The Day of the Jackal

The Day of the Jackal (Fred Zinnemann, 1973) Not to be confused with the lousy 1997 retread (rather than remake)The Jackal with Bruce Willis and a ludicrously accented Richard Gere "acting the maggot" that was dumbed down for its target audience (Assassinate General DeGaulle?  Who's that?  Make it the First Lady, instead).

This one actually is based on the Frederick Forsythe best-seller, and done in as nondescript a way as possible, almost a prettified documentary style lacking stars (although Michael Lonsdale and Edward Fox would emerge from it with solid character-actor careers), but adhering stoically to the plot and its amoral assassin (Fox), both as cold as they come.

The Jackal is teflon—never been photographed, only rumors to his existence, but, he is hired to take out France's President by a cadre of disgraced French Foreign Legion Generals.  Their own clumsy attempt having, failed they turn to an outsider, anonymous, unknown but to have been involved with earlier assassinations.  Because it is a once-in-a-lifetime "hit," he demands half a million dollars on which to retire.

The movie then runs along two parallel paths of suspense, as the Jackal arms, plans, and sneaks his way into France, while the authorities, led by the cool-as-a-cucumber-sandwich Lebel (Lonsdale), after hearing rumors about an attempt, try to find information within their own circle about a man that no one has seen.

They might as well be chasing a ghost.  The Jackal assumes identities, habits and companions, then discards them like an unneeded skin as he moves inexorably to a point in time and place that only he knows, with murderous equipment well-hidden, to meet his target.  He is one man.  But, the police and government authorities are many, though at times it seems less an advantage.  What is fascinating is the amoral methods of the two opponents, Jackal and Lebel.  The former is a determined sociopath, leaving a trail of bodies that are found only days behind him, while Lebel, entrusted with the life of the most powerful man in France, has no qualms about disrupting those of others, refusing to let decorum, jurisdiction, or bureaucratic bumbledom stand in his way.  He is, after all, fighting someone he doesn't know to prevent a crime he doesn't know where or when.

The script (by Kenneth Ross) is also morally ambiguous—not commenting either way on the actions of hunter and hunted.  In one astounding scene (only in that it is not astounding at all), The Jackal discards a temporary lover in a manner that seems like an embrace, only her stillness informs that she is, in fact, deceased.  Cerebrally chilly, and damned clever, the absence of stars might have made it less successful at the box-office (Michael Caine, Jack Nicholson, and Roger Moore were considered potential Jackals, but the producers went with the less-well-known Fox so he could "blend"), but The Day of the Jackal is still a film exercise in meticulous suspense, and becomes the novel well.

The Bride Wore Black

"The Bride Wore Black" aka "La Mariée Était en Noir" (Francois Truffaut, 1968) Like most film-scholars turned directors, Francois Truffaut spent a fair amount of his early years paying tribute to films he loved in the film he was the author of. This film, and to a certain extent, "Farenheit 451," were part of his chilly "Son of Hitchcock" period, using strategies, if not direct shots, from the Master of Suspense in his own films. But where Hitchcock's films had an eerieness derived from the rigid structure of his films, Truffaut's seemed sterile, artificial, aping Hitchcock's structure, but without the lengths to which Hitchcock would try to simulate life. For example, in "The Bride Wore Black," there's a sequence where Jeanne Moreau is walking around a bachelor's apartment that she describes as cluttered, but it is personified by a single tie hanging over a rod. Pretty specific clutter! Compare that to The Master's meticulous recreation of real locations on-set. Hitchcock did not start out directing; he began as an art director in films and worked his way up.

Truffaut began as a critic.

It's for that reason that his plot structure for "The Bride Wore Black" has the deliberate pace of a funeral dirge. One by one, "The Bride" seeks out disparate men who seem to have nothing in common and devises intricate ways to win their trust and take their lives, each crime pre-meditated and carried out with a cold efficiency--Moreau barely registers any emotion at all. But, why? What's the reason? Why these men? Truffaut takes his time revealing everything, but by that time the audience may be getting impatient with so many murders and no punishment. Truffaut even has an answer for that in his movie machinations.

One can see Truffaut still experimenting with his medium with varying results. For example, the frightening of a chamber-maid by "The Bride" would play a bit better if Truffaut hadn't insisted on a flash-cut of only a couple of frames. Moreau barely registers before the angle has changed immediately, and the maid has spun around (impossibly fast, given the split-second amount of time that bridging shot took). And after utilizing Hitchcock's best composer, Bernard Herrmann, for the earlier "Farenheit 451," here Herrmann's score is a bit too lush for the visuals that Truffaut has shot. It's heart is on its sleeve, whereas the rest of the movie doesn't seem to have any heart at all. Perhaps Herrmann was over-compensating for the movie he saw, and went over the top to express the emotions that Truffaut keeps submerged.


Finally, one can't watch the movie and help but think this is where Quentin Tarantino got his inspiration for "Kill Bill," only tarted it up with his obsessions--prolonged violent sequences, cribbed movie styles, and the expected but ultimately pointless comic-book discussion. Somehow, "The Bride Wore a Yellow Track Suit" just doesn't cut it.*

*no pun intended.