The World Cinema Series continues with a FREE screening of Jean-Pierre Melville's thrilling 1967 neo-noir masterpiece, "Le Samouraï" on Thursday August 27th at 7pm!
I discovered this film around 20 years ago and like everyone else was blown away! The film is so quietly intense with intervals of jazz lounge scenes and of course gunshots! The script and direction from Melville is perfect as is Alain Delon's smooth & chill performance (perhaps the coolest cinema character of all time)! Interestingly enough, Melville wrote the script for Delon in mind!
The film's legacy shines on to this very day! You can see some of the atmospheric alienation in Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" and also Ryan Gosling's character in the 2011 thriller, "Drive" has the quiet and focused zeal that was inspired by Delon! John Woo's 1989 action masterpiece, "The Killer & Jim Jarmusch explicitly transposed Melville's code into "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" (1999), substituting a modern hitman with a samurai!
It's an essential film for anyone who's a fan of movies!
