SHADOW BOXING

IN JANUARY 2009, A GRAY-HAIRED, 73-YEAR-OLD ALAIN DELON was interviewed on French TV about his long and distinguished film career, which by then had essentially come to an end. Delon, the grandson of Corsican immigrants, spoke of himself as a saltimbanque (street entertainer) made good, accurately characterizing his enormous popular appeal as deriving as much from his essential vulgarity as his extraterrestrial handsomeness. At an appointed juncture in the program, the interviewer turned the subject to another aging star who had come from humble beginnings—but this one was refusing to go quietly. A two-minute clip was aired from the newly released Un homme et son chien (2008), in which a 75-year-old Jean-Paul Belmondo appeared as a homeless man, after an eight-year absence from the screen. The scene was framed in extreme close-up, revealing that the Breathless star’s once perfectly imperfect smile had been defiled by a heavy stroke he had suffered seven years earlier; his famous chestnut-colored countenance was bleached and dimmed; his basso profundo voice, like a robust claret flecked with gritty tannins, had kept its texture, but his now-flaccid lips missed their consonants. The essence of Belmondo was recognizable, but the spark had gone out.

As a piece of filmmaking, Un homme et son chien was tackily opportunistic—and the decision to show an excerpt of it to Delon was hardly less so. As the clip ran its course, the camera cut away to Delon’s reaction: he sat upright, in a state of heightened anxiety, his left hand raised to his mouth, as he bit his thumb like James Caan in The Godfather, or occasionally trembled or offered a shake of the head. Throughout this process, the aquamarine eyes that helped make his fortune were tightly shut: he was refusing to watch. As if not to be upstaged by Belmondo, his longtime sparring partner for attention, Delon was offering a performance of his own, snatching some of his rival’s dwindling limelight. Asked by the interviewer to explain his silent protest, Delon gathered himself and replied with visible emotion, but in a manner that he had perfected through years of talk-show appearances, with withering candor, disguised as discretion.

“I don’t want to express myself on this subject because I have too much… too much admiration, too much affection. I’ve shared the screen with this man. I’ve