. All my films hinge on the fantastic. Yes, but I’m the French producer who turns down American contracts. Of course war is against an enemy, but it’s within your own ranks as well. Rottentomatoes Cream of the Crop rating of 100% (6 reviews). The nearly three-minute shot maintains a simple but wonderfully expressive composition throughout, remaining within the drab gray-blue confines of Jef’s apartment. With live music, DJs and poets, this nighttime coffee lounge is inspired by the local coffee scene past and present. So I’d be quite happy to have you say 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. I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being and happiness that I moved a table over to the window and started to write a book, which I’ve never finished…. You see, I’m turning someone who’s essentially a victim – like Professor Rath in The Blue Angel, for instance – into a man who’s tough, who has been through it all, possibly an ex-gangster or a nightclub owner, I’m not sure. This is Jef’s acceptance of his role as the necessarily solitary warrior, an enforcer of the zeitgeist of “honorable” violence. Approximately two-thirds into the movie, after escaping an attempt to eliminate him by his employer/client, Jef goes to the pianist and tries to suss out from her who has employed him. Accordingly, nothing, but nothing, has been left to chance in the mise-en-scène. If it comes off the way I hope, it will be the kind of film that should have been made from John Le Carre’s excellent book The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. It was pretty unusual anyway having a woman surgeon in a unit so near the enemy lines. Subscribe now for exclusive offers and the best of cinema. Both are burned. Yes, I’d very much like to make a war film, but I can’t make it out of my own experiences. I think one always needs to cheat and choose – to make a colour film look like black and white. Reality has always been way ahead of the cinema and its war films: one can only make war films because incidents like this are true, or were true at a particular time. The way you’ve used colours makes them all tend towards grey. The man who made The Hustler?” He was right, of course: The Hustler was the work of a 30-year-old. C'mon espress yourself. Immediately after the text appears in the frame, the shot begins undulating violently from rapid zoom-ins while the camera moves out. Warren Beatty I preferred in Mickey One. Chairs and dressers crowd the outskirts of the frame, completing the layout of Jef’s ascetically simple, disciplined apartment. But then Lilith is a wonderful, a really remarkable film which I’d defend against all comers. Both these films were made from an adaptation written by Mouezy-Eon, and not from the original book by La Fourchardiere. I’ve put up with it for five years, but now I’ve had enough: I am absolutely not an American director. I don’t know what I shall do next, possibly a film with no stars, very low budget.. Is this just contrariness? Melville is well established as the lone wolf of the French cinema. Similarly, I didn’t want to be explicit about the relationship between Delon and Nathalie. Un manga « samouraï » avec une histoire typique aidera à apprendre des expressions courtes et onomatopées fréquemment utilisées dans différentes situations et à découvrir le contexte culturel. If by this people mean that I make my films with enormous care leaving nothing to chance, my answer is that the great Japanese directors work the same way. Le Samouraï (French pronunciation: [lə sa.mu.ʁa.i]; lit. Hand-picked. Of course, if I were to write an original screenplay for Belmondo, Delon could not possibly play it. One of the pleasures of "Le Samourai" is to realize how complicated the plot has grown, in its flat, deadpan way. I’m not interested in realism. The jarring mutation of the shot results in the shot actually being wider, the camera further away from Jef. I went over to talk to him about his films. For me, the police chief is Destiny. Belmondo can play parts that Delon would be incapable of playing, and vice versa. Voir plus d'idées sur le thème le dernier samourai, film, guerrier samouraï. You once said “Writing is a real art.” You did start to write a book of reflections entitled Du Createur du Cinema, and also a novel. CW Reboots Walker but Forgets to Give Him a Personality, Something as Extraordinary as Birth Itself: Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber on Pieces of a Woman, 10 Upcoming Films That Could Shake Up Oscar Season, Leslie Odom Jr., Aldis Hodge, Eli Goree, and Kingsley Ben-Adir on the Brotherhood of One Night in Miami. Moreover my studios on the rue Jenner (which I’m going to have rebuilt) are an adolescent dream. He removes the bullets from his gun, then he goes back into the bar, into the trap which has been set for him, and he kills himself, he commits hara-kiri. They exchange pleasantries and go their separate ways. One evening in New York at a reception in honour of Mastroianni, I suddenly noticed a little man with curly fair hair standing in the corner of an enormous room crammed full of celebrities. “What? His shirt was always stained with