Le Cercle Rouge (1970) - Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

This film contains such an overwhelming sense of foreboding that even from the early frames one can sense the doom washing over everything. One feels that the churnings and machinations of the people in the film are sort of like a mouse on a wheel, that they will work their tails off and yet end up right where they started….or perhaps worse: that they will succumb and be imbibed through the mouth of fate, which will yield all of their efforts null and void. The fact that Jean-Pierre Melville is able to take such a tone and infuse it with poignancy, suspense, and a respect for the art of devotion is remarkable. He is one of my favorite directors.

Le Cercle Rouge is Melville’s penultimate capstone to a career which has come to define neo-noir for me. His existential takes on the heist and the hit-man are absolutely essential cinema and have come to influence anyone from Michael Mann to Nicholas Winding Refn. His style of reducing cinema to observation (a la Bresson) is put to wonderful use as the observance of craft becomes elevated to a zen-like experience. Le Cercle Rouge stars Alain Delon (who makes smoking a cigarette a must-see event) as Corey, a just-released ex-con who has been tipped off by a jail-guard to a huge heist opportunity. Corey’s path crosses the story of another, named Vogel (Gian-Maria Volonte), who is a just-escaped fugitive who is being tracked across the countryside. Vogel climbs into Corey’s trunk of his car, almost like Vogel is incubating in Corey’s “womb” and the two form a bond. It appears that each of them sense a portent connection. Is it fate that draws them together? The film seems to enact not a sense of coincidence that they are together, but a sense of determined purpose, like this is MEANT to happen. They hold up in Paris, as Corey begins to flesh-out the details of the heist. They turn to Vogel's old friend, an alcoholic ex-cop named Jansen (Yves Montand) (who also happens to be a crack-shot and ballistics expert), to assist them in their quest to rob a high-end jewel gallery. We also follow the exploits of the police investigator Mattei, a man far too uncool for the likes of Delon, but whose chief inspiration is to not only find the fugitive, sniff out the heist, but also to wreak havoc on us, the audience with his ability to foil and outwit the crooks who we are rooting for! The rat bastard!

I won’t pretend to beat around the bush. This film is cool. It’s not over-the-top cool, like his Le Samourai, but it’s utterly stylish, devoid of trumped-up drama, is silent most of the time, and lets the images speak for themselves. Above all, it’s a man’s world, where to find sense in this world, one must have a purpose and craft that one excels at. Our three crooks are either at the end of their rope, or have very little going for themselves. They have a predilection for finding trouble. It’s almost like they don’t really need this heist for the money, though. They need it for validation of their own selves…their own self-respect. Some men are accountants, some salesmen. These guys are crooks.  They pour as much thought and devotion into their heist as anyone would to something incredibly important to them. Melville similarly devotes a religiously observed portion of the film to the heist itself, which goes on for nearly a half hour of running time, most of which is incredibly silent (taking a page from Dassin). In fact the entire heist itself achieves the on-screen artistry of something like a beautiful song-and-dance routine, or a terrifically choreographed fight. We have the balletic movements, the attention to detail, the cause and effect relationships. There’s also an implied deduction that the audience must make at times, because slightly out of the usual order, Melville does not directly implicate us in all the details of the heist itself. Many heist films (a la schlock like Ocean’s Eleven) make it almost too fine a point to include the audience in EXACTLY everything that will happen and when it will happen. Melville understands we don’t have to know as much as the characters do to enjoy the heist scene. We watch and observe, without the burden of pre-anticipation.

If the film is also gorgeously cruel, it’s that ending where our crooks must look fate straight in the eye. Why must Melville remind us that our sins will find us out? Why must Melville remind us that those who risk much to gain, must also risk much to lose? Why Why Why? Melville is too smart to allow these guys to get away with it. Why pander to an audience that is craving for our protagonists, these crooks, to achieve some sort of immortality through their heist? Because life doesn’t work that way. As Elliot says in E.T., “This is reality, Greg”. The difference between great directors, and directors in title only, is that the great ones refuse to budge, refuse to pander, refuse to acknowledge that they MUST do something a certain way. Melville consistently throughout his career was almost fashionably in love with the concept of doom and foreboding. Like I said, from the early frames of this film, one feels the pull of death. It was there from the start. To betray this would be to betray the intent. Melville was like a rock. He was not going to budge. 

