ALAIN DELON

le samourai is the coolest movie ever maed ever

a bad man

Yeah, sort of, but he's amazing in 'Rocco' and so beautiful in 'Plein Soleil' it hurts.

I went for the best film, which (perhaps) is L'Eclisse

This is seriously impossible. Could be any of like 7 or 8 films Purple Noon, Rocco, The Leopard, Any Number Can Win, Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, Flic, Monsieur Klein?

i voted for le samourai for the cool factor over l'eclisse, i admit

Best performance = The Leopard
Yummiest= Rocco

best movie is The Leopard, but i def need to see more of these.

Sicilian Clan is a seriously underrated film. Pity it's never gotten a DVD release.

"Dai-lone was a *sausage maker*..." (or something like that)

- Some dude in the "Nico: Icon" documentary.

I've read that he was generally a shit.

i rented le cercle rouge with such high hopes and i was bored to shit.

Yeah, it's dullsville, and his mustache is appalling.

not the best, but i watched this recently and it was quite entertaining:

http://www.kinoart.net/layout/data/1976.jpg

Great poster! (and I've never heard of the movie).

cercle rouge was good, but not as good as le samourai

He's great in "Sicilian Clan", esp. when he smashes an eel against some rocks then proceeds to freak some hottie on the beach.

But he's best in "Le Cercle Rouge". Because it's just plain awesome (you haters are nutz) and so is his moustache.

le circle rouge was entertaining, but slow moving. Better collection of character actors than Le Samourai, tho, about the fey moustache that he wears doesn't do him much credit, which is odd since John Woo completely swiped the look for A Better Tomorrow/The Killer.

Cercle rouge kinda loses it in the end, but the beginning when he and the fugitive guy play a game of "who's cooler?", and the robbery scene which goes on for like 30 minutes without any dialogue are awesome.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Delon is probably the biggest asshole of French cinema, like, ever.

No love for 'Mélodie en Sous-Sol' (ie 'Any number Can Win')? Maybe not his best, but a template for so many movies.

wheres Les Aventuriers?

My dad's in Il Gattopardo as an extra. FAME.

wheres Les Aventuriers?

It's in there under its English title, The Last Adventure.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

1 vote for Plein Soleil?!

hey guys i just buyed a le samourai shirt. it is great.

Le Samourai shirt? Me wantee.

Just finished Le Samouraï. It's BADAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

YES

not enough people have seen that movie

hey guys i just buyed a le samourai shirt. it is great.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, June 22, 2007 4:07 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Link

i wear this shirt way too much

i will purchase this shirt from you for two hundred american dollars

is it this one?:

http://modculture.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/delon.jpg

I wanted it but didn't think I could pull it off.

He's excellent in Monsieur Klein. When he finally acts in a conventional manner -- protesting how Vichy police are confiscating his precious art collection -- it's almost a sop to the audience.

http://modculture.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/delon.jpg

oh my god

I was at a music festival recently where a performer refused to do a song he had written about Alain Delon because, since he wrote it, Delon had become a fascist.

Delon is indeed a bit of a dick.

Yeah, just watch Nico Icon to see that if you didn't already know.

But what I came to say was:The Sicilian Clan wuz robbed.

Which a few people up thread have said, more or less.

Rocco and his bros was pretty good as I recall, too.

Oh yeah, that got zero votes too. It's amazing to watch him completely convincingly play such a saintly figure, so different from what his real personality seems to be and so much more vulnerable than a lot of his tough guy roles. I know I should know better than to be amazed by something like that, but I can't help it.

75 today!

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2507

Delon is probably the biggest asshole of French cinema, like, ever.

No love for 'Mélodie en Sous-Sol' (ie 'Any number Can Win')? Maybe not his best, but a template for so many movies.

― baaderonixx, Thursday, 21 June 2007 10:03 (3 years ago)

unless he's been randomly travelling around paris killing people, i can't imagine how he deserves that title

can't believe Purple Noon got one vote.

Just seen Le Cercle Rouge. Best bit is when the escaped convict (not Delon) running frantically from police with dogs, stops to strip off his shoes, socks, trousers, jacket, and shirt, leaving only his underpants, in order to cross a stream that's about a foot deep.