blood. Irréaliste au possible, le film est en même temps chargé d’un discours implicite sur la condition de l’homme moderne. In this interview from our Summer 1968 issue, Rui Noguiera and Francois Truchaud spoke to the French director Jean-Pierre Melville shortly after the release of his classic neo-noir film Le Samourai, starring Alain Delon in one of his defining roles. From the outset, the black woman in white is the incarnation of Death, with all the charm that death can have. That’s one remake I’d be happy to do, for I found Martin Ritt’s film really very bad and rather grotesque. Title: Le Samourai Director: Jean-Pierre Melville Language: French Year: 1967 Critical Reception: A Criterion release, with essay by David Thomson.Kudos from: Johnathan Rosenbaum, Roger Ebert. This anachronistic quality is ultimately what defines Jef, a remnant of the past, of the legend of the ronin, a pre-vanquished anti-hero seemingly awaiting his own extinction. Registered charity 287780. Le Samoura ï/Frank Costello ... Jef’s beautiful tragic death undermines whatever social critique there was in the film until the final hara-kiri scene: There is a gloomy existential allure about the idea of going down fighting, which is the final refutation of utilitarianism. JE: What I find most astonishing about this spellbinding shot is the overriding feeling that Jef is in suspended animation when he's in his room, just waiting to be summoned into action. Have you had many offers to film in America? We had a lot of tastes in common. He does so, but is witnessed leaving the scene of the crime by the club's piano player (Cathy Rosier). Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï depicts one of the most interesting characters from the French New Wave: Alain Delon's Jef Costello. From Les Enfants Terribles right up to Le Samourai, there’s a certain affinity between your work and Cocteau’s. I think I’m still 18 years old. I think that is man’s special prerogative. He wanted to know what I had made and I began by mentioning Le Silence de Ia Mer. The Americans, I might point out, decided I was very anti-American, certainly a Communist. The film is also known as "The Godson", though it rarely translated in English because it is an understandable title even when not translated (i.e. In the last scene of Le Samourai, Delon does not want to kill. If I don’t start it right away, I may make a spy film from a novel called The Packard Case. It is no accident that every writer I meet envies me my profession. Find out about international touring programmes, BFI Film Academy: opportunities for young creatives, Get funding to progress my creative career, Search the BFI National Archive collections, Read research data and market intelligence, Search for projects funded by National Lottery, Apply for British certification and tax relief, Get help as a new filmmaker and find out about NETWORK, Find out about booking film programmes internationally. Ghost Dog makes clear references to Le Samouraï (keys that unlock any car, white … For minutes, the only sound is the constant drizzle of rain outside the windows and the intermittent whooshing of cars on the street below, punctuated by the light cries of Jef’s bird. Voir plus d'idées sur le thème le samourai 1967, delon, alain delon. A film is a spectacle, just like the circus or the music-hall; when it’s well done, it becomes a work of art. ), I should very much like to do it with Lino Ventura. He was very surprised to discover that his work was known so well in France, and he asked who I was and what I did. Jef lies stiffly on his white mattress with black polka dots in the bottom right corner of the frame. I think it’s shaming to sign a contract like that and insulting to suggest that anyone should. It’s a branch of the service few people know about – not secret, but since it’s reserved exclusively for policemen, we the uninitiated never hear about it. Judson Potenza. What would be really great would be if there was no one living in it, nothing there. Anyway, I feel much more Japanese than American. I should also like to make a film with Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura. Well, he starts the job on a Monday morning. It isn’t possible to work under such conditions. They could be brother and sister; it’s the ‘enfants terribles’ side of Cocteau. You have said that all your films to date were merely rough drafts. The blood kept penetrating his skin – a completely unknown disease which irresistibly recalled the stigmata of the Catholic religion. Melville slips into his black raincoat, puts on his huge stetson, and leads us to his Chevrolet. Melville’s 1950 adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s novel Les Enfants Terribles. Imagine the springtime in the Italian countryside –we were not very far from Florence, it was a sunny day, and there was this kid who died at the age of 20. Because right now you’re in a position to ask for whatever you want. His isolation and distance is intensified, correlating with the revelation of Jef as a type of modern ronin. Each time I see one of my films again, then and only then can I see what I should have done. Then she’d smoke a cigarette, and