The aria "Un bel dì vedremo" ("One fine day we'll see"[5]) from Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly can be heard in the background of one scene, and "Tu vuò fà l'americano" in another. A young Parisian copyist, Noémie Nioche, catches his eye, and he agrees to buy the painting she is working on for the extravagant price of 2,000 francs. Jack (George Clooney), an American assassin, is relaxing in a remote cabin at Dalarna, Sweden with his lover, Ingrid (Irina Björklund). James originally conceived the novel as a reply to Alexandre Dumas, fils' play L'Étrangère, which presented Americans as crude and disreputable. Seeing Mathilde fall from the roof, Jack gives Clara the envelope full of cash and tells her to go to a river where they had picnicked and wait for him. But by stepping out of the shadows, Jack may be tempting fate. Sooner a woman called Mathilde meets Jack and delivers the specification of a sophisticated weapon to be constructed by him. Ingrid sees Jack pull a gun from his pocket and shoot the sniper. Newman and Valentin visit the Louvre and find Noémie at work in a gallery. Jack reports to the Italian countryside, where he holes up in a small town and relishes being away from death for a spell. Jack immediately becomes suspicious and quickly drags Ingrid to cover behind a large boulder as someone begins shooting at them. But James' hero still finds many supporters, among critics and readers in general. Mathilde gives Jack his payment—a thick envelope full of cash—and the two separate. Corbijn also notes the Ennio Morricone scores made famous in Once Upon a Time in the West, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966), and other films. Surprising himself, Jack seeks out the friendship of local priest Father Benedetto and pursues romance with local woman Clara. [12] Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, writing, "Here is a gripping film with the focus of a Japanese drama, an impenetrable character to equal Alain Delon's in Le Samouraï, by Jean-Pierre Melville. After he survives an ambush beside a remote Swedish lake, an American hit man goes to Rome and contacts his control, Pavel, who sends him to an Abruzzian town with the warning, "No friends." While waiting, his control gives him a job constructing a special weapon for a Belgian assassin, he converses with the town's priest, and he spends the occasional night with Clara, a local prostitute. Way better than you heard. Meeting Newman at the Louvre the next day, though, Noémie frankly tells him that she has no talent and her paintings are worthless. Parents Guide. Newman hears town gossip that Noémie has become a courtesan; he goes to see M. Nioche, and finds him drinking in misery. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_American_(novel)&oldid=982148053, Works originally published in The Atlantic (magazine), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 6 October 2020, at 12:42. She is impressed by the craftsmanship, but asks him to make a few more adjustments. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), with Henry Fonda facing off as villain in a gunfight, is playing on a television on the back wall of a modest restaurant where Jack has been eating. As an assassin, Jack (Clooney) is constantly on the move and always alone. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) produced a television film version of The American in 1998, directed by Paul Unwin and starring Matthew Modine as Christopher Newman, Diana Rigg as Madame de Bellegarde, and Aisling O'Sullivan as Claire De Cintré. Jack travels to Rome and calls his contact Pavel (Johan Leysen) that meets him in a cafeteria, gives a Fiat Tempra to him and asks Jack to travel to the countryside for a next assignment. Jack agrees to deliver the weapon to Mathilde as his last job, but at the last moment, he re-opens the briefcase. [10] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D–" on an A+ to F scale. He pays a visit to the Bellegarde estate, where he meets Claire's two brothers: the cheerful Valentin and the aloof Marquis de Bellegarde, who coldly rebuffs him. The American generally flows well and is easily accessible to today's reader, more so than some of James's later novels. While in Abruzzo, Jack contacts Pavel, who sets him up with another job. Having worked for a living since age ten (interrupted by service in the Union Army during the American Civil War), he has made a large fortune and retired in his thirties, and is now looking to settle down and get married. The film score was written and composed by German singer-songwriter (and longtime friend of Corbijn) Herbert Grönemeyer. He wrote to Howells that: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, "we are each the product of circumstances and there are tall stone walls which fatally divide us. Director commentary on DVD. Jack talks to Pavel one last time—asking how the Swedes have found him. The American is a 2010 American action thriller film directed by Anton Corbijn and starring George Clooney, Thekla Reuten, Violante Placido, Irina Björklund, and Paolo Bonacelli. [2], On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating 65% based on 214 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The car driven by Jack in the movie is a Fiat Tempra with Pescara licence plates. Synopsis. A 1967 song called "Window of My Eyes" by the Dutch blues band Cuby & the Blizzards is played over the ending credits. Only the mercenary Mademoiselle Nioche is presented as a sexual being, and this only in the most oblique and negative terms. He hardly has time to digest this when he gets a telegram telling him that Valentin, wounded in his duel, is dying. Alone among assassins, Jack is a master craftsman. Jack suspects there may be another shooter and goes in search of him. Other than that, the American is perfect: Sealed, impervious and expert, with a focus so narrow it is defined only by his skills and his master. Newman goes to Poitiers to attend Valentin's funeral, and afterwards urges Claire to disobey her family and marry him. The American was popular as one of the first international novels contrasting the rising and forceful New World and the cultured but sinful Old World. I have written my story from Newman's side of the wall, and I understand so well how Madame de Cintré couldn't really scramble over from her side. Sniper gunshots ring out. [7][8], The film grossed US$13.1 million, opening at number 1, ahead of Machete, which grossed US$11.4 million on the Labor Day weekend. "[13] Leonard Maltin called it a "slowly paced, European-style mood piece, short on dialogue and action and long on atmosphere".