Alain Delon, 77 Today. Always Been Cool.

Delon, Gabin, Ventura - The Sicilian Clan [Trailer]

The Great Acting Blog: "Artist As Movie Star - Alain Delon On Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai"

Please watch this 4 minute interview of Alain Delon, upon which, this blog is a response to.

 

Alain Delon is speaking the truth. How do we know? Because he does not try to sell what he is saying to us, he does not narrate his emotions, he does not indicate to us what we should be feeling in response to his words. No, Delon speaks simply and directly, which is how we speak when we  speak about something which is important to us – we do not embellish those things which are important to us, nor do we embellish the truth. It's worth pointing out that Delon was a major movie star at this time, and Le Samourai was a box office smash – compare his interview to those of the modern day movie star: drenched in the slime of self-promotion, expert in the smug schmooze, and all false self-deprecation*, and it is only ever patronizing when they praise the film they are working on (what is really meant is that film did an adequate job of showcasing their specialness).

Delon's reverence for Jean-Pierre Melville, his love for the film and for cinema itself, are obvious, and they inspire and refresh – no mere “exploitation of the form” for Delon. He recognises an auteur film when he sees one. I've said before on this blog, that actors need to learn about the aesthetics of cinema in order to choose which work to accept and which to decline, which filmmakers to support, and which to ignore – this is especially crucial with the proliferation of micro-budget cinema in recent years (and similarly, I have called on directors to improve their understanding of the aesthetics of acting, so that they can actually tell the difference between good and bad acting, and not just cast an actor because they've got the right colour hair). Delon describes Le Samourai as a work of art, a word ridiculed by self-styled “commercial” filmmakers these days, but perhaps it's worth thinking about what it actually means, and then we might strive to create same, and find the wherewithal to describe it as such.

 

*..."the director didn't even want me for the role, I had to fight for it, I had to prove to him that I was an artist" (note how the word “artist” here, is used as a term of self-aggrandizement).

 

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The Great Acting Blog: "Boredom Of The Disgust & Monotony Of The Tediousness - Part 1""

 

As I arrived in Cork,  the ever prolific and hardworking Rouzbeh Rashidi informed me that in addition to HE, we were to shoot some scenes for another feature film he was putting together (in collaboration with Maximilian Le Cain), and he did so in a tone of voice which suggested that shooting two feature films simultaneously was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, the obvious thing to do infact.

He said he wanted to explore on camera some of the ideas I have been developing on this blog over the months, aswell as create fictional, improvised scenes, then finally explore my attitude to cinema generally, in scenes which would be both fiction and documentary. However, as the scenes progressed and as we accrued material, it was decided that the footage would form a feature film of it's own: “Boredom Of The Disgust And Monotony Of The Tediousness”.

5 OF THE BEST

Firstly, Rashidi asked me to write down my five favourite actors and actresses, on a piece of paper, and then discuss what I liked about them, or why I thought they were great. Normally an easy task – I always love a good list, and walking down street lost in my thoughts, I could probably reel off one name after another, but when someone asks you to name names, suddenly the mind goes blank. However, after some thought, I did manage to come up with five actors – (in no particular order) Charles Laughton, Marlon Brando, Michel Piccoli, Jack Nicholson and Jean Gabin (on my reserve list were Alain Delon and Robert De Niro). For actresses, I decided on: Tilda Swinton, Emmanuelle Beart, Irene Jacob and Delphine Seyrig, and ran out of time before thinking of my fifth (which would have been Monica Vitti). I then offered my reasons for including each. Obviously a lot was said about the excellence of each actor's technique, but, in the end, what we respond to in each actor is their personality, each of them is intrinsically compelling – and I'm not talking about them playing compelling characters, it's something in them, call it energy, call it spirit, there's just something about them that is alight....Of course, as I write this blog, I can think of many, many others I could add to the list (Dirk Bogarde anyone?).

