The ice-cold angel
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The ice-cold angel |
| Original title | Le samouraï |
 | |
| Country of production | France , Italy |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1967 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| script | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| production |
Raymond Borderie Eugène Lépicier Jean-Pierre Melville |
| music | François de Roubaix |
| camera | Henri Decaë |
| cut |
Monique Bonnot Yo Maurette |
| occupation | |
| |
The ice cold angel (original title: Le samouraï ) is a Franco-Italian crime thriller from 1967 based on a novel by Goan McLeod. Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville , Alain Delon played the leading role .
plot
"There is no greater loneliness than that of a samurai , except perhaps that of a tiger in the jungle." With this fictional quote from the books of Bushido, the viewer encounters Jef Costello, who lies lonely on the bed in his extremely modest, sparsely furnished apartment. He dresses almost mechanically, puts on his hat and says goodbye to his roommate, a bullfinch in a cage. On the street, he routinely steals a Citroën DS parked unlocked and drives to a remote garage, where a man wordlessly exchanges license plates and hands him a revolver.
After getting an alibi from his girlfriend, who works as an illegal high-class prostitute with her own apartment, he goes to a nightclub and shoots the bar owner. He is surprised by the pianist Valérie, who lets him flee without saying a note. That same night, Costello and many other men were taken by the police during a raid across Paris. He had been seen in the restaurant by several guests, and so a police confrontation took place. But since not all the witnesses are certain, the pianist Valérie denies recognizing him as the murderer, and his girlfriend's alibi seems valid, the superintendent cannot arrest him. In the case of Costello's friend, the detective does not get through with the attempt to threaten her with false statements on the one hand and to make her jealous by referring to the pianist on the other. He has Costello shadowed.
Because of the interrogation by the police, Costello's clients begin to distrust him and want to get rid of him. When the money was handed over at a train station, the henchman tried to murder him; Costello successfully defends himself and is injured in his left arm. The killer flees. Costello gets caught between the fronts. Since he cannot explain the pianist's motive, he goes to her and confronts her.
The suspicious Costello quickly discovers a bug that was installed in his apartment at night, which is supposed to be bugged from a hotel room across the street, and puts it out of service. Costello is now being monitored every step of the way by dozens of police officers and agents. He notices this and is able to shake off his pursuers after an odyssey through the Paris Metro . He steals a car again and gets into his apartment unnoticed.
There he is surprised by the killer of his client. They want to give him another chance and pay him for another murder, although the identity of the victim remains unclear. Costello overpowers the killer and learns from him the name of the client. Tied to a chair, he leaves the killer in his apartment. He meets the client in the pianist's apartment after kicking the door and shoots the man. Knowing that he is being watched by the police, Costello goes to the nightclub. Unlike on two previous visits, this time he is not preparing for a quick exit. He parks the car and leaves his hat at the cloakroom, but without taking the cloakroom ticket with him. In front of the numerous guests, he approaches the pianist and points his revolver at her. At that moment he is shot by the police. It turns out that Costello's gun was unloaded.
History of origin
Melville made a name for himself in France in the 1960s with his unmistakable handwriting, which is characterized by a concise visual style. He was the only French director who could work independently in his own studio and had already shot with all the major French stars. It was just that there was no collaboration with Alain Delon . Delon concentrated on his career in America and in 1966 had no interest in French film or in the director Melville, who was mainly successful with crime stories.
However, Melville managed to get an appointment with Delon to convince him of the role of the killer. He started reading the script to him. After about seven or eight minutes, Delon interrupted him, who had not had any dialogue before, which he found so interesting that he agreed. When Melville then gave him the title of the film, which is originally called Le Samouraï , or The Samurai , Delon led him into his bedroom and showed him a large samurai sword that hung directly over the bed.
Melville Delon's then wife Nathalie Delon played the role of Costello's mistress . However, the marriage was already in the process of dissolving, and so the farewell scene, in which the stoic, almost apathetic looking ice-cold angel closes his eyes for the first time in an embrace with Nathalie, can also be read as a farewell gesture for the couple. According to Melville's accounts, the couple split that evening.
Another friend of Melville's said goodbye in The Ice Cold Angel : the actor André Salgues (André Garret), who was already terminally ill at the time of shooting, who played the role of Costello's accomplice in the auto repair shop. Salgues' only words in the film, spoken in the last garage scene, are: "I'm warning you, Jef, this is the last time."
Not enough of the blows of fate, Melville's studio burned down completely immediately after filming, with the bullfinch shown in the film dying. Melville found it difficult to recover from the considerable financial damage of the studio loss in the years that followed.
Interpretation by Melville
For Melville, Costello suffers from schizoid personality disorders . The director dealt extensively with this clinical picture in preparation. Otherwise, however, Melville limited himself to minimal evidence; The slight vertigo effect in the initial long shot, in which Costello is smoking in his bed, should make it clear that something is wrong with the hero. In the following takes, in which Costello steals a car, he is shown through the rainy windows of the car. Costello looks at the world through a veil, even ignoring the smile of a passing beauty without reaction. The figure of the pianist Valérie embodies death for Melville. Costello falls in love with her, d. that is, he willingly lay himself in the arms of death.
