The Original Sigma Male

When Alain Delon died this August, I happened to be in France. I can’t say I was paying much attention to the news. How was he mourned in the papers? I have no idea. But I do remember feeling this strange sensation that, dead or alive, the actor’s figure was inescapable. One day I walked into a bookstore in a small city in Brittany, and there he was, a life-size cutout, wearing the tan raincoat and fedora of Le Samouraï, propped next to shelves showcasing the film, along with the two subsequent movies he made under Jean-Pierre Melville’s direction, Le Cercle Rouge and Un flic, and an array of other neo-noir favorites.