2024-08-20 13:16:18
The front pages of French news servers on Sunday are filled with new and old photos of the actor Alain Delon, whose death was announced by his descendants this morning. The newspaper Le Parisien writes about the “sacred animal of cinematography”, Le Monde about the star of the French film, Le Figaro about the “devilishly beautiful angel” and the legend.
“He won’t call us today. It was such a ritual: when we wrote about him, Alain Delon called us to thank us. He called from a hidden number, in an inimitable, deep, seductive, attractive voice. His career was lined with hundreds of magazine covers, yet he had the the old bastard was always happy when his photo appeared on the cover,” writes Le Parisien.
But when the actor was displeased, a deafening silence followed the publication of the article. For example, he didn’t like being referred to as a comedian. But according to Alain Delon, he acts while the actor experiences his roles, explains Le Parisien.
Delon was not only an actor par excellence, but also a great personality, writes Le Monde. “Few actors have devoted themselves to a film with such intensity,” the paper notes. “His devilishly angelic beauty and beast-like demeanor revolutionized the film,” says Le Figaro, another major French newspaper. According to him, Delon played his own death so many times in the film that he had to be ready for the real one. But his last script was written by God himself, adds Le Figaro.
“A great beast who fascinated and divided has died. He was an icon of world cinema, an instinctive actor with a radiant beauty, but also a self-confident man with a huge ego,” the France 24 server reports about Delon, but also recalls the disputes between his children. The actor was admired without limit, however, as a person he often received criticism and was considered unsympathetic, adds the magazine.
Delon was one of the most charismatic and beautiful men on the silver screen, he was the last star, according to France Info website. Server Le Point writes about the end of an era of French cinema. He was not a saint and never claimed to be, notes Delon’s character L’Humanité.
On Sunday around noon, the French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke. According to him, the world could dream thanks to Delon. “Melancholic, popular, secretive, he was more than a star: he was a French monument,” Macron wrote on the X social network.
His Italian colleague, eighty-six-year-old Claudia Cardinale, who acted with him in the famous film Cheetah, remembers the actor with sadness. “The ball’s over. Tancredi’s off to dance with the stars,” she said, referring to his character’s name as a young, poor aristocrat. “People ask me to put it into words, but the sadness is too intense,” Claudia Cardinale responded. She signed the message “forever your Angelika” referring to her character’s name.
Delon has supported the French extreme right all his life, and has been friends with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front party, since the 1980s. The politician’s daughter and later party leader Marine Le Pen also praised Delon’s talent this Sunday. “A legend has left. A small part of France that we loved is also leaving with him,” said the politician.
Travníček: He was cheekily beautiful
Reactions also started coming from the Czech Republic before noon on Sunday. Alain Delon is an idol and will remain so for a long time, said actor Pavel Trávníček, who dubbed him. According to him, the golden French generation is saying goodbye, whether it concerns actors like Jean-Paul Belmond, who died in 2021, or directors like Jean-Luc Godard. He left last year.
According to Pavel Trávníček, many good films were made in the golden era of French cinematography, it was a great period when even crime films became interesting. “Alain Delon, as the AFP agency wrote, was brazenly handsome and suited them perfectly, the women liked him,” recalls Trávníček.
Director Marie Fronková chose Trávníčka to dub Delon, they shot the entire saga of Delon’s films together. For example, he likes Two Men in the City from 1973, where Delon acted alongside Jean Gabin. “His concentrated acting fascinated people and me too,” admits Trávníček.
He met the actor in person about 20 years ago in a cinema in Vodičková street in Prague, where, according to his words, he first noticed how it works when a big star arrives. “Everyone was staring at him like an apparition,” he recalls. As he was leaving the cinema, he followed Delon in the passage where two women passed him. One recognized the French woman, but the other answered her: “You’re stupid, what would you be doing here,” recalls Pavel Trávníček with a funny story.
Alain Delon and Jean Gabin in Two Men in the City. | Photo: Adel Productions
He was cool before it was called that
According to Czech experts, Delon became a symbol of French cinematography. “In the 60s and 70s, he was a French film symbol alongside Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmond or Louis de Funes,” says director Fero Fenič.
According to him, Delon distinguished himself by performing in the works of great French and Italian creators. “His track and genre coverage in the film are extraordinary. He was a world idol, which happens to few actors. He was there when revolutionary things happened in cinema in the 1960s,” states Fenič, the founder of Prague’s Febiofest.
According to the director of the National Film Archive, Michal Bregant, Delon had such a long life that he was able not only to build the career of a world star, but also to fall into a number of conflicts, disputes and contradictions that accompany our time.
“Delon was cool before the term entered the general vocabulary. That’s how the audience who saw him on the screen will remember him, that’s how he will be appreciated by today’s generation, for whom his name and his acting will now be a discovery for a while. Delon’s importance he will remain alive and inspiring in world and especially French and especially auteur cinema,” thinks Bregant.
Film historian Pavel Sladký highlights Delon’s collaboration with directors Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni or Jean-Pierre Melville. “I did not meet him personally, but I experienced him at the festivals in Cannes and Cluj. Especially in the case of Cannes, where five years ago he received the honorary Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement, it was already obvious that he was saying goodbye to his career,” Sladký looks back .
According to him, Delon was already a controversial figure at the time, among other things, because of the statement that homosexual couples should not have the right to adopt children. His sympathies with the French extreme right also drew criticism. “It was expected that in the speech he would not talk about a political topic that would divide the audience, but nothing of the kind happened. It was a farewell to a long career,” summarizes Sladký, who reports on films for Czech Radio.
The president of the Czech Film and Television Academy, Ivo Mathé, reminds us that under communism, French cinema was one of the more accessible, and Delon belonged to the golden generation of French actors and actresses, which made a significant impression on domestic audiences. “He was an actor with a huge scope and was one of the most famous and, from our point of view, of the world. He is a great personality not only in European cinema,” concludes Ivo Mathé.
Alain Delon died on Sunday morning at his home in Douchy, he was 88 years old. His three children told AFP in a joint statement. The actor has been ill in recent years.
Video: Waves should touch anyone with an inner moral code, says Hofmann
“The determination to take risks and stand up to the stronger? Should be of interest to anyone with a basic moral code,” says actor Martin Hofmann about the film Waves. | Video: Team Spotlight