Why Is Le Samouraï A Classic?

Today I'm talking about Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï and why it's a classic.

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Scott's Self-Indulgent Movie Podcast · Episode 1086: Why Is Le Samourai A Classic?

There's a lot of influential movies you haven't seen. Some of this is an access issue (i.e. not every library has a hearty Criterion Collection and many films require money to watch online). But perhaps the biggest issue is that film, like any art form, is an ever-evolving collaborative medium with new artists who are often building on the foundations of countless other creators before them. 

So while it might be fun for someone like me to notice and note that a movie is pulling elements from a French crime film from the 1960s, the average movie-viewer isn't going to care. They'll mostly care about how the movie on screen makes them feel. For a humorous version on how being a film geek can kill a friend's enjoyment of a movie, check out Patton Oswalt's anecdote of breaking down Last Man Standing and it's many film connections including Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars for a friend in his book Silver Screen Fiend.

I bring all of this up, because the movie I'm highlighting today is one of the most influential movies ever made, with stylistic elements, themes, and character details that crime films and beyond have used ever since.

Today I'm talking about Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï and why it's a classic.

The Setup

The film stars Alain Delon as Jef Costello, a hitman who operates under a strict code of conduct. But when Jef is spotted during his latest assassination, he'll have to use all of his wits and skills to stay alive and stay ahead of the police...

Why Is This Movie A Classic?

Unlike some of the other movies I've spoken about in my "Why is X a Classic?" segment, you may never have heard of  Le Samouraï. Part of that is because it's a French movie that didn't fully cross over in America. Part of that is because the building blocks of this movie are so simple, and have been used so much and so effectively by so many other films, that there's actually a greater chance you've seen 4-5 movies influenced by this film than having seen this one. But it's definitely a landmark film for a lot of reasons including...what the film's director Jean-Pierre Melville dubbed "The Mechanics of Crime."

The Mechanics of Crime

If you're a film geek, you've likely heard of the French New Wave, a film movement that began in the late fifties and expanded well into the sixties. It's a movement responsible for some of the most famous filmmakers and films ever put to screen including grounded films like Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows and experimental crime films like Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. And amidst all of the filmmakers looking to experiment, capture emotional truth in abstract ways, there was Jean-Pierre Melville. 

Something that's always stood about to me about the lion's share of French New Wave films is how they aim to capture feelings and emotional truth often using at-the-time new visual flourishes or grounded realism to hammer the point home. As an example, the gimmick of Anges Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7 is following the titular character deal with a potential cancer diagnosis over the course of day and she goes about what feels like an average day in the life of our titular Cleo. 

But while he is considered part of the movement, and helped define it by guiding young French filmmakers, Melville's films are more minimalistic and direct about flashier topics like WWII and crime (more on this later).

There's an emphasis on process in Melville's crime movies in particular, where very little is described or said, and little to no exposition is filtered in. Almost all of the ins and outs our titular hitman's routine are conveyed through inference and visuals, whether it's his method for stealing a car or how he establishes his alibi for the time of the hit.

It also means that figuring out each character's emotional motivation feels like a fool's errand because they don't really talk about how they feel. They just act or react. Not much more. Jef does his job and his employer and the police react to his crime. The emotions driving everyone's decision making feel like an after thought.

Hell you'll probably get more from a character's wardrobe that you'll get from their dialogue.

The fun film phrase for this method is "showing not telling," and it's a defining element of Melville's crime movies.

It also inspired a generation of crime filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, and Chad Staehlski (the director behind the John Wick movies) that often enjoyed inverting, exaggerating or directly using some of these storytelling methods.

If you think about Pulp Fiction something that stands out it how often the conversations happening on screen have little to nothing to do with the "mechanics of crime" and what's going on is only revealed by action not dialogue...in spite of all the dialogue. Whereas, Scorsese's use of voice-over in movies like Goodfellas often explains said mechanics with action occurring onscreen as the same time. And the entire John Wick universe is built on a bunch of rules that are mostly revealed through action, not exposition (see the coins). 

These guys all cite Melville by name as an inspiration and it's very easy to see how their work is in conversation with films like this one.

And this movie, and Melville's work in general is not only an outlier for French New wave, but also an outlier for a genre Melville both shaped and revitalized...noir.

