Le Samourai / Phillip Stephens
Forget Tarantino. Forget Woo. Forget Jim Jarmusch and Walter Hill. Forget everything you think you know about “cool,” because without Le Samouraï, without Jef Costello, none of these guys (and by extension, none of us) would know a damn thing.
Jean-Pierre Melville had already announced his cinematic intention of marrying American noir with European savoir faire in Bob le flambeur, but in 1967, he boiled coolness down to its essence; noir was no longer just a style, now it was an aesthetic. Le Samouraï contains almost no dialogue, little sound, and spare action. It’s not quite minimalism; rather, it revels in the elegance of sparseness. Every frame is timed, every movement measured, making anything that jumps out of the silence, the stillness, jolt you with its profundity. I’m not going to spell out the plot here, simply because it probably wouldn’t fill a paragraph. The importance of this film isn’t what, but how and why.
Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a hitman to beat all hitmen, a guy who makes glaciers look cozy. Le Samouraï tracks Jef through the standard noir tropes: the job, the femme fatale (though a very different femme fatale), the setup, the revenge, and that final gasp of fatalism. But this is a journey which delves deeper than the style that spawned it; Melville distills his neo-noir into something as pure as spiritualism, an appropriate metaphor for a character who appears to have renounced everything save his occupation; his principle is merely habit. Costello is all the more alluring for this detachment. He deals death with the same icy gravitas it takes to tip his fedora; his every being is of the code of conduct suggested by the title.
And both that title and a preface from the fictional “Code of Bushido” give reference to the crisp power of Japanese ritual. Jef isn’t so much a person as an idea, the sheer apotheosis of adherence to ceremony, with American style as its vehicle. But taken as the masterpiece of form and chic it certainly is, Le Samouraï is still a very French version of existentialism - Melville isn’t using spare formality as a means of finding realism, but quite the opposite. As cool as they are, neither Jef Costello nor Melville himself can resist the temptation of a bleak, romantic fate. If Jef is an idea, he’s also a doomed idea. He’s a murderer, sure, but one bound by the rites and honor of an iconic age. Could someone like that last in the modern world? Pshaw.
No, Jef Costello is doomed, and he marches inexorably toward his destiny with the same frosty nonchalance he uses to carry out his tasks. Yet as stark and understated as his final act is (the last scene will still break your heart), Melville’s fatalism shouldn’t evoke a pessimist’s sneer. Sartre said that Man is condemned to Free Will, and Melville echoes him through Costello’s dutiful embrace of a grim end, showing us that we can still master that fate which we cannot control.
Phillip Stephens is the lead critic and book editor for Pajiba. He lives in Fayetteville, AR.
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Comments
OK, I'll Netflix it. Now can you revisit Roshoman next?
Posted by: ciji at January 24, 2008 12:51 PM
Regarding that "elegant sparseness", a great many scenes could be ripped from the film and smacked right onto museum walls.
Posted by: Salisbury at January 24, 2008 1:01 PM
Le Samourai counts among my most disappointing film experiences of all time. After hearing how fantastic it was I Netflixed it only to find out that not only does it not really look all THAT cool (there's nothing subtle about the economy of movement in this film that Kurosawa didn't master in grade school) but that it committed the primary sin of "art film:" It was motherfucking boring.
That it barely has enough plot to fill up a coloring book isn't a virtue, it's something the movie has to succeed in spite of. Some films do this nicely like Lost in Translation, Cinema Paradiso, or a whole host of Bing Crosby films, but Le Samourai isn't one of them. It lacks the pure bleakness of the sole found in noir films like Sunset Boulevard, the Maltese Falcon, etc etc because it has no soul to begin with. Amorality and blackness without context is meaningless, and that's why Le Samourai is a movie that is a classic only because everyone echoes the same five points about it over and over again and not because it's a movie that has actually stood the test of time.
Posted by: Sirkickyass at January 24, 2008 1:23 PM
Ooh, sounds artsy! I'll give it a try.
Posted by: Kamakazi Feminist at January 24, 2008 1:36 PM
Could you just leave that picture of Alain Delon up permanently? I have an ongoing debate with a friend who says he's "just a pretty boy" and I think that icy stare will rebut all her arguments. Plus, swoon!
Posted by: PaddyDog at January 24, 2008 1:42 PM
Does this film have an English title that might be more well known for us philistines in the states?
Posted by: Withnail at January 24, 2008 1:49 PM
Withnail: You need a translation of "Samurai"?
Posted by: PaddyDog at January 24, 2008 2:33 PM
I'm right there with ya 'Sirkickyass.' I wanted to love this film, but when it came down to it, I couldn't.
I acknowledge its influence and respect the archetypes it laid, but man alive was I bored. I even fell asleep during the showing in my film class.
Posted by: ian at January 24, 2008 2:54 PM
Sirkickyass' comment is scaring me away from this film. If there is one thing I cannot stand, it's arty-ness for the sake of arty-ness. I'm not going to waste my time on some snoozefest just because it's 'coolness boiled down to its essense' or some such nonesense (what does that even mean?). If somebody has a rebuttal to Sirkickyass, I'd like to hear it.
Posted by: tt_marie at January 24, 2008 3:02 PM
Why do I get echoes of Ghost Dog from this review?
Posted by: Shadows of Dakaron at January 24, 2008 3:11 PM
Shadows-I was thinking the same thing.
tt_marie @Sirkickyass-I hated Lost in Translation, so maybe I'll give this a try. That's the best argument I can give.
Posted by: Kt at January 24, 2008 4:32 PM
Shadows-I'm sure that I have read somewhere that Ghost Dog was written as a homage to this film.
Posted by: Dexter Morgan at January 24, 2008 4:43 PM
Shadows-I'm sure that I have read somewhere that Ghost Dog was written as a homage to this film.
Posted by: Dexter Morgan at January 24, 2008 4:43 PM
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That would explain that, then. I have to say I really enjoyed Ghost Dog, so just on the basis of that movie, I'd watch this one. Of course, I also liked Lost in Translation. No excuse for taste, right?
Posted by: Shadows of Dakaron at January 24, 2008 5:12 PM
I love reading these things. I'm idly hoping that Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? will be next up.
Posted by: Brooke at January 24, 2008 7:02 PM
Does this film have an English title that might be more well known for us philistines in the states?
Nah, just the French title. The US DVD release from Criterion uses that title.
Posted by: RichD at January 24, 2008 11:44 PM
Hire Sirkickyass to do some reviews. His review of this empty, vastly overrated film is dead on.
Posted by: Peter L. Winkler at January 25, 2008 1:40 PM
Cool!
Will you do "Army of Shadows" now?
Posted by: Amelia at January 26, 2008 1:57 AM
Did you-? Did you just review my all time favourite movie? Oh yes you did.
I can't even count how many times I've seen it since discovering it one quiet Sunday afternoon when I was 15, on a multicultural TV station in Australia called SBS. Ah, memories. Buffet Froid still cracks me up too.
Posted by: Rebecca H. at January 26, 2008 3:59 AM
I wrote a post yesterday, guess it didn't stick. Weird. Anyway, thank you so much for writing this. I love this movie so much. I've watched it numerous times since I bought it.
Posted by: Kevin Longrie at January 26, 2008 5:10 AM