I remember a few years ago, when I was still glancing at my Facebook profile, one of those unknown "friends" whose invitations to random principle we accept in the platform, upload a portrait of Alain Delon.
I'm sure the person who uploaded the photo was a woman and I think the occasion was Delon's birthday. Thus, in a female way, as it happens in these forums, a dizzying competition began, which of the ladies will express in just one word the personality of Alain Delon and the attitude of the female part of the world towards him. One wrote "Beautiful", another surpassed it with "Magnificent", a third exclaimed: "Unattainable". And I took it that I had scratched: "Unique". In the evening, I opened Facebook and saw that I had won the silent contest - my "only" word.
And I thought that without knowing it and wishing it, I had spoken the truth - Alain Delon remained alone, without rivals and followers, both in French and world cinema, and for the old girls of my generation. He has an absolute, unruly and compelling, metallic, dagger-striking beauty that has not changed with age - except very recently, after the stroke he experienced and the subsequent rather severe dementia that occurred 3-4 years ago. His face, masculine and at the same time irradiated with a fierce, elegant, subtle, mocking, purely French hue, was both cold and haughty - and passionate at the same time. Antagonistic roles suited this person - both lone fighters for social justice, and cops, and villains.
Yes, that face radiated the loneliness of a lone predator who stands above mediocrity, who has earned the right to live by his own laws and send his critics to hell. Indeed, such critics were not many in Delon's turbulent life. There was something very proud and sharp about him, an innately masterful one, which subjugated both men and women. There was even something dark, frightening in those ice-fire sea-blue eyes. Something of the beauty of glaciers pierced by a sunbeam. I once read confessions of secondary actors and assistant directors of films in which Delon had participated, they spoke with one voice of what awe and even holy terror he caused in them with just one look, when, out of servility and overuse, they treated him tactlessly . And the face, and the posture, and the height - taller than that of ordinary Frenchmen, gave the impression that they were standing before them a reborn French monarch. In his boundless freedom, there was nothing wrong.
And in his appearance, and in his spirit, and in his actions, there was nothing slimy, pederasty, gender, characteristic of the herds of handsome actors. He never had plastic surgery to rejuvenate himself. Hollywood's "sex symbols" are dwarfs near this deity, which nature had sculpted from monolithic marble, without any mistake. Alain Delon, of all the men I have seen, comes closest to my idea of the most beautiful of the gods, Apollo. Celestial and chthonic god of the underworld, Phoebus and Sminteus.
I grew up with his incarnations - with "Rocco and his brothers", with "The Cheetah", with "Two Men in the City", with "In the Skin of a Cop"...
Today beauty finally left our world. I feel sorry for today's girls.