[14]. He questions Clara about the gun and is satisfied with her explanation (to defend herself, since newspapers have reported murdered prostitutes). While Newman is occasionally too forward or cocksure, his honesty and optimism offer a much more favourable view of America's potential. This was attributed to disappointment after the film was marketed as being action-packed instead of focusing on suspense and drama. The first trailer was attached to Robin Hood and the second official trailer on June 19, 2010, and was attached to Jonah Hex, Grown Ups, Inception and The Other Guys. About the same time a mutual friend introduces Newman to Claire de Cintré, a young widow. As Jack drives to meet Clara at the river, he feels his abdomen and realizes he has been shot. Synopsis Jack arrives at the picnic spot and as he sees Clara, he collapses. The comic-acting waiter in this restaurant scene was directed to stand in front of a two-bulb lamp fixture so that he appeared to have "devil's horns". Such readers assuredly have a right to their entertainment, but I don't believe it is in me to give them, in a satisfactory way, what they require.". He also begins patronizing a prostitute, Clara, and they begin a relationship separate from her business duties. The two decide to take a walk on the frozen lake nearby. Jack asks her to go away with him and she agrees. Jack is tormented by dreams of the events in Sweden and regrets killing Ingrid. Most critics have regretted the New York Edition revisions as unfortunate marrings of the novel's original exuberance and charm. An assassin hides out in Italy for one last assignment. He meets Mathilde, an assassin who wants him to build her a custom sniper rifle. The film was released on September 1, 2010. In another scene the Italian song "La Bambola" by Patty Pravo plays. While living in the village and building the weapon, Jack befriends the local priest and has sex with the prostitute Clara. Plot Keywords "America: Land of the free, home of the brave, the movie, the book, the superhero, the beer and a whole lot more", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_American_(2010_film)&oldid=980227603, Articles to be expanded from December 2014, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat-VIAF identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 25 September 2020, at 09:25. His fatal flaw, as it must be for any samurai, is love. As she rushes past him, he shoots her in the back of the head. The film's "most romantic moment", according to director Anton Corbijn—when Jack takes Clara to a restaurant of her choice, their "actual date"—was filmed at a restaurant in Pacentro, near Sulmona. Noémie tells Newman she has finished none of the work she was to do for him, and in irritation she slashes a large red cross over her painting, obliterating it. Clara meets Jack at a religious procession in town. Jack meets with Mathilde to test the weapon. Clara orders Montepulciano d'Abruzzo wine for the dinner, and Corbijn said the film's company enjoyed many of the fine wines of the region during the months of production there.[4]. Later, Jack realizes that he is being followed by an assassin from Sweden, whom he kills. Knowing his identity is in jeopardy, and with little hesitation, Jack shoots and kills Ingrid before locating and killing another armed man. Newman and Valentin become good friends, and eventually he tells Valentin that he wishes to marry Claire; Valentin tells Newman that he has his support but he will find it hard going against the class prejudices of the Marquis and his mother, royalist supporters of the Bourbons. Michael Hastings wrote the script, which deviates significantly from James's text, including sexual scenes between Newman and Noémie, and Valentin and Noémie. Jack (George Clooney), an American assassin, is relaxing in a remote cabin at Dalarna, Sweden with his lover, Ingrid (Irina Björklund). Clara screams and runs to the car. "[9] On Metacritic the film has an average score of 61 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". He takes one look and goes instead to nearby Castelvecchio where he poses as a photographer and waits for his control to take care of the Swedish problem. As the Clooney character drives from Rome to Castel del Monte, there is an impressively long drive through the 4600-meter long San Domenico Tunnel (Galleria San Domenico) that is between the exits of Pescina and Cocullo on the A25 highway that connects Rome to Torano and Pescara. In his growing fear, he even suspects Clara when he discovers a small pistol in her purse. He flees to Rome and contacts his handler, Pavel, who insists that Jack cannot stay in Rome. A white butterfly flits skyward from Jack's car. As for Claire, we learn nothing about what transpired between her and her first (much older) husband, nor is anything significant revealed about her feelings for Newman. "The American" allows George Clooney to play a man as starkly defined as a samurai. Pavel sends him to Castelvecchio, a small town in the mountains of Abruzzo. While walking, Ingrid notices some footprints. [4], Large segments of the dialogue between Jack and Clara are taken verbatim from Graham Greene's novel The Honorary Consul (1973). Newman hires M. Nioche to teach him French and the two become friendly; Newman, learning that M. Nioche worries about his daughter's future since he is poor, says that he will buy enough paintings from Noémie to give her a respectable dowry. Newman hurries to Geneva where he sits by Valentin's deathbed. In 1868, Christopher Newman, an American businessman, visits Europe on a Grand Tour.