Alain Delon, a myth that is anything but consensual

The last star of French cinema has gone. Politically divisive, the way in which, since this morning, beyond the general public, people have been paying tribute to him is, by this standard, fascinating to observe.

We dreaded the day when Alain Delon would have to be written in the past tense. And August 18, 2024 will forever remain the day this legend died. A star, a sacred monster… No word, no expression could ultimately summarize, fully embrace a career and more broadly a life that no screenwriter would have dared to put on paper, so much does it stand out from the ordinary, so much did nothing predestined this man not only to become an actor but to become that actor, known and recognized throughout the world, who until his last breath, left no one indifferent. So much in him the man and the artist are inseparable, as he has always claimed loud and clear.

This moment of the final farewell, we began to become truly aware of it five years ago on the stage of the Cannes Film Festival, when Alain Delon received an honorary Palme d'honneur by delivering a moving posthumous speech while he was still alive, leaving this task to no one else. That day, on that stage, he was alone with his daughter Anouchka. While, honored with an equivalent prize in 2011, Jean-Paul Belmondo, his eternal rival, his faithful friend, had climbed the steps, surrounded by many friends. That's how Delon was, solitary, surrounded first and foremost by the memories of those he loved so much and who loved him so much: from Romy Schneider to Jean Gabin, including Luchino Visconti, Mireille Darc, Henri Verneuil… The family he created for himself, over the years and films. He who often explained how the separation of his parents in 1939, when he was only 4 years old, remained a wound that never healed and inevitably reopened in recent months while his own children Anouchka, Anthony and Alain-Fabien were tearing each other apart through the media about his inheritance.

This childhood trauma obviously explains an adolescence and more broadly a troubled youth where we no longer count the number of schools from which he was expelled, where, enlisting in the Navy, he narrowly escaped being kicked out for stealing equipment before being arrested in the last days of the Indochina War after stealing a jeep that ended up in a ditch! This is how Alain Delon has always been. Elusive, refusing imposed frameworks and even more so social determinism. It is therefore logical that the actor Delon made himself. Without going through drama school. “There are exceptional actors like Jean-Paul Belmondo. And accidents like Ventura, Gabin and me. I am an actor. An actor plays, he spends years learning, while the actor lives. I have always lived my roles. I have never acted. An actor is an accident. I am an accident. My life is an accident. My career is an accident. »

This accident originated when he moved to Paris, on his return from Indochina. It was 1956. He was 21 years old. No idea what tomorrow would bring. But a desire to devour the world, day and night, where he made friends with the underworld, thugs, prostitutes… to the point where he declared to the Point in 2018, that he was on the verge of becoming a pimp. Except that the night that Delon frequents is also that of the Saint-Germain des Près of the great era, where all of Paris that shines and sparkles meets every evening to remake the world. There too, his angel face wreaks havoc. Brigitte Auber, revealed by July meeting by Becker and on the poster of Catching a Thief by Hitchcock, falls under his spell. Love at first sight. She takes him in her luggage to Cannes where, there, he forms an unbreakable friendship with Jean-Claude Brialy and meets his future agent Georges Baume. Something has been lit that will never go out. Quickly, very quickly, for the one who then explains, no doubt a bit provocatively, that he has only seen two films in his life (The Wild West Justices by William Witney and John English and Don't touch the loot by Jacques Becker) the first proposals arrive. And in 1957, pushed by Brigitte Auber when he did not really want to, Alain Delon shoots his first feature film: When the woman gets involved by Yves Allégret. A small role alongside headliners Edwige Feuillère and Bernard Blier. And a piece of advice from the filmmaker that would guide the rest of his career: ” don't play, look as you look, speak as you speak, listen as you listen, be yourself, don't play, live. »

All of Delon the actor, as Thomas Baurez explained on our site this morning, is contained in this sentence, in the series of masterpieces that he has produced since his first unforgettable role in Full sun by René Clément, at a pace that has almost no equal in the history of European cinema. Rocco and His Brothers, The Eclipse, Melody in the Basement, The Leopard, The Samurai, The Swimming Pool, The Sicilian Clan, Borsalino, The Red Circle, A Cop, Mr. Klein… Antonioni, Visconti, Verneuil, Melville, Losey… All this in 16 years! Sixteen years during which, in parallel, his private life, his love affairs with Nathalie Delon, Romy Schneider and Mireille Darc, as well as the Markovic affair, will be scrutinized by the newspapers through tens of thousands of articles which, in the end, will never completely unravel the mystery of this unfathomable man. Sixteen years which necessarily overwhelm everything else and in particular the years which followed. Where, like Belmondo, Alain Delon will move away from auteur cinema to play cop roles in thrillers which he will produce himself, with diminishing success, For the skin of a cop has Don't wake a sleeping cop. And this by following a rule that he himself had defined in First in March 1980, shortly after the release of Doctor : ” For my audience, Delon is necessarily a hero, a hero of good or evil. He must be a winner, not a loser, he must be brilliant and he must not be unhappy. That's the image we expect from Delon! “In cinema as well as on television where he will be one of the rare stars to try his hand at series when so many were still holding their noses (Movie theater in 1988, Fabio Montale in the early 2000s).