In the original ending of the film, Costello smiles when he is shot dead by the police. Delon hadn't told Melville that he'd already played a movie death with a smile. When Melville found out, he shot a new ending, seen in the film, in which the ice-cold angel dies with a stoic expression on his face.
reception
The film enjoyed great success with audiences in France alone, with almost two million moviegoers. While it originally received both enthusiastic and devastating reviews, its great importance in the history of film is now generally recognized. It counts among film critics and filmmakers as the undisputed masterpiece of Melville and influences a large number of directors to this day. Michael Mann , Martin Scorsese and David Fincher refer to him or quote him, Quentin Tarantino brought Melville's name back into conversation in countless interviews. For John Woo , The Ice Cold Angel is style-defining and he describes Melville as "his God". The cover design of Reclam's Krimi-Lexikon used a photo with Alain Delon in 2002.
Reviews
"A gangster film, but one in which surface stimuli and the temperament of melodrama do not prevail, but the coolness of the parable and the rigor of consistent thoughts"
“Between nouvelle vague and film noir, Jean-Pierre Melville staged virtuoso stylized gangster cinema about a killer who loses his job, without whom he cannot exist: 'There is no greater solitude than that of a samurai, unless that of a tiger in the jungle 'is the Bushido motif from the opening credits and thus explains the original title. "
“A gangster film perfectly designed in terms of direction and performance, which is deliberately not based on reality. Cinema with a high aesthetic appeal. "
“The story of a lonely killer is shown in a cinematic, slightly romanticized way [...]. The film requires the viewer to be able and willing to recognize and understand what is symbolic of what is happening, to differentiate between the film world and reality. Recommended for this audience. "
“You can [...] say that the entire atmosphere of the film allows conclusions to be drawn about the time in which the film was made - a cold, unfeeling world of transition, in which traditional structures, mentalities and manners are coming to an end, but only because others rebel against the traditional. This world seems to proliferate beyond its end, to lie in agony. You defend yourself against changes and innovations by simply continuing to follow the old paths. [...] Humans act like machines, like robots in a shell of skin, their actions like logical operators of a mathematical formula. If one variable changes, the other can only change in one way. Melville underpins this cool, mechanical atmosphere with a quasi documentary staging in which time information about the course of events is faded in. "
Awards
The French actress Cathy Rosier (1945-2004) from Martinique won the Étoile de Cristal as best actress for the role of Valerie in 1968 . As a jazz pianist, she also plays the Hammond organ, with Eddy Louiss playing on the soundtrack.
additional
In Jim Jarmusch's film Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai there are quotes and reminiscences of The Ice Cold Angel .
The trailer entitled Le Canarï for the Oldenburg International Film Festival 2019 , which was directed by Deborah Kara Unger and Torsten Neumann, quotes the opening scene, but replaces the bullfinch with a canary .
synchronization
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Jef Costello | Alain Delon | Klaus Kindler / Martin Kautz (new scenes) |
| Commissioner | François Périer | Holger Hagen |
| Valérie, the pianist | Cathy Rosier | Renate Grosser |
| Olivier Rey | Jean-Pierre Posier | Norbert Gastell |
| Damolini | Georges Casati | Erich Ebert |
literature
- Rui Nogueira: Kino der Nacht - Conversations with Jean-Pierre Melville (edited and translated from the French by Robert Fischer). Alexander Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89581-075-4 . Pp. 161-178.
- Xavier Canonne: Requiem pour un homme seul . Les Marées de la nuit, Morlanwelz 2010, ISBN 978-2-8052-0090-8 .
Web links
- Le Samouraï in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Le Samouraï at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Comparison of the cut versions German version - Uncut from Der eiskalte Engel at Schnittberichte.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The ice-cold angel. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 20, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Rui Nogueira: Authors on Melville , interview on the criterion collection DVD, 2005. Nogueira is the author of the 1971 book Melville on Melville with interviews from Melville.
- ↑ a b c d Rui Nogueira: Kino der Nacht - Conversations with Jean-Pierre Melville , p. 170 or p. 168 or p. 175 or p. 161.
- ↑ Ginette Vincendeau: Authors on Melville , interview on the criterion collection DVD, 2005.
- ↑ Film tips . In: Die Zeit , No. 31/1968.
- ↑ prisma.de: The ice cold angel
- ↑ Evangelical Press Association Munich, Review No. 279/1968.
- ↑ Ulrich Behrens: The last samurai. In: filmzentrale. Retrieved August 16, 2019 .
- ^ David Meeker Jazz on Screen
- ↑ arteshock: Ghostdog
- ↑ Filmfest Oldenburg: Free as a bird. In: Oldenburger online newspaper. August 15, 2019, accessed August 20, 2019 .
- ↑ The Ice Cold Angel. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 20, 2020 .