Ok ok I enjoyed it, more so than Le Samourai which left me cold. Taciturn guys with honour aren't normally my thing but this was nicely understated, kinda lol the way the acres of silence were occasionally interrupted with ear-piercing big band jazz in the club scenes. Actual best bit probably the delirium tremens, a real out of the blue wtf moment.

i nearly peed my pants at the third shot:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4u4my_le-cercle-rouge-les-habitants-du-pl_shortfilms

Actual best bit probably the delirium tremens, a real out of the blue wtf moment.

That is fantastic. Very alarming.

Purple Noon is so incredible, one of the best movies ever made.

8–16 January:[15] Multiple pyramid schemes fail: "Kamberi", "Cenaj", "Silva", "Malvasia", "Kambo", "Grunjasi", "Dypero", "Bashkimi", "Beno", "Pogoni", "B&G", "Kobuzi", "Arkond", "Adelin", "A.Delon", "Agi", "M.Leka Company", "Global Limited Co.", "Çashku" dhe "Sudja". City of Vlora hit, as the main center such schemes. Government froze the assets of "Vefa Holding" and "Gjallica".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Rebellion_of_1997

nyc retro

https://quadcinema.com/program/lhomme-fatal-alain-delon/

on Delon's queerish Ripley

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/queer-now-1960/

Wait, no "Les Félins" ("Joy House") in the poll ??
I just watched it recently and it's great.
It's a René Clément movie ("Plein Soleil") shot in a great black/white and it's so cool and sexy.
That's with Jane Fonda and the GORGEOUS Lola Albright.

http://a397.idata.over-blog.com/3/02/92/11/Les-felins/lola-girl.jpg

http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv9/francomac123/Travail%20en%20cours/Travail%20par%20albums%205/Clement-1964-Les%20felins/gr_felins-03.jpg~original

Re : the poll, "L'Eclisse" is one of me favourite movies but "Le Samourai" might be Delon's coolest.

And about Delon being an asshole/terrible person (he is apparently), I remember a relatively recent intw with J. Fonda regarding "Les Félins" and the journalist asked her if he was mean to her during the shooting and she answered that he was very kind and charming... and even if he had been mean, it wouldn't have mattered since if was so beautiful !

Btw I've always found this picture so fun.
Who's the boss !

http://magazineantidote.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/1024605-650-1449841033-GettyImages-162731429.jpg

So not gonna happen (for Mick).

lol

Asking for assisted suicide, according to a buncha dodgy tabloid sites.

Which reminded me Françoise Hardy is still alive, having made a similar statement in June of last year. I hope she's not doing too badly. :(

RIP indeed, as noted on the obit thread:

https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2024/08/18/alain-delon-etoile-du-cinema-francais-est-mort_6285257_3382.html

He had been saying he wants to die and thinks euthanasia should be legalized, so while it's sad I'm relieved he's not suffering anymore. Great actor, one of the most gorgeous men that ever lived.

There's a funny story in one of the Godard biographies about the shooting of Nouvelle Vague. Delon refused to get into a car for a shot, so Godard replaced him with a donkey that "happened to also be named Alain Delon".

was it the donkey who also starred in Au Hasard Balthazar?

Heh

Godard knew Balthazar through Anne Wiazemsky, but this donkey was named Alain Delon.

Exactly

A personal favorite is one that is really hard to see, not to be all Jonathan Rosenbaum about it, La prima notte di quiete/The Professor/Indian Summer, directed by Valerio Zurlini.

His self directed Le Battant is pretty hilarious in that his character instantly beats every baddie and beds every woman but it also has a pretty great grody 70's atmosphere and a haunting theme tune that is one of my favourite pieces of music maybe ever?

It's also the movie where I first noticed that in 70's french bistros they put beer glasses on these little plates, to serve as mats I guess.

(not 70's actually, it's from 1983!)

Eh ! it’s still pretty normal/current (at least in Europe) the « dessous de verre » ! As for AD a great actor of course (but a complicated person). One of his not so famous and minor movies I particularly liked is « le professeur », one of the last film of his I really liked with « l’homme pressé », also minor.

Also he used to live right next to my apartment !

"but a complicated person"

He supported Le Pen.

Hmmm, we have the little plates in Portugal but I only see them used for coffee or little snacks, not so much the beer and wine glasses I see in French films of that era

I have been tempted to ask the Film Forum programmer exactly how hard it is to get a print of La prima notte di quiete since as far as I know it only ever showed at a Zurlini festival in Lincoln Center 25 years ago.

i always thought "dessous de verre" meant "coaster", which is surely a common feature of bars everywhere -- are you talking about a ceramic plate?

