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Forgive me if I talk aboutAlain Delons face for a minute.
In truth, its hard not to.
When we first meet him, hes ending a torrid love affair with a married baroness.
Her desire, however, charms him and wins him over.
But its a doomed romance, as the baronesss jealous husband soon enters the picture.
The film plays off Delons fragility.
He feels as if hes perpetually on the edge of romantic disaster and even death.
The beauty of the face creates a kind of shield.
you might read into it sadness or cruelty or indifference.
Thats not to say that Delon wasnt a skilled actor.
But she refuses to identify him.
Not a word was exchanged between them only a glance.
In other words, she saw his face and couldnt bear to see it harmed.
Roccos gentleness, his delicacy around his brother, has defined him for so much of the movie.
Their fight an extended, knock-down, drag-out affair is brutal and cataclysmic.
Watching Delon get hit, we want to yell out, No!
But what we really fear for is his soul.
In Viscontis world, these things are not unconnected.
My brother-in-law was not what one calls a provident father.
The sumptuousness of his life impaired my nephews inheritance.
(Which he finds in Cardinale, another60s avatar of divine onscreen beauty.)
In Tancredi lies the survival of an entire class.
Delons life had been an unusually harsh one before he was an actor.
As a result, he wound up fighting in Indochina in the 1950s.
He never quite gave up his roughneck ways, even after achieving stardom.
He enjoyed the company of mobsters and liked totalkabout how much he enjoyed the company of mobsters.
Perhaps Delon welcomed the fact that all his tough-guy posturing tempered the almost-feminine quality of his image.
Have you seen his eyes?
Yes, but theres tenderness there as well, Gabin responds.
