Alain Delon or the death of seduction

By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 20/08/2024

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After three weeks of joy and exuberant immersion in the secrets of the spirit of France via the Olympics, we received the news of Alain Delon's transition to divine glory.

After embodying the symbol of masculine attractiveness and social liveliness on screens around the world for four decades, Delon had dedicated his autumn days to quiet reflection at his home in Douchy. He was convinced that the end was approaching and would have wanted to say goodbye to his loyal audience with a film. But the strength was not enough and his farewell took shape in the acceptance speech of the tribute for his life career at the 2019 Cannes festival. There he expressed his traditional disdain for fame and his affection for a public that loved him dearly. delirium. He also remembered the women who had loved him like Mireille Darc and Rommy Schneider.

With Delon one more curtain falls on the history of the 20th century. Because he embodied not only beauty but popular vivacity and above all the rebound of France after a humiliating episode of Nazi occupation accepted by his elite. That entity called Alain Delon occupied the screens of universal cinema to show the world a France recovered from the destruction of the war and full of aesthetic proposals that marked the entire century. Just as Delon stylized the leaders of the underworld, Christian Dior enveloped the women of the world of the eternal feminine and Edith Piaff opened the floodgates of a song that reflected the pains and joys of the common man and woman. Each of them expressed in his work a virtue that is no longer abundant: that of knowing how to seduce. Delon embodied that virtue on screens around the world by transforming the reality of the neighborhoods and the behavior of his characters into a hymn to survival through creativity and innovation, both executed with savoir faire. Delon then personified a country that launched the codes of seduction into the post-war world.

These codes no longer make sense in the digital age when face-to-face meetings are buried by the barrage of cyber messages. It is a cold and effective routine in communication but isolating when it comes to sharing human warmth. A world of rush and few pauses. A world of medieval conflict supervised with nuclear weapons. In short, a world where seduction is not possible because it not only takes time but is expressed in codes of conduct that appeal to intelligence, gallantry and manners. And of course none of these practices facilitate digital efficiency. Good opportunity to go to another dimension where perhaps seduction is possible.

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