Alain Delon hits “Le Samouraï” with killer style

4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS

French actor Alain Delon plays cool contract killer Jef Costello, who’s been rounded up as a suspect in a murder of a jazz club owner. (2) Two witnesses left, the club pianist Valerie (Cathy Rosier) and the hat-check girl (Catherine Jourdan) view the suspects.

(Click an image to scroll the larger versions)

4K screenshots courtesy of The Criterion Collection/Pathé - Click for Amazon purchase

“LE SAMOURAÏ” – THE CRITERION COLLECTION

4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray; 1967; unrated

Best extra: “Authors on Melville” with Rui Nogueira and Ginette Vincendeau

CONTROVERSIAL FRENCH actor Alain Delon, 88, made his cinematic mark in three New Wave films by director Jean-Pierre Melville (“Le Cercle Rouge,” “Un Flic”). Delon’s most famous role was the cool contract killer Jef Costello, “a solitary gun for hire,” wearing a stylish trench coat, a fedora, and white gloves in “Le Samouraï,” British film scholar David Thomson explains in his enclosed essay, originally written for Criterion’s 2005 DVD edition.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the recently deceased actor on X, saying, “[Delon] made the world dream. Lending his unforgettable face to turn our lives upside down. He was more than a star: he was a French monument.”

The late film critic Roger Ebert called him a “Tough pretty boy of French movies, an actor so improbably handsome that his best strategy for dealing with his looks was to use a poker face.”

The first 10 minutes of “Le Samouraï” begins without a single word of dialogue, as Costello orchestras two alibis – one with his “uncertain lover” Jane, played by his wife Nathalie Delon – before killing a jazz club owner, and surviving a police lineup with half-dozen witnesses. The final act is a classic cat-and-mouse game as the police dragnet encircles Costello.

(1) Costello lives in a drab hotel room with only a bird for companionship. (2&3) He uses a series of keys to steal a European Citroën DS automobile to be his getaway car. A mechanic provides a new license plate and the gun. (4-6) Costello sets up two alibis – one with his “uncertain lover” Jane (Nathalie Delon) and a gang of overnight poker players.

EXTRAS

The enclosed Blu-ray houses the bonus features including the two-part “Authors on Melville” (2005). First, critic Rui Nogueira who considers “Le Samouraï” Melville’s “most perfect, purest and noblest film,” who was at the “peak of his art as a creator.”

For decades Melville has been considered “the Father of the French New Wave,” filming nearly every shot on location, under the restraints of a tiny budget. Nogueira recalls the day Melville picked him up in a large American car and drove him around Paris, with Frank Sinatra singing on the radio. Melville had been infatuated with American culture and Hollywood’s dramatic film noir thrillers of the 1940s. His earliest films “Bob le flambeur” (1956) and “Le doulos” (1962) were heavily influenced by American crime films. Melville eventually stopped the car and the two walked across the footbridge where Costello met the blonde-haired guy who was supposed to pay him for the job, but pulls a gun instead. “Melville’s love for the city made it sublime,” Nogueira says.

The writer/director was meticulous with the mood and look of his films, orchestrating Delon’s every hand movement, the tilt of his hat, and the correct turning of his jacket collar, Nogueira recalls.

French-born and British-based film historian Ginette Vincendeau says Melville was one of the first self-taught filmmakers. “He was a great cinephile and spent most of his time during the 1930s watching movies.” Once he became a director, his work became influential and appealing to audiences, he says.

Martey’s Nightclub

(1) In her first on-screen role Cathy Rosier plays Valerie, who keeps the audience entertained with her jazz trio. (2&3) Costello confronts the club owner Martey (unnamed actor) and he fires the gun. (4) He enters the hallway to escape and the pianist sees him. (5) The Paris police investigate the crime scene.

“The Lineup” includes a number of archival TV interviews with the director and the cast, including Alain and Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier, and François Périer. Melville remembers getting his first movie camera in 1923 for his sixth birthday. “It was a Pathé Baby hand-cranked model, and I made my debut as a filmmaker,” he said, seated outside surrounded by the ruins of his movie studio, which was nearly destroyed in a massive fire in 1967.

There’s also a 2011 short documentary, “Melville-Delon: Of Honor and of Night” – detailing the father-and-son-like relationship between the director and his favorite actor. Interviews with Melville’s two nephews, and filmmaker Volker Schlondörff and Nogueira provide stories.

VIDEO

Criterion and France-based Pathé supervised the 4K restoration with Italy’s L’lmmagine Ritrovata post-production house actually doing the 4K scan (1.85:1 aspect ratio) and digital cleanup work. The original camera negative has some glaring missed scenes and sections that were replaced with a second-generation 35mm internegative and a 35mm interpositive. Both secondary elements were also scanned in 4K, but the level of clarity varies from excellent with fine film grain from the first-generation negative to a much softer image and larger grain with the others.

Standard HDR10 grading is provided and it’s quite different compared to the 2017 Criterion Blu-ray, sourced from a 2K master. The HDR color spectrum is dialed to a cooler tone of grays and blues, and the overall brightness is much darker – which sometimes causes blocked-up shadows – especially from the lesser-resolution elements. For example, when Costello spots a European Citroën DS automobile, his favorite to steal for his next job, the shadows are so blocked up you can’t read the license plate. Still, on the Blu-ray it’s readable.

You wonder if that was Melville’s and cinematographer Henri Decaë’s (“Elevator to the Gallows,” “The Boys from Brazil”) intent?

Everything was encoded onto a 100 GB disc and the video bitrate runs nearly 90 Megabits per second, while the peak HDR brightness hits a modest 444 nits and averages at 91 nits.

(1&2) Costello stands in front of the police height chart, while a half-dozen witnesses determine his fate. He’s interrogated by the Inspector (François Périer). (3-6) Costello meets a man on a footbridge (Jacques Leroy) to get the money for the job. But, it all goes wrong and Costello is wounded.

AUDIO

The original mono track has been restored and cleaned up, keeping everything front and center including the jazzy piano-driven score by François de Roubaix. English subtitles are provided; their size is a little on the large size – especially on large projected screens. At least you can tone down the subtitle brightness on Panasonic players.

Many world cinema directors have given “Le Samouraï” the highest marks including John Woo (who provides an essay in the 29-page booklet), Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Walter Hill. “Melville is God to me,” says Woo. He first saw “Le Samouraï” in Hong Kong in the early 1970s, and “Immediately it turned Alain Delon into a major star in Asia.”

– Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer

(1) The man from the footbridge is back and offers another job and money. (2-4) The police surveillance intensifies as the dragnet encircles Costello.