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Critic’s Notebook: Sharper Than Ever, French Crime Classic ‘Le Samouraï’ Might Be the Coolest Film Ever Made
Jean-Pierre Melville's French noir set the template for everyone from Michael Mann to John Woo. Here's why a 4K restoration is essential viewing.
By that point in his career, the star had worked with such titans as Luchino Visconti (“Rocco and His Brothers”), Michelangelo Antonioni (“L’Eclisse”) and René Clément (“Purple Noon”), but he clicked with Melville as with no other, and considered the tough-minded war hero (who changed his last name, Grumbach, to disguise his Jewish identity during his service) to be their superior. “Obsessed” isn’t a strong enough word to describe his infatuation with Hollywood movies, as Melville — who sported a Stetson hat and sunglasses behind the wheel of his Ford Galaxy convertible — screened multiple films a day, cataloging them in his mind. For his part, Delon stripped back what audiences were accustomed to seeing from a star to a bare minimum: no backstory, no psychology, composing his performance of deliberate, efficient gestures (drawing his gun, straightening the brim of his Borsalino) and the subtlest of micro-expressions.
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