It’s a great later role for him, aging professor losing his looks and on the downward arc of his never stellar career falls for beautiful young student. Could be a Sigrid Nunez character! #onethread

As it happens: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/happy-mondays-pills-n-thrills-and-bellyaches🕸/

🐦[VAMOOOOOOOS!!!! 🌱❤️🏆💪🏻🙌🏻🔝😀
— Carlos Alcaraz (@carlosalcaraz) July 14, 2024🕸]🐦

i always thought "dessous de verre" meant "coaster", which is surely a common feature of bars everywhere -- are you talking about a ceramic plate?

"but a complicated person"

He supported Le Pen.

I guess I should finally open up my Blu-rays of The Sicilian Clan and Rocco

Delon on Dick Cavett (with Elsa Lanchester!) in 1970

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOQEMgKfp8Q

Sicilian Clan is very good. The music only makes it a classic !

Keep thinking of THE SICILIAN CLAN, haven’t seen it in a while. There are some similarities between its opening and that of LE CERCLE ROUGE the confusion of which I managed to get straight when rewatched the latter very recently

I think Adieu l’Ami is in the same « circle »

Once a Thief is good and not on here

La prima notte di quiete/The Professor/Indian Summer

I saw this at TIFF, and I remember it was good, but my only vivid memory is of Delon assigning a ten-page in-class essay to his students and then settling down at his desk with a newspaper and cigarettes.

RIP to an icon. in some of my favourite films, with a beauty that allowed directors to create stillness out of his face.

also complete fash. what is this “not complete FN”? not only was he vocally supportive of the FN, he said it was long overdue.

realise it’s the custom of obits to communicate the unsaid through euphemism but no need for that here.

Yeah, agreed. Great actor, terrible guy.

i always thought "dessous de verre" meant "coaster", which is surely a common feature of bars everywhere -- are you talking about a ceramic plate?

Ah yeah maybe I misunderstood the comment (I may be a bit drunk right now !)

Yes, I was referring to small, white ceramic plates, they're everywhere in French movies of a certain era. Also: wine bottles inside a little basket.

Away from my physical media collection at the moment or I'd get us some screengrabs.

I really want to question whether Delon is really that good an actor, and whether his filmography is as banging as various male leads of that era because his fascism angers me so much, but ofc I will re-watch his 2/3 best films.

And these other male leads have appeared in many more films I love and are just as terrible people (Depardieu comes to mind, he has at least 15-20 films of his that I can name and love :-().

I'm still angry at Godard's trolly FN semi-support myself, it being couched in this layer of plausible deniability makes it more insidious than Delon's straight fash endorsement.

Trintignant might have the best filmography of that generation, iirc good politics too?

So many being trash ppl and being in so much good stuff...its dark out there.

With Delon the question of is-he-an-actor dissolves. He's a camera subject, an expert one and one of the best of the last 70 years. To watch him "act" in sympathetic roles is excruciating, but those are few.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQE3OA7sSzE

Oh yes he supported Le Pen for sure and it was scandalous of course but overall a complicated person as this article from Le Monde describes well enough (right/left wing added for the political leaders mentioned) :

In 1974 and 1981, the actor, who was in favor of the death penalty, called for a vote for Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, right (against François Mitterrand, socialist), in 1988 for Raymond Barre, center right (in the first round), and in 2007 for Nicolas Sarkozy, right, before later falling out with the president. While he readily said he "adored" and "admired" Simone Veil, right, according to Agence France-Presse, he was not very talkative about Jacques Chirac, right.

After supporting Alain Juppé, right, during the Republican primaries in 2016, he voted for François Fillon, right, in the first round of the presidential election. In the second round, between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, he claimed to have "stayed home." He didn't like the way the daughter treated her father.

Since the 1980s, Alain Delon had been close to the leader of the National Front. "I have points of agreement and disagreement with him. He is a longtime friend; I am very 'sympathetic' to Mr. Le Pen," he said in 1987, while enthusiastically supporting Raymond Barre at that time.

In 2013, Alain Delon declared that he "approved" of the National Front taking a very important place. This stance was denounced by the Miss France committee and led him to resign from his position as lifelong president of that jury.

In response to the many reactions provoked by his support for the National Front, Alain Delon stood firm: "I have not gone off track. I have been a Gaullist for forty years, but one must live with the times. You cannot be a Gaullist in a Hollande-era world."

