French screen actor Alain Delon passed away over the weekend at the age of 88.
An influential figure of ’60s French cinema, Delon is perhaps best remembered for weaponizing his striking beauty to play alluring yet cold and dangerous characters in crime thrillers like Le Samouraï and Purple Noon.
While his legacy is a fraught one, littered with appalling behavior (the “Personal Life” section of his Wikipedia is pretty harrowing, and this tweet sums it all up nicely), it’s the latter film in particular that has made him something of a timeless emblem of cinematic homoeroticism—even if the man himself is the furthest thing from a queer icon.
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For those unfamiliar, 1960’s Purple Noon—or Plein Soleil in French—is director René Clément’s adaptation of a little novel you may have heard of called The Talented Mr. Ripley, from author Patricia Highsmith.
That’s right! Decades before Andrew Scott and Matt Damon, Alain Delon was one the first to play the literary sociopath Tom Ripley on the screen (only second to American actor Keefe Brasselle in a 1956 episode of the CBS anthology Studio One). And the role is what made him a star.
You likely know the story by now: Amateur con man Ripley heads off to coastal Italy on a job to convince wealthy heir Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet) to return home at the request of his father. But, enamored with the playboy’s luxurious life, Ripley hatches a sinister plan to assume his “friend’s” identity, and the body count quickly rises.
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There are a number of ways in which Purple Noon differs from Highsmith’s novel (for example, this version of Dickie Greenleaf is much more cruel to Ripley), but what it does notably maintain is the homoeroticism—both that which underpins the complex relationship between Ripley and his marked man, and especially in the way Delon is depicted on screen.
With icy blue eyes, a perpetual pout, and his slim, trim frame, Delon—who was in his mid-twenties at the time— was a sight to behold, and Clément’s camera knew it. Delon knew it, too.
The way he peels off his shirt to sit in the sun at the wheel of the Greenleaf yacht? The moment belongs in a museum!
Sure, it was a French production, but given the film was released during the time of Hollywood’s Hays Code—when anything suggestive or even remotely sexual was often censored—the lustful light in which Delon was depicted made Purple Noon stand out all the more.
Not to mention, up until that point, many of France’s biggest male movie stars had a more traditional masculine appeal—rugged, big and burly. Delon possessed a more graceful, refined natural beauty that immediately made him pop when he sauntered into frame in Purple Noon, and the role quickly made him a enigmatic silver-screen heartthrob on the level of James Dean.
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Interestingly, per Film Comment writer Michael Koresky, Delon was originally cast in the Greenleaf role, which would feel aligned with Jude Law’s “golden god” take on the character in 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley—the pair share a certain youthful gorgeousness.
However, Delon convinced Clément to let him play Ripley, which flips the script. The popular ’99 version of Highsmith’s story makes Greenleaf—with his lavish lifestyle and Law’s good looks—an enviable object of its audience’s desire, much as he is Ripley’s. Meanwhile in Purple Noon, it’s Delon’s version of the antihero that is so impossibly beautiful, so alluring, the viewer can’t help put lust after this dangerous stranger, implicating us in the process.
Again, Alain Delon is not necessarily an actor who should be valorized or idolized, but Purple Noon makes it impossible to not view him as object of explicitly queer desire. He lives on, in celluloid, as a symbol of homoeroticism, whether he likes it or not.
As Koresky writes, “Tom Ripley remains the Delon of our dreams”—and we’re pretty sure we know what kind of dreams he’s talking about.
Purple Noon is available to stream via The Criterion Channel and Kanopy, and is available for digital rental/purchase via Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
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