And then, like Belmondo, again and again, he will only have one Cesar. In 1985 for Our story de Blier (the only role from this period in which he appears… unfortunately!). Since this morning, we have heard commentators criticizing the lack of recognition of the French cinema world, forgetting that the Césars were only created in 1976 and that in this separate period therefore Mr. Klein (where he was beaten by the Galabru of Judge and the Assassin) And Death of a rotten man (where the Rochefort of Drum crab (it was imposed), no film and no role would have really deserved this award except to insult the past: The Shock, THE Beating, Cop's Word, The Passage, Dancing Machine, THE Casanova Returns, A 50/50 chancehis long-awaited reunion with Bébel…

Bébel, from whom Delon differs, however, on one major point. The former never got involved in politics, while the latter always loudly stated his commitment to the right, his fascination with De Gaulle, his admiration for Raymond Barre, his friendship with Jean-Marie Le Pen… It was fascinating to hear him again since this morning in the 7 out of 7 And Culture Broth of the time, rebroadcast in extenso… In these face-to-face interviews with Anne Sinclair and Bernard Pivot, he did not keep his head down, he responded to attacks, he advanced with his sword drawn, sharp… This probably partly explains why he was, much more than Bébel, the object of mockery and derision. As if to bring down from his pedestal the one who in an interview spoke of him in the third person singular, even seeming to add to it as soon as someone pointed it out to him, which he played on by playing, years later, with self-mockery, César in Asterix at the Olympic Games.. The one who climbed the steps of Cannes for New wave by Godard, a “Star” pin shining brightly, pinned to his lapel. The one that the Guignols on Canal + had made one of their favorite targets of the time, in the wake of Coluche reading on the stage of the Théâtre de l'Empire a real-fake letter supposedly written by him, hilarious and corrosive in front of an audience folded in two to explain his absence from the 1985 Césars before he therefore won the one for best actor against Depardieu, Noiret and Piccoli.

And we can see all this in the tributes since this morning. They instantly came from the entire political spectrum for Jean-Paul Belmondo. With the exception of former Ministers of Culture Jack Lang and Aurélie Filippetti and Fabien Roussel, they spontaneously came almost exclusively from the center, the right and the far right for Alain Delon. The left – including its serial tweeters – seems absent, as if embarrassed or in any case in no hurry to position itself and pay tribute to him. As if we had forgotten that as an actor-producer of Two men in the cityhe, the supporter of the death penalty, had also made films against his convictions. As if Delon were Kryptonite. As if positioning oneself in relation to him was not so simple and that it was necessary to coordinate well to weigh each word, as long as the big bosses have not communicated. It is thus difficult to be more neutral than the tweet of Lucie Castets, NFP candidate for the post of Prime Minister: “My condolences to his family and loved ones. May this great actor rest in peace”…

Five years ago, before he received his honorary Palme d'Or from Thierry Frémaux, a petition from the United States was launched to oppose it, believing that “the racist, homophobic and misogynistic actor should not be honored at Cannes”. Despite its 16,000 signatories, the controversy subsided as quickly as it had risen, meeting the fate of a dead leaf. But it did exist, revealing the Delon paradox at heart. Immensely popular and incredibly divisive. Two contradictory terms that, for him, feed off each other. And this is even if something has changed since the 80s and 90s. Alain Delon has gradually disappeared from the cinematic news, becoming increasingly rare on TV sets to let his films of yesterday continue to speak for him. The masterpieces mentioned above, which have been restored and re-screened at regular intervals on the big screen, are a reminder of the unique actor he is. To the point that, unlike Bébel, no possible successor has ever been associated with him. No doubt because when Belmondo liked to meet the younger generations of actors who loved him, Delon, as reserved as his comrade was expansive, seemed to keep his distance. So what will happen in the days to come? Will Delon receive the same national tribute as his partner in Borsalino ? Did he ask, true to his solitary nature, that it not take place? And if not, will unanimity be required or will discordant voices be heard? All this will be fascinating to observe. And it serves as a reminder that Alain Delon did not just cross eras, he never stopped telling them first and foremost.