Abstract
The major French/Italian co-productions starring Alain Delon (Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and his Brothers, (Visconti, 1960), L’eclisse/The Eclipse (Antonioni, 1962) and Il gattopardo/The Leopard (Visconti, 1963)) have been little studied from the viewpoint of Delon’s star image and performance style. One of the reasons for this is the neglect of star studies within the discipline of Italian film studies: additionally, work on star studies in the Italian context has emphasised the need to view stars as ‘cultural symbol and conduit for ideas about gender, values and national identity’ (Gundle 2008) and so has been unable to account for the influence of non-Italian stars working in Italian cinema. This chapter will examine Delon’s performance style in the three films, probing the established definitions of his ‘impassive acting style’ (Hayes 2004), and ‘expressionless face’ (Austin 2003). It will raise the question of whether Delon’s critical status as ‘homme fatal’ who is ‘too beautiful’ (Vincendeau 2000) has obscured the range and variety of his performance idiom in these French/Italian films, and how the fact of dubbing his voice into Italian works to support or undermine his position as erotic object of the camera’s gaze
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Alain Delon |
| Subtitle of host publication | Style, Stardom, and Masculinity |
| Editors | Nick Rees-Roberts, Darren Waldren |
| Place of Publication | New York and London |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury |
| Pages | 59 |
| Number of pages | 74 |
| Publication status | Published - 10 Jul 2015 |