| Man
in the Shadows: Alain Delon
January
9 – 18, 2004
Throughout
a career spanning almost 50 years and 75 films, Alain Delon
has
frequently
seemed split in two, his daunting grace and disarming beauty
barely
masking
a dark, raging internal world. His big break came when René
Clement
cast
him as Tom Ripley in Purple Noon (1960) an adaptation
of Patricia Highsmith's
The
Talented Mr. Ripley. As he grew older, and the youthful
softness of his features began
to harden, Delon became increasingly identified as an actor
with the policier, the
crime film. With its penchant for emphasizing the treacherousness
of appearances and
plots that often hinge on betrayals or sudden revelations, the
policier provided the
perfect vehicle for Delon to continue to explore the duplicitous
persona that has always
been at the core of his appeal.
For
their invaluable support, we thank the Alliance Francaise (Philadelphia)
and the French Institute for Culture and Technology at the University
of Pennsylvania.
Friday,
January 9 at 8:00 PM
Saturday,
January 17 at 1:00 PM
Purple
Noon
dir.
René Clement , France , 1961, 35mm, 118 mins, b/w, French w/
English subtitles
 Alain
Delon became an international star with his role as Tom Ripley
in René Clement's effective
screen rendition of the wonderfully sordid world of expatriate
American author
Patricia Highsmith. Sent by the wealthy Mr. Greenleaf to track
down his playboy son
Philip in Europe and bring him home, Ripley finds Philip living
large on the Riviera. At
first Philip seems willing to cooperate with Tom, but actually
he's just stringing him along;
continually feeling humiliated, and threatened with having his
funding cut off by Mr.
Greenleaf, Ripley grows increasingly desperate, revealing finally
a new and terrifying
side to his personality.
Saturday,
January 10 at 1:00 PM
The
Red Circle
dir.
Jean-Pierre Melville, France , 1970, 35mm, 140 mins, color,
French w/ English subtitles
Jean-Pierre
Melville’s masterpiece of Gallic gangsterism brings together
three archetypal tough
guys for their appointment with destiny. Prisoner-in-transit
Gian Maria Volonté, crashes
out of the train that's taking him from Marseilles to Paris;
ex-cop Yves Montand, moves
from hopeless DT-plagued drunk to dapper, rock-steady sharpshooter;
and quintessential
Melville anti-hero Alain Delon, on his first day out of the
joint shrugs off two
murder attempts and plans his next big job. All join forces
for a meticulously orchestrated
heist of a Place Vendôme bijouterie.
Saturday,
January 10 at 7:00 PM
Jean-Pierre
Melville: Portrait in Nine Poses
dir.
Guillaume Meister, France, 1971, Beta SP, 52 mins, color, French
w/ English subtitles
Originally
produced by Andre Labarthe and Janine Bazin for the Cinema of
Our
Times
television series in France , Melville speaks openly about his
work habits, his
need
for darkness, his collaboration with Jean Cocteau, his studio
and his relationship with
American film in this intimate documentary portrait.
Followed
at 8:00 PM by
Dirty
Money
dir.
Jean-Pierre Melville, France , 1972, 16mm, 105 mins, color,
French w/ English subtitles
Delon
plays police commissioner Edouard Coleman, whose efforts to
smash a drug-
running
syndicate have thus far come up short. A chance tip leads him
to focus his
investigation
on a quiet seaside town. There, he meets Cathy (Catherine Deneuve),
who
for a while gets his mind off the case - until he discovers
that she's the mistress of
the very man he's after. What resonates most in Dirty Money
is the thick atmosphere of
disappointment, as each character comes to grips with how much
less life turned out to
offer than they had originally dreamed.
Thursday,
January 15 at 8:00 PM
Any
Number Can Win
dir.
Henry Verneuil , France , 1963, 35mm, b/w, 117 mins, French
w/ English subtitles
Fresh
out jail, Charles (Jean Gabin) recruits a young accomplice,
Francis (Alain Delon), to
help him plan and execute one final, signature heist: the robbing
of a luxurious casino in
Cannes. Their preparations are meticulous, all seems to be working
like clockwork, when
things threaten to unravel. A beautifully told, jazzy caper
film that makes wonderful use of its French Riviera settings,
Any Number Can Win offers the special pleasure of watching
the extraordinary interplay between Gabin and Delon, the old
lion of French cinema jousting with the up-and-coming star.
Friday,
January 16 at 8:00 PM
The
Eclipse
dir.
Michelangelo Antonioni , France / Italy , 1961, 35mm, 125 mins,
b/w, Italian w/
English subtitles
Alain
Delon was perhaps never more beautiful than he was as Piero,
the cold yet
seductive
stock broker in Antonioni's The Eclipse. The film begins
as Vittoria (Monica
Vitti) breaks up with her long-time lover and heads out to seek
new adventures. Joining
her mother at the Roman stock exchange, she catches the eye
of the dynamic Piero;
during a moment of silence in memory of a dead trader - one
of the most remarkable
scenes in Antonioni's cinema. While Vitti, Antonioni's principal
muse in this period,
is surely the film's heart, Delon is just as undoubtedly Eclipse's
soul, the symbol of
a modern, sophisticated, yet ultimately empty Italian society.
Saturday,
January 17 at 8:00 PM
Rocco
and His Brothers
dir.
Luchino Viconti, France, 1960, 35mm, 180 mins, b/w, French w/
English subtitles
Alain
Delon's first film for Visconti reveals the human aspects to
the Italian post-war economic "miracle". In sweeping
epic style, the prize-winning Rocco and His Brothers
tells the story of four poor Italian brothers and their mother
who leave their country home with hopes of improving their bitter
fortune. The family is thrown into chaos when two of the brothers
are torn apart by their love for the same woman and their attempts
to succeed
in a viciously competitive world.
Sunday,
January 18 at 7:00 PM
Mr.
Klein
dir.
Joseph Losey, France , 1976, 35mm, 123 mins, color, French w/
English subtitles
One
morning in 1942, art dealer Robert Klein (Delon) awakens to
find on his doorstep, a
Jewish newspaper with a subscription label addressed to him.
Klein is puzzled - he's a Catholic
Alsatian, and although he himself has nothing against Jews,
being mistaken for Jewish
in German-occupied Paris is at least inconvenient. So he decides
to track down the
source of the confusion, and soon is convinced that another,
Jewish Robert Klein, is trying
to take over his identity. Klein's search becomes a descent
into a surreal nightmare,
brilliantly and coolly calibrated by Losey as all fixed points
of reference gradually fade
away.
Tickets
are $6.00 general admission, $5.00 I House members, students
and seniors. Available one hour in advance at the International
House box office.
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