Melville Double Feature (Pt. 2) - Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) - Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville



In my previous post I talked about the early career and style of Jean-Pierre Melville in his film Le Doulos (1962). His 1966 feature Le Deuxieme Souffle is a great example of a filmmaker honing his craft and refining his themes. This is a natural progression. Melville here clearly changes his tone, compositions, and thematic elements to build upon the framework he set for himself with his earlier films like Le Doulos and Bob Le Flambeur (1956), all to an end that is at once more detached, yet filled with more feeling.

In this film, Lino Ventura plays Gu, an escaped convict who's hiding from the authorities while simultaneously planning his next heist. Inspector Blot (Paul Meurisse) plays the cat-and-mouse game to track Gu and arrest him. In plot, the scenarios play out in a way that we're fairly familiar with from all of the cop/gangster films that have come after it. It's the way that the film is put together, in the inimitable style of Melville that elevates the material.

In examining the evolution of Melville, we note the change in tone from his earlier films. No longer is there the sense of homage or playfullness. We don't have the Belmondos of the world bringing their own inherent trendiness. Instead there is a greater sense of existential dread. It's a much colder world. Stark. Death is more scary and omnipresent instead of a necessary means as before. In this change of tone, as a whole, the film seems to be more important and therefore filled with more pathos and feeling. Lino Ventura is the perfect actor choice and is partly responsible for this change of tone. A great article on his acting style and the screen presence he brought to Melville's later pictures is well worth a read. In Richard Porton's piece he writes, "Ventura's hardboiled gangsters were neither suave nor flamboyant. He specialized in burnt-out, doomed men". This is a perfect example of the way the actor adds to the tone of the film that the director is trying to pursue. Ventura went on the star in Melville's very cold, yet personal look at the French Resistance (of which Melville was a part of) in Army of Shadows (1969).

In his compositions, we notice that Melville is increasingly particular. Shots are artfully composed to a point where it becomes perfectionist. This is now a world where people are spaced just so and shots strung together creating a stark existence, one devoid of warm humanity. What a striking turn of events for Melville. In Le Doulos there was a kinetic sense of joy in the compositions. More of a warm homage to traditional film noir. Here we see death and gunfights play out more coldly and savagely. In this film's centerpiece we see a brilliantly staged armored-vehicle heist on some rocky cliffs, where we are treated to a basically wordless piece of filmmaking. Melville lets us watch as we see everything being set-up by the robbers and the entire act carried out with cold-blooded efficiency. It's a perfectly shot scene and emblematic of the way that Melville was creating this new type of haggard gangster film.  Faces are blank and world-weary. There's a point where we see Gu's girlfriend Manouche shed one small tear. It's a token really, but she's so empty and cold that it's a hopeless gesture in a moment of weariness. We're not even sure she's truly sad. Melville's next feature, Le Samourai takes the stark compositions and barren existence to a new level, albeit in color. It documents a lone hitman and his precise and exact world in which he lives. Jim Jarmusch's film Ghost Dog (1999) was a direct nod to Melville in Le Samourai.

Differences in thematic elements that are perhaps most apparent in Le Deuxieme Souffle from Le Doulos are the emphasis on the ethics of the gangster and the cop. Ratting out and cheating are at once dreadful and necessary depending on your place. Inspector Blot, as the chaser, does anything he can, even lying and using coercive tactics to get his man to talk. Gu fears that he has ratted-out his friends by mistake, which tears him apart. It's this extra emphasis on the morales and tactics that elevates the story from a mere homage to more epic proportions. Cheating and lying in Le Doulos are so prevalent that it's almost treated with a bit of humor. In Le Deuxieme Souffle, it's serious business. Apparently, even gangsters have feelings, cold as they may be. Melville went on to focus more on these ethical rules in Le Samourai, but they're clearly present here.

Melville would go on to make even more refinements to his craft in Le Samourai (1967), Army of Shadows (1969), and Le Cercle Rouge (1970), showing even more restaint and creating an ever-greater feeling of detachment and existential crises. His work is essential and worth viewing in succession in order to fully appreciate the director's craft.