There's a disquieting moment in Purple Noon, René Clément's 1960 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr Ripley, in which Tom Ripley muses upon his fresh murder. He sits, glass of wine in hand, sipping it, slowly. His eyes, the focus of the shot, are the clearest grey. Like marbles, they are beautiful, but they are cold, glassy and empty. They are Alain Delon's eyes and they would make him an overnight star. Often dubbed the male Brigitte Bardot, it only took one film, Purple Noon (adapted again in 1999 as The Talented Mr Ripley, starring Matt Damon) for 25-year-old Delon to take the title as the most seductive man in cinema. Delon's lazy insouciance, cold detachment, shady sophistication and angelic insolence - learnt, no doubt, from past connections with the French criminal underworld - carved him a niche: the pretty-boy killer. Delon was later credited as having created cinema's "cerebral hitman".
Classic followed classic, from Luchino Visconti's Rocco And His Brothers in the same year of Purple Noon, to Visconti's The Leopard in 1963, via Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï in 1967 and Jacques Deray's seminal masterpiece La Piscine in 1969. With each film, Delon's impossible beauty and impenetrably dark temperament would swell his status further. But because Delon rejected English-speaking roles (the effort entailed would scupper his trademark languor) and thus a contract with American producer David Selznick, he was God everywhere but Hollywood. He was idolised by men and women alike, from France to Japan. He dated everyone from Mireille Darc to Romy Schneider. From the Sixties to the mid-Eighties, Delon dominated the national box office and was the highest-paid actor in France's history.
This year will mark Delon's sixth, and last, decade in cinema. At 81 years old, with a repertoire of 80-plus films, for which he has won France's highest film prize, the César, and was awarded the Legion Of Honour, Delon is retiring. The choice was easy: an exceptional past, a mediocre future. There's no point in dawdling. He will do one more play and one last film with Patrice Leconte, starring opposite Juliette Binoche, then it will be over. Cut. The end.
Along with Charles de Gaulle, Alain Delon is one of the most recognisable Frenchmen in the world. When I meet him, he is standing by the general's tomb in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, northeastern France, where de Gaulle died. He stands with his face turned towards the sun, looking up at the giant Lorraine cross which seems to tower above the whole of France. Moments earlier, he laid a wreath on the general's tomb and crossed himself twice, observed by a couple of delighted onlookers asking for selfies. He searches for the right voice - slows his words, gives them weight - and begins to recite de Gaulle's famous appeal, broadcast by the BBC 77 years ago, asking the French to join him in fighting the German occupying forces.
"I, General de Gaulle, currently in London, invite French officers and soldiers located on British territory, or those heading this way, armed or unarmed, as well as engineers and specialised workers of the armament industries, to contact me." Alain Delon, who has always played the part of Alain Delon, now thinks he is General de Gaulle. And he gives himself fully to the part. How could he not? Once considered one of the world's most handsome men, Delon is entitled to show off a little.
On 14 July 1958, Delon was standing near de Gaulle on the Champs Élysées during an inspection of the troops. De Gaulle was acknowledging the cheering crowd. Delon was an unknown orderly among thousands. De Gaulle did not recognise Delon in the crowd. "That was inevitable," Delon explains, snootily. "In 1958, Delon was not Delon. And when he became Delon, he did not have the opportunity to meet the general." When did he become Delon? "Only after Purple Noon," he replies, unfazed that I, too, am talking about Delon in the third person. "The film was a great hit in Japan. I became an emperor over there. All the boys were crazy about Delon. They styled their hair like Delon. A taxi driver in Tokyo told me, 'So you are a Frenchman? Like Alain Delon?' They only knew two French names in Japan: de Gaulle and Delon."
There are two types of Delon: annoyed Delon and emotional Delon. The megalomaniac and the nostalgic. They feed off each other. The night before Delon read de Gaulle's BBC appeal, just under a hundred of us are sitting outside in the dark, facing the gigantic Lorraine cross as it wanes in the black starry night. Delon is in the first row, shaking intermittently with muffled sobs. A projector has been assembled on its large granite base and arms. A film is showing. The voiceover in the commentary is that of Alain Delon. Delon is listening to himself speak. He is speaking about de Gaulle, about himself and, in truth, about us. This is because the film, a little gem directed by the company Penseur De Prod, is a sonic and visual retrospective of 12 years of Gaullism, from 1958 to 1969. It's a return to the joyous Sixties, full of innovation and optimism.
In a single hour, a whole decade flits across the screen: politics, adverts, newsreaders, TV programmes, famous songs, films and actors; de Gaulle speaking on the news; de Gaulle's Citroën DS; the opening credits of the Eurovision Song Contest; Bardot's bottom in Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt; Johnny Hallyday and Claude François and young bucks about to become stars, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Delon, Maurice Ronet... Their photos flicker on the cross. Then there are the dead: small animated coffins that take off like rockets along the cross up to the stars. Edith Piaf, Gérard Philipe... With each death, Delon emits a kind of hiccup, like a brief cry of pain. On 28 April 1969, President de Gaulle stands down after his referendum defeat and dies the following year. "France will never be the same again," solemnly concludes Alain Delon's disembodied voice from the film.
