A wisp of blue smoke rises in the empty and shabby hut, and in the silence of death we watch To one person, lying in bed, smoking a cigarette...
This chilling scene at the beginning of the film has become a model of film noir, and probably the most famous opening shot of film noir.
The film tells the story of the killer Jeff hired to assassinate the bar manager Marend, when he was leaving the scene and was bumped into by the bar singer Marley. In the subsequent police identification process, he devised sophisticated circumstantial evidence to prove that he was not at the murder scene. But the police chief did not believe him and had to release him due to insufficient evidence, but he was still closely followed. On the other hand, his unknown employer, worried about being implicated, wanted to silence him. The killer didn't get the reward he deserved, and he was almost killed. He fought back, got rid of the police, and had to chase down his employer...
"Lone Killer" is a masterpiece of cross-cultural colors, Japanese samurai, American gangsters, French pop culture, all elements focus on Alain On Jeff the Killer, played by Delon. Everything about it -- the acting, the setting, the lighting, the dialogue, the shots, is for that sentence. A lone tiger, now a young Alain Delon; a sword in his hand, now a killer's gun; a dangerous jungle, now a city street, subway, vehicles.
Since the release of the film "Lone Killer", the aesthetics of violence and killer have almost been equated with Melville. Alain Delon, with his impeccable appearance and his grim performance in the film, has created a model image of a perfect killer. There may be no other film in this genre than Coppola's "The Godfather." In the future, John Woo, Luc Besson, and Quentin Tarantino all grew up under the feeding of Melville's "breast milk". It's just that the latter three have strengthened the visual impact under the aesthetic concept of Hollywood and raised the pleasure of the senses to an unprecedented height. John Woo bluntly said that his concept of "The True Color of Heroes" came from "Lone Killer", and thought that "Lone Killer" was the most perfect film he had ever seen.
As a member of the French New Wave, Melville thought it was important to grasp the rhythm of the film. "Lone Killer" sets a new rhythm scale for film noir with its minimalist editing style. What audiences want to see is not a lengthy narrative, the script must cut to the point. The film pushes the plot to a climax with a fierce speed, and then it is a complete termination of the lightning and flint, leaving a sad ending only for the audience to appreciate.
Melville reinforces the huge gap between the subjective world and the objective world of a killer. In addition to the symbol of counterculture, he also endows the killer with a color of "loneliness". Although the main tone of the film is gray and cold, it is not pessimistic and misanthropic. It evokes not hatred in the heart, but love!
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