I first saw this film as an astonished child, and because it was withdrawn from TV (apparently because its DIY guide to assassination was too informative), it began to grow a talismanic importance in my memories. The reasons for my astonishment were legion. Here was a film that dared to reject the tyranny of character cinema in favour of pure mathematics. There is a spare, beautiful geometry to the plot. A wants to shoot B; C wants to protect B; C goes after A. Nothing is allowed intrude on this angular perfection - the plot is an inexorable tracing of clean lines.
I also loved the concomitant fact that the film rejected conventional notions of heroes and villains. There is no character whatsoever in this film, just parts of the plot's design. We are frequently shown weapons being pulled apart and put together, trains,. vehicles, roads, and especially clocks - we are simply watching a mechanism, the assemblage of clockwork. Imagine if THE TERMINATOR was really about the Terminator: JACKAL's characters are all robots, walking through their inevitable paces. This gives the film a strange dreamlike effect.
The film is quite sly about its mechanical effect, and plays with our atavistic need for human empathy. When the Jackal goes to a graveyard, and stands by an infant's grave, we think we might be getting biographical information, an explanation of why he does what he does - maybe this infant was his brother. But he's only looking for somebody's identity to steal. Later, we are given a travelogue of Paris through his eyes. This is very attractive and humanising, until we realise that he's looking for a vantage point from which to kill.
JACKAL is very brave in never letting this up - as Hollywood proved, his character could be reduced to mush. Here he remains a killing machine, and the climax is very chilling: the only reason the Jackal doesn't succeed is the purest of chances (this was much more plausible than I'd remembered). This was another reason to love it - the use of the detective story. Here no crime has been committed - the police are in fact chasing two phantoms - this unknown Jackal, and a projection into the future (the crime).
Finally there was the setting, in the world's most enrapturing country, France.
Of course, having seen much more films since, JACKAL could only disappoint. The remembered tightness of the plot was actually highly porous, which is normally overlookable, but fatal when the main character IS the plot (see below for an amusing point-by-point review of its flaws). The film's amorality was still beautiful, but the indifference to actual politics nagged me, although, even if de Gaulle's dodgy track record was overlooked, we got some idea of how close to a police state his France was.
Most disappointing though was the direction. Zinnemann just doesn't seem to know what to do with this wonderful material - it's ironic that his supposedly 'humanist' films are let down by his mechanical direction, and yet he can do nothing but prettify a confection of pure mechanics. Can you imagine what a work of genius this could have been in Melville's hands? There were two amazing films about hitmen in the decade prior to JACKAL - LE SAMOURAI and IL CONFORMISTA - so this just isn't good enough.
And yet it almost is, thanks to Edward Fox. Although he is still a machine, the most fascinating parts of the film are when he breaks down. Zinnemann uses some quietly remarkable effects, more effective for them being sparse, of the Jackal losing control, whether it's through slow-motion, breaks in sound, or whatever, which almost confers a Melvillean grace. These are all the more powerful for not derailing the plot, and not being explained.
I also loved the concomitant fact that the film rejected conventional notions of heroes and villains. There is no character whatsoever in this film, just parts of the plot's design. We are frequently shown weapons being pulled apart and put together, trains,. vehicles, roads, and especially clocks - we are simply watching a mechanism, the assemblage of clockwork. Imagine if THE TERMINATOR was really about the Terminator: JACKAL's characters are all robots, walking through their inevitable paces. This gives the film a strange dreamlike effect.
The film is quite sly about its mechanical effect, and plays with our atavistic need for human empathy. When the Jackal goes to a graveyard, and stands by an infant's grave, we think we might be getting biographical information, an explanation of why he does what he does - maybe this infant was his brother. But he's only looking for somebody's identity to steal. Later, we are given a travelogue of Paris through his eyes. This is very attractive and humanising, until we realise that he's looking for a vantage point from which to kill.
JACKAL is very brave in never letting this up - as Hollywood proved, his character could be reduced to mush. Here he remains a killing machine, and the climax is very chilling: the only reason the Jackal doesn't succeed is the purest of chances (this was much more plausible than I'd remembered). This was another reason to love it - the use of the detective story. Here no crime has been committed - the police are in fact chasing two phantoms - this unknown Jackal, and a projection into the future (the crime).
Finally there was the setting, in the world's most enrapturing country, France.
Of course, having seen much more films since, JACKAL could only disappoint. The remembered tightness of the plot was actually highly porous, which is normally overlookable, but fatal when the main character IS the plot (see below for an amusing point-by-point review of its flaws). The film's amorality was still beautiful, but the indifference to actual politics nagged me, although, even if de Gaulle's dodgy track record was overlooked, we got some idea of how close to a police state his France was.
Most disappointing though was the direction. Zinnemann just doesn't seem to know what to do with this wonderful material - it's ironic that his supposedly 'humanist' films are let down by his mechanical direction, and yet he can do nothing but prettify a confection of pure mechanics. Can you imagine what a work of genius this could have been in Melville's hands? There were two amazing films about hitmen in the decade prior to JACKAL - LE SAMOURAI and IL CONFORMISTA - so this just isn't good enough.
And yet it almost is, thanks to Edward Fox. Although he is still a machine, the most fascinating parts of the film are when he breaks down. Zinnemann uses some quietly remarkable effects, more effective for them being sparse, of the Jackal losing control, whether it's through slow-motion, breaks in sound, or whatever, which almost confers a Melvillean grace. These are all the more powerful for not derailing the plot, and not being explained.