go back in to start operating again…. He works hard at it and likes to say that it isn’t so easy to make an enemy a day. The text reads, “There is no greater solitude than that of a samurai, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle . I’d like to deal with this sort of internal war in a book, which would be easier. Just about the only motion in the shot, besides the smoke, comes from the bird and the shadows/reflections (on the ceiling and the soundtrack) from the cars passing by below his windows. I’m not a documentarist: a film is first and foremost a dream, and it’s absurd to copy life in an attempt to produce an exact re-creation of it. Still images of the smiling death exist. Delon is a remarkable actor, and remarkably professional. . I was the only witness, which made it difficult when the top of the turret opened and an N.C.O. In the first shot he’s stretched out on his bed, already ‘laid out’, already dead at that moment, and everything follows. Perier is a logical character, very Cartesian, very French; Delon is a mystery, a complete enigma. I don’t think I shall rewrite it, but I do intend to rewrite my book on the cinema. Le suspect a été arrêté à 1h du matin à environ un mile de la scène dans le Vieux-Port de la ville à la suite d’une chasse à l’homme de deux heures et demie. Belmondo is remarkable in Leon Morin, Pretre, and Delon in Le Samourai. Jean Cocteau was one of the greatest writers France has produced in the last 50 years. And there are the guns too, it all springs from the barrack-room. Take this clause for instance: “You hereby undertake that during the making and distribution of the film you will at no time conduct yourself, publicly or privately, in any manner which offends against decency or morality, or causes you to be held in public ridicule, scorn or contempt, or causes a public scandal; or which would be prejudicial to the film, theatre or television or radio industries in general. (1) Rui Nogueira, Le Cinéma selon Jean-Pierre Melville (Petite Bibliothèque des Cahiers du Cinéma, 1996), p. 151. The film Le Samouraï has been one of the most (commercially) successful work by Jean-Pierre Melville selling 1.932.372 tickets (1) in its theatrical run.Whilst the public rewarded the film, the critics were split right in two: the detractors (who had now reached the position of despise towards the author) and those who loved it. That film would be censored and would never get through. , Nathalie Delon. So I did something that I must have remembered from a film – you see how the cinema can haunt you? While I was shooting the tailing sequences in the Metro for Le Samourai, I remember inwardly cursing the person who’d written the script without considering the difficulties involved in shooting the scene – and then I remembered I’d written it myself. I remember one day when I was in America making L’Aine des Ferchaux. That’s how I envisage my version of La Chienne. The film I shall probably make from La Chienne will be nothing like the novel and still less like the films by Renoir and Lang. Le Samourai describes several parallel worlds which never overlap but merely brush against each other from time to time – the Delon and Perier characters in particular. Neither of them could possibly replace the other. I don’t like characters to be explained through a few ‘tics’, although Delon copied two of mine for Le Samourai – the gesture of running two fingers over the brim of his hat, and the way of wearing his watch on his right wrist with the dial turned in. It took us a full week of hard, crazy work. Today, the cinema is the ideal form of literary creation, and young people no longer have a literary culture but a filmic one. But solitude is not so hard when you know how to use it, reading or watching films. Les guerriers à la solde des Taira massacrent tous les habitants et décapitent la plupart des prisonniers. The Prefect of Police phones him and says, “Please come to my office, it’s just across the Boulevard du Palais, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”. "Le Samourai," on the other hand, is about a killer with no real motivation, personality, smarts or wit. You don't even necessarily notice him at first, until a curl of smoke rises from the bed. There is a crucial scene that is missed by everyone. Bauer Media Group. An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director … 2010. He is his own producer, for he likes to be ‘responsible for his own mistakes’. Jef exemplifies this sort of selfish existence, which, as with the ronin, fates him to a sense of dread and, ultimately, death. It stars Alain Delon, Nathalie Delon, and François Périer. You are often reproached for the improbability of your heroes, who are very easy to recognise. Le Samourai is a Japanese film, as the title suggests. Outwardly, of course, I behave like a sensible gentleman of 50, but inside I’m still 18, I haven’t changed. DF Dairy Free_possible; GF Gluten Free_possible By the time I realised what was going to happen, it was too late: I was just about to call out to the Germans when the tank started moving and rolled right over them. 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