Though flawed in dramatic ways, and visually shapeless, there is still something to admire about Joseph Losey’s The Assassination of Trotsky, an ambitious, contemplative historical feature.
Grade: C+ (** out of *****)
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The tale centers on the psychological makeup of Frank Jackson (Alain Delon), the would-be assassin of exiled Russian Communist leader Leon Trotsky (Richard Burton).
This movie was a follow-up to one of Losey’s acknowledged masterpieces, The Go-Between, which won the top prize at the 1971 Cannes Film Fest, and perhaps led to unrealistically high expectations for his future work.
Shrewdly avoiding the format of a conventional biopic, the tale chronicles the final few months of Trotsky’s life, from the May 1940 raid upon Trotsky’s Mexican compound to August of that year, when the assassination took place.
The film details how the shy and mysterious Jackson gained access to the compound through ingratiating himself with family friend Sylvia Ageloff (Romy Schneider, Delon’s former real-life girlfriend).
Like many of Losey’s films, the focus is on the relationship between and complex personalities of both men. The reclusive Trotsky, seeing a part of himself in Jackson, begins to warm up to the latter, never realizing that Jackson would be the man to finally kill him.
Losey’s decision to place the assassin center stage stands in sharp contrast to most political conspiracy and murder sagas, which usually revolve around the victim, such as Costa-Gavras films (Z being prime example).
Known for his rigorous yet lush mise en scene, Losey may be dwelling too much on interior meaning and mood, which may explain the film’s commercial failure.
In 1965, Josef Shaftel optioned Bernard Wolfe’s novel The Great Prince Died. The film was a co-production between the French Valoria Company and Dino De Laurentiis. It was originally to be shot in England, but it was eventually filmed in Rome.
The movie relied loosely om Isaac Don Levine’s book “The Mind of an Assassin” as a source.
According to various reports, director Losey was so drunk and tired that he relied on long monologues by Burton to carry the film, in some cases even forgetting what was in the script. Burton himself wrote that he, or the continuity girl, would have to remind Losey of things that would have caused continuity gaffes.
Losey and Delon would reteam in a far superior picture in 1976, Monsieur Klein, a later highlight in the French actor’s long career.
Credits
MPAA: R.
Running time: 105 minutes.
Written by Nicholas Mosley
Directed by Joseph Losey
Produced by Norman Priggen
Josef Shaftel (executive producer)
Cinematography Pasqualino De Santis
Edited by Reginald Beck
Music by Egist
Distributed by Cinerama Releasing Corporation
Release date: April 30, 1972
Budget £1 million ($2.4 million)
Box office 561,109 admissions (France
DVD: Sep 5, 2006
