Alain Delon Through Russian Prism
Very few western cultural icons, like movie stars, have entered Soviet imagination. The reason is rather obvious: not just different cultural horizons, but impact of ideology, iron curtain and so on.
Alain Delon, however, did! People loved the films with other stars, be it Jean Gabin, Belmondo, or Yves Montand. But how many of those actors have popular Russian songs or poems to their credit? Maybe only Charlie Chaplin.
Nautilus Pompilius' popular anthem "A Glance from the Screen (Alain Delon)" was so popular, that most Russians know its refrain without even connecting it to the song or the band: "Alain Delon speaks French, Alain Delon doesn't drink Eau de Cologne."
The song juxtaposes the sad reality of a Russian girl surrounded by lowlife drunkards (who drink cheap eau de colonge, as an alcoholic substitute for more expensive vodka) with the dashing hero of the screen.
The song is telling, as it surely captures the schism of every Soviet person, growing up in messy, rude, drunken, and abusive reality, while dreaming of the very epitome of elegance and nobility.
In other words, Delon was the ultimate "Other" for millions of Soviets. There were plenty of tough guys on the screen, the dudes that looked like Belmondo. But not Delon: thin, well-dressed, reserved, polite. Working man's image of an aristocrat.
XIX century Russian literature produced such a hero for the Russians: Lermontov's Pechorin, the protagonist of Hero of Our Time. Too bad there were not enough Russian directors of power and prestige to lure Delon into playing Pechorin, as he did, playing a part in Visconti's The Leopard. He would have been perfect!
Pechorin explains another part of Delon's mystique. Cool to the point of chilliness, with the mixture of violence, detachment, world-weariness, and vulnerability. Pechorin never pretended to be a good guy, but what made him hero of his time was that he had adhered to some chivalry principles, as opposed to scoundrels, fakers, and petty careerists that surrounded him.
At his best, like in Samurai, Delon carried out this image of Byronic loner to perfection: an assassin in white gloves.
He even went further than that. I have tremendous respect for him for producing, starring, and turning into an intriguing masterpiece, the film, Monsieur Klein.
Alain Delon clearly deserves our admiration for things other than speaking French and staying away from eau de cologne. He became a hero of his time and immortalized an image, that both men and women find intriguing, mesmerizing, and... inspiring.
