Killing With White Gloves: The Style of 'Le Samourai'

Almost as long as there have been movies, there have movies about tough guys, but no one brought more poetry and style to the genre than director Jean-Pierre Melville and star Alain Delon in “Le Samourai.” Now fifty years old, “Le Samourai” is a touchstone for many directors and its descendants form almost a genre unto themselves. For those looking for an introduction or a quick refresher on the film’s charms, Philip Brubaker at Fandor has made a video essay for just that.

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Frankly, this is more of an appreciation than an analysis, but simply seeing Melville’s compositions side by side is edifying. The film is structured around a murder roughly at the half-way point; before and after, Delon performs many of the same actions, which Melville films almost exactly the same, only adding subtle distinctions in lighting and blocking, in general adding a darker tone to Delon’s actions after the murder. The first time through, he’s a confident professional, but the second time adds a tragic aspect, as of a tracked animal that must abide by his instincts even as they lead him into a trap.

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For all the talk of alibis and crime, “Le Samourai” is far from a realistic crime film, or even a realistic reflection of Paris at the time, as Melville himself admitted. Instead, it’s a dreamlike evocation of pure style, a meticulously photographed film filled with meticulously dressed people who, even when they kill people, wear white gloves. Melville, whose own taste varied from Bresson to the classic Warner Bros gangster films, was able to almost split the difference and portray a typical movie gangster as if a Bresson protagonist. Possibly named after him, Delon’s character certainly resembles a far more taciturn version of Robert Mitchum’s character in “Out of the Past,” yet while Mitchum is given some of cinema’s best narration to explain the doomed nobility of his character, Delon is able to express similar feelings using only gesture and movement.

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