Le Samouraï (English title The Samurai) is a 1967 French minimalist crime drama/thriller film directed by French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville. The film's protagonist Jef Costello is played by Alain Delon.
Plot
The story follows a perfectionist free-agent hitman, Jef Costello, who religiously adheres to a strict code of duty. He lives in a spartan apartment whose interior contains a neatly arranged line of mineral water bottles, cigarettes on a bookcase, as well as a little bird in a grey cage in the middle of the room. He is taciturn and goes about his tasks like clockwork. The film opens with a fairly long take of the protagonist lying awake on his bed, smoking, when the following text appears on-screen, attributed to an ancient samurai writing (but purely fiction written by Melville) entitled The Book of Bushido:
- There is no solitude greater than the samurai's, unless perhaps it be that of a tiger in the jungle.
Costello has no criminal record due to his methodical way of working, which includes constructing elaborate alibis with his girlfriend Jane (played by Nathalie Delon). He is hired to kill Martey, a nightclub owner. Despite his meticulous attention to detail, Costello leaves the scene of the crime with several people seeing him, including the club's beautiful piano player Valérie (Caty Rosier). Although the police Superintendent (François Périer) believes Costello is the killer, the evidence against him is insufficient. Costello soon finds himself in a difficult position, being pursued by both the police and his employers. He also begins to fall for Valérie who intentionally did not give him away in a police lineup of suspects.
After being released from the police line-up, Costello loses a police tail and gets to a meeting point on a subway overpass. He walks up to a man who is one of his employers. Instead of paying Costello, the man shoots him in the arm and runs away. Costello returns home to take care of his wound before falling asleep. When he wakes up the same evening, he returns to the nightclub, prompting the barkeeper (Robert Favart) to confront him, saying, "If you were the man the police are looking for, one could say that the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime." Costello soon meets the piano player and they develop a slight relationship. In the meantime, men from the police department bug his room. During this scene a bird in a cage is agitated and flits about the cage due to the intrusion. Upon returning, Costello notices that the birdcage has loose feathers scattered around but the bird was serene with his presence. Suspecting that his room had been intruded, Costello searches his room for the bug, finds it, and turns it off.
In the meantime, police ransack Jane's apartment, turning her dressers inside-out, hoping to break her will and force her to testify. The superintendent tries to make a deal with Jane. He tells her that if she admits to have collaborated in fabricating Jef's alibi, she would have no more trouble with the police. Jane responds, "So you mean to say that if I perjure myself I will not find trouble with you? If I insist on telling the truth, then I can expect trouble. Am I right?" and shows the police officers the door.
Costello leaves his apartment to call Valérie from a phone booth, but she does not answer the phone. Back home Costello notices yet again that his bird behaves strangely. While trying to figure out what could be the problem he finds himself held at gunpoint by the man who shot him before. Only this time he gives him money and offers him a new job. Costello thinks it's a trap. He overpowers the man and ties him up, extracting information about the man's boss (the one who wanted to hire Costello for the new job) in the process. The boss is a man by the name of Olivier Rey (Jean-Pierre Posier).
Following a chase scene at the Métro, Costello soon realizes that he is in a position in which he cannot win. He visits Jane and tells her that he will take care of everything. After that he goes to Rey's home, which, as Costello finds out, is the same house in which the piano player lives. Costello shoots and kills Rey and goes to Martey's nightclub.
Whereas previously Costello had tried to be discreet and unseen by the nightclubbers, this time he comes in full view. He checks his hat, but does not take the ticket the young woman gives him. He walks over to the bar, where he puts on his white gloves, again in full view of everyone at the night club, especially the barkeeper. Costello walks toward Valérie, pulls his gun out and points it at her. She warns him not to stay, and after seeing the weapon, she simply asks "Why, Jef?" To which he replies, "I was paid to." After a moment of staring, we hear gunshots, but not from Jef's gun. Costello falls to the ground and dies. A junior police officer tells Valérie she is lucky they (the police) were there; otherwise, Costello would have killed her. The superintendent picks up Jef's gun and opens it for all (the police, Valérie, and the audience) to see. There were no bullets in the gun.
Alternative ending
In an interview with Rui Nogueira, Melville indicated that he had shot an alternate version of Jef's death scene. In the alternative ending, which is actually the original version as Melville had written in the script, Costello meets his death with a picture-perfect grin à la Delon. The scene was changed to its current form when Melville angrily discovered that Delon had already used a smiling death scene in another of his films. Still images of the smiling death exist.
Influence
Hong Kong director John Woo's 1989 film, The Killer, was heavily influenced by Le Samouraï's plot, the bar's female pianist being replaced by a singer. Chow Yun-Fat's character Jeffrey Chow (international character name for Ah Jong) was obviously inspired by Alain Delon's Jef. The inspiration, or homage, is confirmed by the similarity in the character names. Woo acknowledged his influences by writing a short essay on Le Samouraï and Melville's techniques for the film's Criterion Collection DVD release[1]
Walter Hill's existential thriller The Driver, starring Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, and Isabelle Adjani, is also believed to have been influenced by Le Samouraï.
Jim Jarmusch paid homage to Le Samouraï with the 1999 crime-drama, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, starring Forest Whitaker as a meditative, loner assassin who lives by the bushido code. In the same manner that Jef Costello has a huge ring of keys that enables him to steal any Citroën DS, the hitman Ghost Dog has an electronic "key" to break into luxury cars.[2][3]
Hong Kong director Pang Ho-Cheung's 2001 crime-and-filmmaking comedy You Shoot, I Shoot features Eric Kot as a hitman who idolizes Alain Delon's Jef, dressing like the character, and speaking to him via a Le Samouraï poster in his apartment.
References
Further reading
- Nogueira, Rui (ed.). 1971. Melville on Melville. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 067046757X (hardbound), ISBN 0670019267 (paperbound)
- Palmer, Tim. 2006. Le Samouraï In Phil Powrie (ed.), The Cinema of France. London: Wallflower Press. ISBN 1904764479 (hardbound), ISBN 1904764460 (paperbound)
- Vincendeau, Ginette. 2003. Jean-Pierre Melville : 'an American in Paris'. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 0851709508 (hardbound), ISBN 0851709494 (paperback)
External links
