Simplicity: The Brevity of Film Costume in “Les Aventuriers”

”Les Aventuriers”, 1967. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, Compagnia Generale Finanziaria Cinematografica

Two guys and a girl try to make a life out of what they love doing. It’s this free willing that unites them in the first place. Manu (Alain Delon) is a pilot who does flying stunts. Roland (Lino Ventura) is an engineer who is building an experimental race car engine. Laetitia (Joanna Shimkus) is a sculptor interested in kinetic art. But when everything they have been working for on goes up in flame – Manu’s license is revoked because of a practical joke, Laetitia’s exhibition of metal sculptures is a critical flop and Roland’s engine literally goes up in flame – they leave for Congo, in search of a sunken treasure. They settle into an idyllic exotic life which then turns for the worse so suddenly that the entire atmosphere and rhythm of the film change, only to take an even darker turn towards the end. It could be a cautionary tale, with the difference that the characters are the most reluctant and involuntary fortune seekers. It’s the spirit of adventure that drives them more than anything else. And more than a romance between two guys and a girl, it’s the story of three friends and their true and beautiful friendship.

Les Aventuriers (1967) was directed by Robert Enrico after a script by José Giovanni, who was a novelist and scriptwriter before becoming a film-maker too. He contributed to the screenplays of some extraordinary films, such as Le Trou, Jacques Becker’s critical benchmark for the French policier, Jean-Pierre Meville’s Le deuxième souffle and Claude Sautet’s debut film Classe tous risque, each film having had much to bring to the genre, all adapted after his books. Giovanni knew the world he was portraying well. A former convict himself, who had been sent to the death penalty in 1948 before having his sentences commuted to life imprisonment and then further shortened to 20 years, Giovanni was finally pardoned after 11 years in prison, by ordin of the French president, René Coty. He owed the saving of his life to his father, who never ceased in his efforts to obtain the grace for his son. But Giovanni never forgot his past and he put it in writing and on film.

Alain Delon and Lino Ventura often appeared in the films directed or written by José Giovanni, either together (Le clan des Siciliens, with a remarkable Ennio Morricone musical score), or separately (Le deuxième souffle, Classe tous risque, Deux hommes dans la ville). “I don’t direct Lino,” remarked Jacques Deray in his book, J’ai connu une belle époque, another director who worked repeatedly with Ventura and Delon. “It is enough to make a space available to him: he will fill it in, he will invade it, like all great actors. Lino, who was an actor and who always remained a man.” Both Lino Ventura and Delon, who is such a physical and instinctive actor, inhabit the scenes, even more so when they are on screen together, and their presence weighs more and more as the film progresses so surprisingly towards its Greek tragedy ending. They understand each other so well on screen. “I have unforgettable memories of Les Aventuriers,” Alain Delon remembers in the book Lino Ventura, by Luciano Melis and Laurent Ventura, “filming lasting more than three months, sublime landscapes: Djerba, Fort Boyard, Italy… I remember our long conversations in the evening, once the scenes were shot, as if it were yesterday.” As for Joanna Shimkus, I can’t think of anyone who could be more believable as someone both men are attracted to but remain just friends with right up till the end.

”Les Aventuriers”, 1967. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, Compagnia Generale Finanziaria Cinematografica

Les Aventuriers is also one of those films where I find myself taking great interest in observing the details, the way colours play out on screen, for example, and how entire scenes in the beginning are made of a red shirt, red truck, red poles, red plane, navy pea-coat and a brown suede jacket – red makes a strong visual impact in the way it is inserted piece by piece, be it in costume or decor, in every plan – or the navy and blue colour schemes that fill in the screen when the characters are at sea or near the sea. But this aesthetic sensibility that resonates throughout the film is not something that seems forced on you, it comes very naturally, as if the camera’s merit was merely that it was able to capture it all.

The Paco Rabanne dress worn by Laetitia (Joanna Shimkus) is the only credited film costume in ”Les Aventuriers”, 1967.
Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, Compagnia Generale Finanziaria Cinematografica

Another thing about French films is that costumes are such an integral part of the characters and story that I am often reluctant to talk about them separately for fear of sounding too studied. Furthermore, there is no costume credit in the film here (the actors were most probably given freedom of choice), except for the Paco Rabanne dress made of aluminum discs and panels linked together by wire using pliers worn by Laetitia for her exhibition. And even so, the dress is worn in a moment in film when, avant-garde as it is, blends in so well in the scene that it makes it an object in the exhibition rather than a piece of wardrobe worn by the character.

Designing skill ran in the Rabanne family. His mother was the chef seamstress at Balenciaga’s Spanish branch. He had an industrial design background, having studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which he put to good use when he started out in fashion as jewellery designer, selling his plastic jewellery and buttons to Balenciaga, Dior and Givenchy. He became a fashion revolutionary, by eschewing traditional couture techniques and experimenting with alternative and unconventional materials and new methods of garment construction, inspired by his architectural training and the impact of space and space travel in the 1960s. Undoubtedly, the dress retains an element of outer space here, but it’s again something that relates so well with the characters – Manu and Roland arrive at the exhibition and when they finally get a glimpse of Laetitia from afar they realise she is unreachable, because there are so many strangers there who steal her attention and she isn’t even able to see that her friends have made it to the event.

”Les Aventuriers”, 1967. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, Compagnia Generale Finanziaria Cinematografica

But the brevity of film costume here is the signature for simplicity. This sort of seems like a given when we have Alain Delon in the cast. His cool and resolute demeanor demands neither too many words nor too many details. Aviator sunglasses, simple t-shirts, khaki trousers, jeans, navy sweater and leather bomber jackets are as much part of Manu’s repertoire as white shirts, slim-cut suits and the trench coat. And yet, it is not primarily the clothing, but the way he wears them. All three main characters’ costumes focus on key pieces that are as modern, actual and practical today as they were back in 1967. That’s because the French sense of style is so innate and ageless and the antidote to fashion. Maybe the pea-coat was made iconic by other movies, such as Steve McQueen in The Sand Pebbles or Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor, but I don’t believe there has ever been another film that had its main three characters, boys and girl, wear a pea-coat and wear it so well. And there has been no other film that has made such a strong plea for the plain navy oversized sweater and shawl-collar cardigan – and for its best teammate, the blue jeans – either. Actors who inhabit their characters, characters who wear their clothes, it’s just as simple as that.

”Les Aventuriers”, 1967. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, Compagnia Generale Finanziaria Cinematografica

Out at sea, the characters need garments that stand up to the task. The sweater does that. It’s an item so much part of a sailor’s life or of someone who lives by the sea that we also get to see it on the little boy, Laetitia’s cousin, on his shore expeditions. It’s weighty and tight enough to shield the brisk air and sea water, intuiting at a harsh life by the sea, but also keeping him comfortable and free to play and dream of adventures. And maybe these youthful practicality will cast the most light on his own style when he grows up.

”Les Aventuriers”, 1967. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, Compagnia Generale Finanziaria Cinematografica