During the 2014 European election campaign, the man who considered homosexuality "unnatural" lent his voice to the promotional clip for Christine Boutin, the figurehead of opponents to same-sex marriage. "I didn't say anything against gay marriage," he explained. "I said I didn't care about marriage. But I am against child adoption (…) because a child should have a father and a mother and should be raised by a father and a mother."

This stance did not prevent him from cultivating friendships with people from opposing sides, such as the Italian director Luchino Visconti, who was homosexual and close to the communists, or from financially supporting a film like *Monsieur Klein* by Joseph Losey, who was banned from Hollywood for his communist sympathies.

Similarly, after the left's defeat in the 1986 legislative elections, he insisted that it be former Socialist Minister of Culture Jack Lang who presented him with the insignia of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. During the 2014 municipal elections in Paris, he supported the Socialist Party candidate, Anne Hidalgo.

Alain Delon sure believed in being a dad to his kid with Nico.

Eheh. With these 2 parents Ari would have turned out evil. I don’t know much about his life though, except the drugs stuff…

What is so 'complicated' about the guy hanging around with Le Pen? That he won't vote for the daughter for the way she has 'treated' him.

What I get from that summing up is he was a reactionary who would cultivate occasional friendships with leftists, not that uncommon.

My wife's dad (who is French and in a very French way follows politics basically as gossip) told me Chabrol was huge friends with Le Pen pére too?

I don't care for his politics, but I have no problem celebrating his work as an actor, and I think the reasons are applicable to nearly any great actor's work - I didn't discover them for what they are as themselves, I mostly know them for how they play a fictional character, and even if it's one drawn for real life or even themselves, it's still a fabrication of some kind, at minimum a subjective interpretation. His political statements deserve to be challenged, but I don't think that changes the enormous contributions he made on-screen - in some cases, his personal failings end up being sad reflections of some of my favorite Delon performances (particularly Prince Tancredi Falconeri in The Leopard). Other favorites: Purple Noon, L'Eclisse and Nouvelle Vague. I like him in the Melville films too, but probably not as much as others - Le Samouraï is the only one I'd revisit, but despite its merits (and its popularity for that matter) I've never thought of it as one of Melville's masterpieces, not even among his crime films.

I think we're all on the same page there, most posts are some variation on "great movies, shame about the monstrous politics/personal behaviour"...except xyzz who's skeptical of the movies but has also admitted he feels about Depardieu the way we feel about Delon.

Think this kind of thing is always easier to sort out after the person's dead.

did anyone love him as a politician or a moral leader as such?

was he even noteworthy as either in any way?

That's hilarious point missing. I want the obits to not skirt around his fascist sympathies.

In terms of filmography there are quite a few other French actors from the time who were in a bigger number of excellent films, also more of a range of films than what Delon was used in, and maybe for a longer period of time but I am pushing that in a trolly way because his life is being a bit more celebrated than I'd like given who he was.

Reckon Bardot will catch much more criticism for her racism when she goes.

She will but tbf even a Delon skeptic like yourself has to admit there's less of a filmography there to distract from it. If, say, Catherine Deneuve said something along those lines it'd be a different situation.

Yes fair enough re: Bardot.

I think in the French context his politics are just a minor aspect of his more general cuntishness. There’s a pretty universal recognition of just how horrible person he was so the Le Pen stuff is not particularly noteworthy even in more critical obits.

Catherine Deneuve was critical of the #MeToo movement I believe. Just add to the list.

That's just boilerplate boomer shit, annoying but hardly on a level w/ endorsing fascism.

Yeah think she just signed some boneheaded letter. She's campaigned for reproductive rights, ending the death penalty, etc.

Just watched Mr. Klein. Incredible film.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/20/alain-delon-family-refuse-to-put-down-dog-actor-wished-to-be-buried-with?

scum of the earth.

The man was a monster!

lol real cartoon villain shit

https://i.imgur.com/9d2VL8H.png

Delon saw this and was like "hey, I should do something like that!"

Great appreciation and honest assessment by Farran Smith Nehme

catching up on stuff but although i love delon films i think the question of whether he was a good actor or not is a reasonable one. it was his *face* that mattered. he didn’t do a lot with it, imo!

also yes to Chris L - M Klein is excellent i thought. i remember having a load of things i wanted to write down after seeing it and then didn’t and ofc now can’t remember anything really, other than some amazing interiors and the stadium scenes.