Is Delon crying over de Gaulle, himself, these golden years, or the France he has loved and lost? All of it, no doubt. His greatest years coincide with that same decade: 1958-1969. It was a turbulent era, gripped by conservatism - carefully censored news, quietly growing social taboos - and the irrepressible desire for freedom and celebration. Delon was there. The stepson of a butcher from Bourg-la-Reine, Delon was too restless to study, so he enrolled as a marine at the end of the First Indochina War.
A turning point for Delon was when his friend and colleague Brigitte Aubert introduced him to the director Yves Allégret, who cast him in Send A Woman When The Devil Fails. "I had no idea what to do," says Delon, with his trademark stare. "Allégret stared at me, just like that, and told me: 'Listen to me, Alain. Speak as you are speaking to me. Stare as you are staring at me. Listen as you are listening to me. Don't act. Live.' It changed everything. If Yves Allégret had not told me that, I would never have had this career."
Delon made films with the greats, from Jean-Pierre Melville to Luchino Visconti, via Joseph Losey, Michelangelo Antonioni and Jacques Deray. He was their protégé and then he was their icon. Delon's CV may as well be a list of French and Italian cinematic masterpieces. Modern cinema, however, doesn't interest him. "It's a shallow, worthless era soured by money. We no longer film with a moving camera but a digital thing stuck on the end of your fist," he sighs. "No one gives a shit about anything any more. If Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura were alive today, they'd be completely stumped." He's talking like an old fogey and he knows it. "Those who use the phrase 'It was better in my day' are old fools. But when I say it, it's different, because it's true: in my day, it was something else, it really was better. You see, I don't have anything to lose any more, I've had it all." He opens one of the many photo albums weighing down the table. "Look, I had incredible luck. I've been happy all my life; I filmed with the best. I did what I wanted, with who I wanted, when I wanted. I dwell on the past more than I think about the future, yes, because my past was extraordinary. Today just doesn't compare. A life like I had doesn't come around twice. That's why when it comes to retirement, I have no regrets."
How can one not succumb to nostalgia when one has lived a life like Delon's? But Delon takes nostalgia to new levels. His Parisian office on Boulevard Haussmann is astonishing: Alain Delon is everywhere. There isn't a wall, table or corner without a picture of Alain Delon. Sometimes they are interspersed by pictures of his dogs or of Romy Schneider or Luchino Visconti. A little lost in all the clutter are pictures of a naked Marilyn, Edwige Feuillère and the Gaullist Jacques Chaban-Delmas. Just in case I missed the obvious, Delon says, with a sweeping gesture, "Here is Alain Delon." The Delon tour is in the first person. "I am handsome. And it seems, my darling, that I was very, very, very, very handsome indeed. Look at Rocco [And His Brothers], look at Purple Noon! The women were all obsessed with me. From when I was 18 till when I was 50." He chooses to omit the fact that he was the object of desire for as many men as women. He first became aware of this when a friend took him to Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the mid-Fifties, to meet the literati among the iconic Parisian cafés De Flore and Les Deux Magots. "I realised that everyone was looking at me. Women became my motivation. I owe them everything. They were the ones who inspired me to look better than anyone else, to stand stronger and taller than anyone else, and to see it in their eyes."
Delon rarely watches films, because almost all his colleagues are dead. Delon can't stop counting those still alive and he is haunted by those on their way out. He regularly attends funerals and memorials - he likes the solemnity. "He suits grief better than joy," says his friend, the director Philippe Labro. Each day, solitude gains a little more ground on Delon. He splits his time between his office in Paris, his apartment in Geneva, and his country home in Douchy, between Auxerre and Orléans, with Loubo, his latest dog. Fifty other dogs are buried in his garden. Delon has already prepared his sepulture in a chapel, next to his dead pets.
"It's too hard. I could never watch La Piscine again. That would be impossible. The three people I loved have gone: Romy, Deray and Ronet. I know the film off by heart.I can recite every line before it's even uttered." He pauses. "To hear Romy say, 'I love you', when she is no longer with us, I just can't bear it." From his red sofa, Delon stares at the large photo resting on the floor of his fiancée from the early Sixties, Romy Schneider - "the love of my life" - to whom, like so many other women, he was ultimately unable to commit. "She's been dead 35 years," he repeats. "I can't believe it. And Dalida, 30 years! I adored that woman." After Romy's funeral, in 1982, Delon wrote her a love letter, recalling what Visconti had said to them when he cast them on stage together: "He said we resembled each other because we had, between our brows, the same V, which furrowed in moments of anger, fear and anxiety. He called it 'Rembrandt's V' because the painter bore the same V in his self-portraits. But now when I watch you sleep, Rembrandt's V is gone."