GURU

The next set up had me expounding my theories on acting more broadly (never needing to be asked twice to do so of course) – many of which may be viewed as “controversial”, such as the fact that there is no difference between stage and camera acting, but that a lot of people make a lot of money by inventing a difference: then charging good money to explain what the difference is, then charge again to "teach" the actor how to "adapt" accordingly. The wider point, of course, is that a whole industry has sprouted up around the idealism and the ambition of young people who go into acting – and this industry is made up of “business people” who create a problem for the actor and then offer themselves as the solution (in the same way cigarettes create an aggravation for nicotine in the smoker, which can only be soothed by smoking). A classic example, is the “career guru”, who charges actors £50 an hour to assess the marketing effectiveness of their materials (ie - headshots, CVs, covering letters etc). During this hour, the actor is subjected to a comprehensive criticism of all that he has been doing to “get work”, and at the end, the guru gives him list of things to change (whether it is an improvement is moot of course). What else is the guru to do? Imagine that the desperate actor entered the guru's den, hoping to find out “where he's going wrong”, but, after only 10 minutes, the guru simply turned round and said; “congratulations! I've checked your stuff, and everything seems in order – keep doing what you're doing and success will soon be yours”,  then ushered the actor out the door? Wouldn't the actor feel cheated out of his money? Isn't he paying for the guru to criticise him?....With the £50 spent on the guru, the actor could have gone onto Amazon and bought a Flip HD camera and started making his own films.....I didn't put it this way in Boredom Of The Disgust & Monotony Of The Tediousness, but my point is the actor should remind himself that all he wants to do is offer a presentation to an audience (and hopefully delight them in the process) – this way of thinking will keep him fitted for the task - all else should be kept in perspective. If our work becomes simply a marketing mechanism, it will not be long before the lies breed an all consuming self-loathing, and then what?

The next part of the Boredom Of Disgust & Monotony Of The Tediousness blogs, which look at the fictional improvised scenes we created.

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The Great Acting Blog: "The Discreet Madness Of Michel Piccoli"

“There are musicians who practice all the time but we actors are not able to do that. We don't have an instrument, except if you say we are our own instrument, and yet I always try to continue searching and working for the moment where you have to deliver.” - Michel Piccoli.

 

Like his countryman Alain Delon, although a very different acting animal, Michel Piccoli has worked with many of the great auteurs of European cinema; Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Luis Bunuel, Jacques Rivette, Claude Sautet, Otar Iosseliani, Louis Malle, Claude Chabrol, and those are only the ones I can think of. And not only has he worked with the best, but Piccoli has also appeared in several masterpieces, my favourite of which must be Godard's Le Mepris, where Piccoli plays a hack writer, who spends most of the film trying to keep hold of his wife, played by the beautiful Brigitte Bardot. He fumbles around after her, trying to satisfy her needs which are apparently incomprehensible to him, but we see Piccoli really trying, desperately trying, we see it in his face, it's the sad sight of a strong man brought low, until he does eventually lose her, tragically, to his own paymaster, played by Jack Palance.

Piccoli is a real lion of an actor, he's physically strong, and possesses a personality of force, along with an easy vocal power. But there is also a delicacy about him, a grace, he's self-conscious, he is generous and humble. He is mentally tough too, a rigorous thinker, which gives his strength a vulnerable quality, all of which adds up to a provocative and compelling acting whole. It has even been said that Piccoli is the perfect split between the physical and the intellectual, and I'd go along with that.

I began to understand the nature of Piccoli's talent better, after I read an interview with him in Cahiers Du Cinema, where he expressed his admiration for the work of Louis Jouvet, describing him as having “a kind of discreet madness”. I thought this an apt description for Piccoli himself. The “discreet” is the intellectual, graceful side of Piccoli, stiff upper lipped and impassive. In this mode, Piccoli's work is pared down, allowing the audience to project their own imagination onto him, and therefore vicariously experience the character's trials and tribulations. This is the Piccoli of self-control, enabling him to play the white collar gangster, Nuttheccio, in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Doulos, or an old woman (yes, an old woman) in Otar Iosseliani's Gardens In Autumn, or a great painter in Jacques Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse. And yet, even here, beneath Piccoli's intelligence and civilised mannner, there is the “madness” too. And we sense it, even when it is not brought forth directly, as in Claude Chabrol's Les Noces Rouges, where Piccoli plays the Deputy Mayor, he seems somehow savage when cherishing Stephane Audran during their illicit love affair. But Piccoli only ever offers us brief glimpses of this madness, but when it comes it's shocking, fierce, and decisive, and tends to manifest itself in sudden outbursts. In Claude Sautet's Les Choses de la Vie, Piccoli's vicious berating of the architect who messes up his plans is intense but it apparently comes from nowhere and is over in a moment, it's effect however, is total. There are other moments too, in the aforementioned Le Mepris, where we see Bardot flinch when faced with the chaos of Piccoli's temper. Ultimately though, this madness is always present in Piccoli's work, even if it's usually only latent, shadowing his essentially classy nature.

