naturally He was gorgeous—it was always the first thing you noticed about Alain Delon whenever he appeared on screen, that preternatural handsomeness that took your breath away no matter where you were on the Kinsey scale. The French movie star knew he was one of the most beautiful people ever to grace the movies, from any country and in any era, with those almost geometric bones and those icy blue eyes; Delon knew that his looks opened career doors and the arms of the women he was happy to be in. He knew, but he didn’t bother to care. “The male Brigitte Bardot,” as he was once called, didn’t care much about anything. And it was the combination of those two things—that handsomeness and that arrogance—that made him a global star.
The persona that Delon, who died at the weekend aged 88, projected in his films – a stern, distant, above-the-scenes persona – was not just an act. He could be volatile in real life, and certainly gave interviewers the impression that he would rather be anywhere else than where he was. But Delon had affection for many things, including a legacy that he spent the autumn years humiliating or rejecting. There is a video of him receiving the honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 on YouTube, where you can see him smiling proudly as his daughter is introduced, crying on stage and noting that he had always given his all in his career, which is why the award meant so much to him. The fact that people focused on his Greek-god-like face didn’t bother him. He just felt contempt for those who couldn’t see beyond it. “I’m not a star,” he told a British film magazine in the mid-1960s. “I'm an actor. I've been fighting for ten years to make people forget that I'm just a handsome guy with a pretty face. It's a tough battle, but I'm going to win it.”
Dillon an act He won. And we wouldn’t be talking about him decades later if he hadn’t. The young renegade who joined the French Marines and spent time in a military prison—for a variety of other offenses, including stealing a Jeep and driving it into a river—certainly caught the attention of the movie industry initially with his charisma. Eventually, though, he proved he had earned the right to be called an actor. and Star. His oft-repeated origin story is of him accompanying an acquaintance to Cannes in 1957 on a whim and immediately having to choose between a possible film audition in Hollywood or being discovered by French director Yves Allégret for a role in his drama Send a woman when the devil fails. Delon declined both offers. When Allegret told him that he had convinced the producers to cast him despite Delon's refusal, the young man politely reconsidered. “Honestly, I only did it to please him,” the star later told a French television interviewer.
He appeared in a number of French productions over the next few years until he happened to hit a double-dip in 1960. The first hit was purple afternoon Dillon played the original lead role of antihero Tom Ripley played by Patricia Highsmith. Unlike future versions that would range from childish to conflicted (The Talented Mr. Ripley) to the level of a chess master account (Netflix's Ripley), Delon’s socially respectable conman is more than just a con man. He’s also adept at weaponizing his extraordinary sex appeal, which makes this version of Tom all the more edgy and dangerous. In this film, director René Clément, whom Delon refers to as his “master,” taught the actor that a complete performance can be created primarily through one’s eyes. Delon called it “the look,” and his embrace of this methodology not only transformed Ripley into the most silent and observant of psychopathic predators, but inspired the rest of his career. Show, don’t tell. And say as much with as little as you can.
The second knockout was Rocco and his brothers In this film, Delon appears as the most sensitive and caring of the Italian brothers, paying the price for being a guardian to his brothers. This film brought him together for the first time with Luchino Visconti, who he knew had not only a great camerawork but also a universal talent. When asked why he chose Alain for the lead role, the director replied that he immediately realized that the gap between the character struggling through hard times and Delon’s background was very thin. It was Rocco, Visconti exclaimed: “I couldn’t have made this film without him.”
From there, Delon’s name began to loom large above the title, doing everything from heist movies to fencing adventures, all of which exploited his jaw and his wrinkled face. Hollywood called, he answered the call and found it had nothing to offer him, and vice versa. But it was a series of sad, lost souls—all different, all moody, all easy on the eyes—that made him the angelic face of contemporary European anxiety. He lent the boredom of a tired world to Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Invincible Man. Lee Klis (1962), and re-teamed with Visconti for Tiger (1963), a historical epic that has a strong claim to being considered one of the greatest films ever made. (Don't just take our word for it.)
and largely underrated Lansomes (1964) finds his character deserting his Foreign Legion post and joining a far-right militia that kidnaps a lawyer defending Algerian rebels; it was shown in America as Undefeated, But it was shown on TCM under the title Delicious B Movie. Do I have the right to kill? (This was also the film that gave us the image of Dillon lying on the floor that graced the cover of the Smiths' 1986 masterpiece.) The queen is dead) The existential antiheroes suited his strengths as an actor perfectly. No offense to Marcello Mastroianni, but the fact that Visconti didn't cast Delon for the lead role in his 1967 film adaptation The stranger I really feel like this is a missed opportunity.
Two of these types of roles in particular stand out from this period, both of which ended up introducing him to two different generations of fans. Samurai It seems like the role Dillon was always meant to play – there have probably been hitmen who took a Zen-like approach to their work before (notably in 1958). contract killing), but his lighthearted, action-oriented acting style is exactly what Jean-Pierre Melville’s stylish assassin needs. There’s no dialogue for the first 10 minutes or so, yet watching Delon’s assassin silently go about his business as he prepares for the mission tells you everything you need to know about the man and the world he operates in. He’s been a huge influence on filmmakers from John Woo to David Fincher, and with more and more directors naming him for this ’90s crime thriller, Delon has suddenly become a cool icon again. His use of “looks” has never been better used.
The other film was a modern rediscovery, rescued from obscurity by a well-timed restoration and a badly timed pandemic. The pool (1969) is coming to theaters just as people are slowly beginning to return to the movies post-Covid, and the idea of watching beautiful Europeans of yesteryear enjoying sex, murder, sunbathing, and more sex in St. Tropez seemed like a much-needed tonic. It was a huge hit on the revival scene and a popular title for streaming on the Criterion Channel, in part because of Delon. There was plenty of beauty to be found, considering his co-stars were former pals Romy Schneider and Jane Birkin, but once again, Delon is the alpha eye candy here. This old-school, primal-desire trash turned the star into Thirst topic For a social media audience who responded to Dillon’s quiet, aloof persona and Adonis-bronze body in the same way as the 1960s crowd, more than 50 years later, he remains the region’s most recognizable iceberg.
We love our former stars to be complex onscreen and blank slates offscreen, and it’s easier to enjoy Dillon’s work now than it was when he was embroiled in controversy, alleged instances of problematic behavior—even at the time—and a real-life murder scandal. (Do yourself a favor and check out Dick Cavett’s interview with Dillon from 1970, in which the host tries to ask him about the latter. You can see, in real time, the moment when Alan’s fuse goes out.) Many people will head straight to Samurai or The pool So they can once again enjoy Delon in his prime, as they should. But we suggest they pursue those pleasures with something a little more complicated. Mr. Klein The 1978 film was a project Delon pursued, adding “producer” to his resume. Following a Catholic art dealer who is mistaken for a Jewish man of the same name during the occupation of France in World War II—and thus incurs the same mortal danger that his colleague Klein would have been in during that dark period of history—it ended up being a critical success, winning a slew of awards in France. Delon still uses “looks” to hit the story’s mark, but there’s a depth to the stillness here that’s far from the coldness that makes you over-admiring. Watch this, and you’ll remember that, yes, he was still an international movie star of the first order. But the self-proclaimed boy with the pretty face was absent. What you see is an artist.
