J Paul Johnson
Jef Costello is as stylish a hitman as you’ll see in cinema. Played with an aloof cool by the impossibly handsome Alain Delon, his black coif slicked under a spry fedora, his weapon ensconced in his neat trenchcoat, Costello cuts a memorably imposing figure. He metes out his few and carefully chosen words like bullets in a chamber and stalks his victims with a catlike grace. Under interrogation, he never cracks but stays instead calm and collected, one step ahead of his pursuers and hot on the heels of his next mark. He is, simply, Le samouraï—the titular hitman of of Jean-Pierre Melville’s neo-noir New Wave thriller, channeling the code of the Edo period but with a swingin’-Sixties calculated cool.
Le samouraï gets a new set of duds in The Criterion Collection’s new 4K UHD and Blu-ray special edition, looking more spry and stylin’ than ever in a beautiful remaster. There are no new ancillary features to speak of in this re-release of Spine #306, save for the remaster and cover art, but for those looking to upgrade from the earlier physical media or—gasp!—who are somehow new to the film, the image alone makes the package worthy of consideration. (Especially if you get to a well-known retailer for their biannual 50% off Criterion Collection sale or time your purchase for one of the company’s own occasional flash sales.)
There is, of course, no samurai to be found in Le samourai. Instead, just an ultra-modern, super-sleek, cold-blooded and colder-eyed killer, one whose preternaturally icy blues seem to reflect—or, perhaps, transform—the color of everything around him. Jef lives by a simple code of honor to which he is indebted, one that makes possible the film’s delightfully surprising conclusion. He practically floats through his scenes, his stylish wardrobe and icy demeanor contrasting with the film’s often-grimy urban setting. Melville sticks to a generally monochromatic hue matching shades of blues and grays, but the film’s visual style is never dull; instead, it’s a delight of early neo-noir, echoing and modifying the chiaroscuro blacks and greys of an earlier era.
The plot, in contrast, is practically threadbare. Jef relies greatly on his lover, Jane (Delon’s wife, Nathalie), for alibis. But one night after a hit on nightclub owner Martey, he is seen leaving the scene by the club’s piano player, Valérie (Cathy Rosier); in a police lineup, she fails, or more likely refuses, to identify him, which raises Jef’s suspicions about his unknown employer and also complicates the investigation of the Parisian commissaire (François Périer) assigned the case. As Jef seeks the truth of his employer’s identity and the commissaire tightens his grip on the investigation, things come to a head at Martey’s, where killing the key witness before the the Parisian police close in seems like it’s Jef’s only way out.
In comparison to some of film noir’s more labyrinthine narratives, replete with unreliable and multiple narrators and flashbacks, Le samourai‘s plot progresses with the simple icy stealth of … well … an efficient hitman. Melville, though, in tandem with the super-suave Delon (whom I hope everyone has seen in Alain Resnais’ 1960 Purple Noon, the first of several excellent adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley and whose three films with Melville—this, and following, 1970’s Le Cercle Rouge, and 1970’s Un flic, make for a trilogy of sorts), turns this basic plot into an existentialist treatise on time and honor, one with an unforgettable protagonist to match its memorable mise-en-scène.
The 4K restoration is presented in the film’s original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in collaboration with Pathé, created from the original 35mm camera negative (as well as, for some sections, 35mm internegative and 35mm interpositive) with monaural audio from 35mm magnetic track. A few scenes betray an unanticipated softness to the image, but for the most part, this version of Le samourai is as good as one can imagine. Its color scheme looks perfect and the image is crisp with excellent detail. As is per Criterion’s usual for its 4K UHD releases, one disc features the film presented in 4K HDR, while a second Blu-ray disc includes the film and its special features.
Special features
Aside from the new cover art by Polly Dedman, Criterion includes no new supplemental content for this 4K edition, upgrading its earlier release only in the new 4K remastering. Those who already own Criterion’s excellent DVD version from 2005 or the 2017 Blu-ray will be doing so solely for the image quality of the remaster. Those special features, though, leave nothing to be desired: in sum, they make for an excellent introduction to the director, the film, and in particular the collaboration between him and Delon.
- The Lineup: A 24-minute series of interviews with Melville and actors Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, and Cathy Rosier, these were originally broadcast on French television from 1967 to 1982, courtesy of the Insitut national de l’audiovisuel in Paris. There is reportage from the burning down of Melville’s studio in 1967 during the filming of Le Samourai, and later, a surprisingly scruffy Delon singing the artist’s praises. All of the interviews are in Black and white except the last, with Périer, from 1982.
- Interviews with the Authors: While Melville is generally regarded today as the equal of, and perhaps forefather to, any Nouvelle Vague director, critical discussion of his work in English was in the 1970s rare. Two of the most prominent Melville scholars are interviewed:
- Rui Nogueira, editor of Melville on Melville, long the only English-language treatise on the auteur’s works, speaks animatedly in this 13-minute segment to Melville’s place in the Nouvelle Vague, his production methods, his art design, and Le Samourai‘s spartan use of verbal language, an interpretation making it for Nogueria, belonging exclusively to the art of cinema.
- Ginette Vincendeau, author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris, the second such English-language treatise in 2003, speaks in this 19-minute segment to Melville’s fondness for American cinema, its social problems films and its films noir, especially the Hollywood system’s reliance on stars and genres. Melville’s popularity at the box office contrasted with the idiosyncrasy of his work, based in part on his minimalist, increasingly silent aesthetic.
- Melville-Delon: D’honneur et de nuit (2011) is a 23-minute mini-documentary exploring the friendship between the director and the actor and their iconic collaboration on Le samouraï, including interviews with Melville’s nephews Laurent Grosset and Rémy Grumbach, critic Noguiera, and filmmaker Volker Schlõndorff. It’s an excellent featurette, perhaps the best and most straightforward introduction to Le samourai and the films that followed, highly stylized and engaging, a primer with some analytical weight.
- The jewel-case packaging includes a trailer for the film plus a 29-page color booklet containing the same excellent content as the 2005 DVD release: an essay by film scholar David Thomson, an appreciation by filmmaker John Woo (reprinted from Cahiers du cinema), and excerpts from Noguiera’s Melville on Melville.
All told, the featurettes won’t disappoint anyone except perhaps those upgrading from one of the earlier Criterion discs and expecting something new besides the 4K remaster and cover art for their investment. For anyone else, this special edition will give fans of Le samourai their due. The film has influenced everyone from John Woo and Walter Hill to Michael Mann, Nicolas Winding Refn, David Fincher, and dozens in between. Its handsome remaster gives the film a new sparkle and sheen and makes for an excellent addition to any cinephile’s collection.