The Birth of Neo Noir

I've talked about noir before, but for those unfamiliar here's a quick refresher. Noir is the name given to a number of post-war Hollywood crime movies, generally made between the 1940s and 1950s, that focused on moral ambiguity, cynicism and crime, with an emphasis on high contrast visuals. If you're thinking of those old movies with hard boiled detectives and femme fatales, you've got the right idea. It's a genre that was under appreciated until...will you look at that French New Wave directors began hailing these films, and films by suspense directors like Hitchcock, as something beyond cheap B-movie thrills.

And neo-noir movies are simply movies with similar themes and vibes that came after the genre's agreed upon golden/original era.

It's a nice blanket you can use to include obvious selections like Heat and even blockbuster movies like The Dark Knight.

And Melville, and Le Samouraï were definitely inspired by these movies with some interesting or standard items stripped out.

Voice-over narration is one of my favorites. Part of the appeal of voice-over narration in noir flicks is that it's a cheat code for background information and characterization. 

Instead of having a scene where our lead criminal lays out every step in the plan, he can just tell you. Wondering about his thoughts on the person in front of him? He'll tell you how long he's know this guy and three reasons he hates him. Depending on the movie, he might tell you that he's dead or which decision he made that spelled his doom.

Take it all out...and now you've only got images and dialogue to convey feelings and relationships. 

The aspect I find fascinating is how many of neo-noirs embrace Melville's sparse approach to dialogue including filmmakers like the Coen Brothers. Many of their crime films like, No Country for Old Men have memorable dialogue and lines, but there's entire chase sequences and major plot beats that feature sparse sound design and little to no speaking. It's all the mechanics.

I think it can be really effective, both because it forces the audience to sit in the tension of individual moments before said tension is broken and because it feels more grounded and real than every character arriving and flouting their backstory. It also means you can lean on your visual language and performers over exposition dumps.

Another neo-noir aspect is its treatment of criminals and criminal accomplices. 

Due to the moral standards being applied to Hollywood films via the Hays Code, noir films operated in somewhat contradictory ways. So you could feature corrupt cops, violent criminals, and detectives who operated outside of everyday morals, but, via the Code's requirements, criminals had to be punished by the film's end. Often this meant death in a blaze of glory a la James Cagney in The White Heat sometimes it means an arrest of a character we like, because they did a bad thing (like serving up somebody for murder or sealing in a sting a la The Maltese Falcon).

Neo-noir movies however are often devoid of this moral clarity when it comes to criminals. Which brings us to perhaps the most endearing aspect of this movie.

The Hitman With A Code

It's hard to say exactly when the hitman with a code became a trope, but considering how many other movies that cribbed elements from Le Samouraï and Melville used this idea, it's safe to say this is a movie that popularized the idea with filmmakers.

The easiest example is Jim Jarmusch who seemingly remade the film with Forrest Whitaker with the movie Ghost Dog, where our title character literally practices with a katana and speaks about the bushido code. And there's countless others like Leon the Professional where our hitman has a "no women, no kids" policy when it comes to contract killing.

It's an interesting blend of mythology with the aforementioned "mechanics of crime."

What's fascinating is, as I've said plenty of times, it's not like our assassin's code is ever stated outright. We see his routine for carrying out an assassination, but otherwise it seems to be a pretty simple "I get job. I do job. I get paid. I don't talk if the police come my way." 

His code is all implicit vs. explicit. Which means the finale where Jef has apparently been tasked with killing a young jazz singer who could identify him...and he's already killed the man who tried to double cross him, adds a layer of confusion and mystery. As does his choice to point an unloaded weapon at her before the police gun him down.

 Was he making a moral sacrifice based on his principles? Attempting to save this woman's life by offering up his own? Did he have a death wish? Hard to say. But it all adds to the mythology of the character and efficacy of the trope that so many movies have had fun tweaking to craft different kinds of stories.

It's not a straight line, but there's an evolving relationship that takes us from this straight-forward crime movie to offbeat takes on the genre like Grosse Pointe Blank where our hitman goes to his high school reunion or David Fincher's The Killer where our hitman's alleged competence and morals are consistently undermined by his actions.

Conclusion: Simple Building Blocks, Massive Impact

At first glance, it might be difficult to see why this movie left a mark. It's a barebones crimes movie whose standout creative elements mostly boil down to what it leaves out versus what it adds. Nor is Le Samouraï solely a product of it's time that captures the mindset of an era. In many ways, it went in opposing direction to films from this era.

So what makes this movie so important?

It's because the average movie-goer has likely seen countless films inspired by this movie via it's filmmaking approach, its lead character, and its premise.

Genres like crime movies, neo-noir and action movies all look vastly different without Melville's stripped down approach.

And that's what makes Le Samouraï a classic.