The French actor, whose career reached its peak at the time when the New Wave was sweeping through French cinema, was nevertheless never directed by the leading directors of the movement. A strangeness corrected by Jean-Luc Godard in 1990.
France Télévisions – Culture Editorial
Published on 08/20/2024 06:00
Reading time: 4 min Alain Delon, here on the set of the film “Mélodie en sous-sol” directed by Henri Verneuil, in Cannes, in 1962. (GILBERT TOURTE / GAMMA-RAPHO / GETTY IMAGES)
The story could have been written differently. Alain Delon and the New Wave are two trajectories with intertwined destinies, which nevertheless crossed paths so little. Why didn’t the actor celebrated by Visconti and Losey take part in this movement that rejuvenated the French 7th art industry? Asked about this question several times during his career, the French actor, who died on August 18, 2024 at the age of 88, was reserved and not very talkative on the subject. Between the lines, however, the bitter feeling of a missed opportunity between the actor and the leading filmmakers of the movement seemed to emerge. In 1990, Jean-Luc Godard finally called on Alain Delon to give him a role in a film symbolically named New wavethen correcting this form of anomaly, for which we can try to guess the reasons. Back to square one.
We are at the turn of the 1960s. After having given the reply to Romy Schneider in Christine (1958) by Pierre Gaspard-Huit, Alain Delon tastes his big success for his first role in Full Sun (1960) by René Clément. Three years earlier, the term “New Wave” was born from the pen of Françoise Giroud, a journalist for L’Express. First used to characterize what would become a new generation of filmmakers, the formula was taken up by Pierre Billard the following year in the magazine Cinema 58.
Now critics and other observers are taking up this wording in turn, characterizing the arrival of new directors in the film industry. From Jean-Luc Godard to Agnes Varda From François Truffaut to Claude Chabrol, this informal movement brings together filmmakers who produce their first feature films and stand out as much for the innovation of new techniques – lighter cameras, filming outdoors rather than in the studio, etc. – as for their vision of cinema.
“In the eyes of these filmmakers, I was like the symbol of the old wave, revealed by filmmakers like René Clément“, Alain Delon confided in an interview in 2019 pour The Inrockuptibles. At this time, the French actor shines on his side, noticed in The Eclipse (1962) by Michelangelo Antonioni and in The Cheetah (1963) by Luchino Visconti.
Insufficient success, according to him, to interest the directors of the New Wave, partly for “stories of clans, chapels“, the actor delivered with a hint of regret.”I’ve worked in Hollywood or with the greatest Italian filmmakers, but on the other hand, it was impossible to work with Chabrol. Well, in a way, I didn’t care, but not completely either because I thought that Chabrol had made some very good films and I didn’t see why I wouldn’t have had a place in them.“.
This position is occupied by Alain Delon’s great rival: Jean-Paul Belmondo. The actor, with whom the rivalry would turn into friendship, made a series of films directed by the directors of the New Wave, until he became one of its great figures. However, in 1963, it was on Alain Delon that the director Jean-Pierre Melville, considered one of the “fathers” of the New Wave – even if he always defended himself (didn’t he make a notable appearance in Out of breath) –, sets his sights on playing Michel Maudet in The Elder of the Ferchaux (1963). Delon refuses his proposal. Jean-Paul Belmondo, whom the director knows well for having already directed him on several occasions, is called to the rescue. Two years later, he plays Ferdinand Griffon in Pierrot the Mad (1965) by Jean-Luc Godard.
For his part, Alain Delon is not idle, chaining together the famous Samurai (1967) by the same Melville, The Swimming Pool (1969) with Romy Schneider, Borsalinowhich he produced and in which he shared the bill with Belmondo or Mr. Klein (1976) directed by American filmmaker Joseph Losey. High-flying productions, but which move away from what the directors born of the New Wave were then offering.
More than a decade later, Jean-Luc Godard put words on this missed meeting with Delon.We each experienced the same French film industry on our own. For a long time, it didn’t happen, and then I had a role in which I only saw him.“This role tailored for Delon turns out to be destined for a film called The New Wave (1990), quite a symbol.
At 55, Alain Delon is finally preparing to play under the orders of a director from the eponymous movement.I said: ‘okay’. For the symbol. I felt like I was saying: “I don’t give a damn about you all, I’m going to shoot with Godard, are you taking that in the face?” he confesses to InrockuptiblesThe film, which did not leave its mark on its time, was nevertheless presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990.
Six years later, perhaps relieved to have rectified this absence in his impressive career, Delon agrees to return to this missed meeting in the daily The World. “I wasn’t part of it, no one made me an offer. It was made clear to me at the time that I wasn’t from the same family, I was the actor who made dad’s movies.”
If he had one regret? That of never having been directed by François Truffaut.I loved it The Green RoomI told him, he replied: ‘I always liked your way of playing, if I never contacted you, it’s because you scared me.’ What bullshit! We can’t know what would have happened, since then, he died. I regret very much that we never worked together.“