Delon's V never vanished. I see it etched into his forehead during these serious moments, when the actor speaks of those no longer living, cinema's lost era or his own death. It appears when he recounts his encounter with René Clément, the director who made Delon Delon. It happened in 1958, when filming Purple Noon. Clément imagined Delon, then largely unknown, as perfect for the role of Philippe Greenleaf, the playboy son of a millionaire. But Delon wanted to play the con artist, Tom Ripley. Yet hotshot actor Jacques Charrier, dating Brigitte Bardot, had already been cast. Delon was invited to the director's home, near the Champs-Élysées, with producers Robert and Raymond Hakim. "In the salon, I said to René Clément that I wanted to be Ripley," recalls Delon. "The Hakim brothers were gobsmacked. They said to me: 'Who are you to demand one role over another? You are addressing Mr Clément!'" At the other end of the salon, a woman with a Slavic accent spoke: Bella, Clément's wife. Delon imitates her by rolling his Rs. "René, darling, the little one is right!" And so the little one won. "Match point," says Delon, "the end. The role was mine."
"Ripley", he continues, "was right for me because I'm an actor, not a comedian. Comedy is vocational. You go to school, you learn the craft... Acting happens by accident. Depardieu is an actor. Jean-Paul [Belmondo] is an extraordinary comedian. He wanted this career since he was a little boy. He learnt his craft then went to drama school. I'm the son of a butcher. Even if my father had been a director, I wouldn't have found this career without literally falling into it. I'm an actor by accident." He rephrases: "An actor has a strong personality for directors to put to good use. The comedian acts, but the actor lives. That's not meant to be insulting. It's just how it is."
Delon functions by instinct. His daughter, Anouchka, understands. Herself a comedian, Anouchka followed the traditional drama school route. Six years ago, she played alongside her father in Eric Assous' play An Ordinary Day. "My father doesn't spend much time on his roles and he's not a fan of rehearsals," she says. "Whereas I work like mad to be as natural as possible, it comes instantly to him. He can deliver everything effortlessly. Before getting on stage he would say to me, 'Come on, let's have 'em.' It was a great pep talk." Out of Delon's four children, Anouchka is reportedly the only recipient of his unconditional love; Delon has more strained relationships with his three sons.
Anouchka tries to explain how difficult her career is today. Her name holds her back. "The name prompts rejection. He has a hard time getting his head around that. Producers refuse to work with me because of my name. It began at drama school. I was shy, I was rubbish and all I could hear was, 'I just want to see how Delon's daughter falls flat on her face.' Together, Delon and his daughter watch DVDs, and sometimes Anouchka takes him to the cinema on the Champs-Élysées in the hope that he'll believe in great modern directors. But it's pointless. "He got me to love his films, but I've had less success with mine. He's always telling me cinema is dead. I allow him his nostalgia but I say, 'It's not cinema that's dead, it's your time.' Delon's daughter is 26 years old and has the same look as her father's, but with one blue eye and one brown. "My father's career has been extraordinary," she says simply. "No one else can ever achieve what he has achieved."
Delon no longer looks like Delon. His life of fame and seduction has taken a toll on his skin. Yet, wherever he goes, he still seeks the most flattering light. Finding the best angle is a reflex. And as he finishes his monologue about his sparkling life, I get the strange feeling it's a collective life. It belongs to everyone. Whether we like it or not, he is right: the golden age of French cinema began and finished with Delon, with that humourless smile and Tom Ripley's clear, grey eyes.
Alain Delon: A life in film
Directed by René Clément, Delon's first major role, as a pretty-boy killer, was lauded by critics and turned him into an overnight star.
Luchino Visconti's portrayal of the Italian working class was a first in operatic realism and stars Delon as Rocco, who endures a rivalry with brother Simone over the love of a beautiful prostitute.
Visconti's historical epic, based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel (often praised as the only film better than the book), captures the social upheaval during the unification of Italy in the 1860s. Delon is an opportunistic war hero intent on a politically advantageous marriage.
Fate, solitude and psychosis are the heavy themes evoked by Jean-Pierre Melville's thriller starring Delon as a philosophical contract killer.
Jacques Deray's seminal masterpiece set around a swimming pool in Saint-Tropez channels repressed desire and fatal tension between a pair of lovers (Delon and Romy Schneider) and a father and his daughter (Maurice Ronet and Jane Birkin).
In one of his career's most challenging roles, Delon is an art dealer who profits from Jews selling their possessions before fleeing France, until he is mistaken as a Jew by the Vichy police. This Kafkaesque film by Joseph Losey is one of the greatest films about wartime paranoia, and led to Delon's first nomination for a César.
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