Michel Piccoli is one of the greatest actors there has ever been. His body of work is immense (which includes a substantial amount of theatre work, infact, the first 10 years or so of Piccoli's career were spent upon the stage, learning his trade, sadly I have never seen him live), and I can only look upon it with awe. The qualities he embodies as a man, and therefore brings to his work, are a lesson for any actor. He also thinks deeply about his work, in this sense then, he is a philosopher of acting, aswell as an artist.

I fear Michel Piccoli is little known here in United Kingdom, if you don't know his work, I urge you to watch his films, any of the films mentioned here would be a good place to start*, try them, and experience, for yourself, the discreet madness of Michel Piccoli.

* and I have hardly mentioned his substantial work with Luis Bunuel, for whom Piccoli was an important collaborator

The Great Acting Blog: "Alain Delon"

 

Alain Delon delivered great performances in films made by some of the great maestros of cinema: Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Pierre Melville, Louis Malle, Jean-Luc Godard, Rene Clement and Joseph Losey. That alone may qualify Delon as a great actor, because in order to be great, the actor must give great performances in great productions, it is not good enough to give great performances in mediocre ones. Delon however, not only gave great performances in great movies, but defined an entire aesthetic (Delon is a reference point for a certain kind of acting) in the same way a painter might, or a filmmaker or a playwright. In this sense, Delon is a supreme actor-artist and belongs in a group made up of only a handful of actors.

 

How do you describe Delon's work to someone who has never seen him perform? Well, Delon is not forceful in the way Brando was forceful, and he's a positive wallflower compared to someone like Laughton. Delon is reserved, he is still, and when he does move it is swift, decisive and precise, and he always keeps it simple. His work is about clarity of action, that is: the actions Delon performs on behalf of his character in the scene are clear. He is highly disciplined* and excludes the non-essential in service of the film he is working on. Physically, he is superbly constructed, and I have often thought that if I had to design a screen actor, it would probably come out something like Alain Delon.

 

I knew Delon was my kind of actor when I saw him in Antonioni's masterpiece, L'Eclisse, where he plays a brash, arrogant stockbroker chasing after Monica Vitti. There is a scene which takes place in the office where Delon's character works. It is the end of a very busy day, where Delon has had to deal with many angry clients demanding their money back after the stock market has collapsed. Finally, he has a moment of peace: relaxing at his desk he picks up a glass of Coke, rocks back on his chair and slowly brings the drink to his lips, but just before he is about to drink, he pulls the glass away from his mouth and slams it back down onto the desk, leaps out of his chair, grabs his coat and leaves the office. We find out in the next scene that Delon was late for a date, hence the about turn with the Coke. This is a brilliant example of how the actor can convey so much through the handling of objects. Here, Delon has shown, by changing his action in front of us, how the character has had a complete and rapid change of thought (note that the actor need not “think” the “thoughts” of the “character”, and this is impossible anyway), it is simple, but it's compelling, and it's true.

 

This week saw Delon turn 75, and I was shocked to see him in a photograph as the old man he now is (albeit still in good shape) because my image of him is still stuck in 1967, when he played the now iconic hitman, Jef Costello, in Jean-Pierre Melville's seminal film noir masterpiece, Le Samourai, a movie which reached almost mythical proportions for me because I had to wait so many years to see it, and it's still not readily available here in the UK. Le Samourai is also one of the most influential films of all time. Almost all contemporary silent-assassin-films will have been affected by it in some way. Infact, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino among others, have sited Melville's film as an influence upon their own work (and, if I may, an influence upon mine, as my short script “Reprieve” owes something to Melville), and, at the centre of it all, is Delon, as the stoical master Hitman, utterly immaculate, and very, very cool.

 

Le Samourai is a deceptively simple film, as is Delon's performance in it, yet neither are lacking in mystery. Further, Melville's film is essential in the sense that every frame is necessary, exclude anything and the film will not make sense. Again, this is in harmony with Delon's work, we absolutely must watch everything he does because everything he does is meaningful, and we sense this while watching. And both the film and Delon refuse to yield their secrets, even after repeat viewing. Rarely has there been an example of a film being constructed around the aesthetic of it's leading actor, and, vice versa, rarely has an actor embodied a film's aesthetic so purely. There is a unity between the actor's performance and the filmmaker's design, they become one and the same, and the overall effect is a film of true aesthetic beauty.

 

*Volker Schlondorff tells the tale of how Delon would arrive on set precisely at the time he was called, and leave exactly when scheduled to.