The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Conclusion and Ranking

I have always considered myself a fan of Jean-Pierre Melville – and yet, oddly, I had only seen three of his films before embarking on this re-watch – so if nothing else, I am thankful for the Criterion Channel for including all these films on their streaming service (I would be more grateful had they included When You Read This Letter for those of us in Canada like it was in America).

 

What is remarkable looking back on his career is how short it really was – just 23 years from his first film until his last film – seven of them in the last decade, which include his most well-known films. I appreciated his earlier films – how varied they seemed to be as Melville was finding his voice, and just trying to stay afloat in an industry who never seemed to embrace him. He was French New Wave before the New Wave – then rejected by them as he wanted commercial success, and then saw his masterpiece barely get released anywhere, and greeted with a shrug. It’s undeniable that Melville didn’t get the attention he deserved in his lifetime – he was an absolute master filmmaker, and when he was at the top of his game (the top 6 films on this list at least) – he was a true master filmmaker. I’m glad he’s gotten the attention he deserved – even if it came a few decades too late.

 

12. Magnet of Doom (1963) – This is an odd film for me, right in the middle of Melville’s best known films, but more like something Wim Wenders would make a decade later, Melville never quite finds the right tone for the film, and it meanders – but it’s something odd and interesting, even if it isn’t successful.

 

11. Two Men in Manhattan (1959) – This one feels like something Melville tossed off quickly and cheaply – outdoor scenes shot in New York, indoor scenes in Paris in a studio – it’s an interesting little film, quirky and entertaining – a B-movie, which seems happy to be just that, and nothing more.

 

10. Un Flic (1972) – It can of feels like with Un Flic, Melville’s last film, he made a film about a cop and crook just going through the motions, while Melville does the same behind the camera. It is certainly the work of the man who made many of those earlier masterpieces – but there’s just something lacking here. I wonder if Melville would have reached a different stage of his career had he not died after making this one.

 

9. Les Enfants Terribles (1950) – An uneasy collaboration between a then young Melville and the veteran Jean Cocteau, where clearly Melville didn’t have complete control. Still, as a cross between two great filmmakers, it is of interest – and has a great performance by Nicole Stephane – and is genuinely weird.

 

8. Leon Morin, Priest (1961) – Oddly, Melville, a forerunner of the French New Wave, cast two of its biggest stars – Jean-Paul Belmondo and Emmanuelle Riva – and yet also angered the New Wave, when he admitted he made this one in part to make money. Odder still, this film is a long conversation – a debate – between a hot priest, and an atheist woman, during WWII which is a push and pull between the two of them and it works wonderfully.

 

7. Le Silence de la mer (1949) – Melville’s debut film is a story of the French resistance – essentially a three hander, about an old man and his niece, forced to take in a Nazi officer into his home – but refuse to talk to him. The Nazi officer envisions a world after the war in which they will all get along – and is crushed by his slow dawning realization of just what his country is. A fascinating, engrossing thriller – a film in which a single line of dialogue upends the whole film.

 

6. Le Cercle Rouge (1970) – For most other directors, Le Cercle Rouge would be their crowning achievement – but coming on the heels of so many great, similar films from Melville, it feels like more of the brilliant same from him. The impact would probably be greater had I not seen all of his films so close together – because this is a brilliantly directed and paced film, with so many amazing sequences – that it is clearly the film of a master.

 

5. Bob la Flambeur (1956) – The first truly great film of Melville’s career, Bob la Flambeur is the film that really marks Melville as a forerunner to the French New Wave – and a clear influence on films like Soderbergh’s Oceans films. It is a film of effortless cool – of an old school gambler and criminal, living by a code. It also showed where Melville was going next.

 

4. Le Doulos (1962) – Perhaps the most entertaining film Melville ever made – this film has so many twists and turns in the plot, in its story of no honor among thieves, as we think Jean-Paul Belmondo is a rat, but then we keep having that undermined, or confirmed, and back and forth. Just a marvelously fun film – with a steel core of what Melville was about to start doing.

 

3. Le Samourai (1967) – Perhaps Melville’s most famous, most celebrated film – and it is a film of simple perfection. It really boils down everything Melville had done before, and boiled it to is essential elements in its story of its hitman, who time is running out. The great Alain Delon secured his legacy here – and the final scene adds even more depth.

 

2. Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) – Perhaps my hottest take here is that Le Deuxieme Souffle is every bit the masterpiece that Le Samourai is – the story of an aging criminal who knows his time is done, and heading done the path to his inevitable death. This is the classic “old man” movie – but made when Melville was in his 40s. Just an absolute masterpiece.

 

1. Army of Shadows (1969) – In 1969, Melville’s masterpiece was completely written off – barely seen in France, who decided it was too old fashioned, and politically out of step, and never released outside of France at all. Now, we recognize Army of Shadows as one of the greatest of all films – the story of the French resistance, which completely drains the glamor out of it. It is about people who know they will die, and do what they have to anyway. I am saddened by the fact that Melville never got to see his masterpiece recognized for what it was in his lifetime.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Un Flic (1972)

Un Flic (1972)

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Starring: Alain Delon (Commissaire Edouard Coleman), Richard Crenna (Simon), Catherine Deneuve (Cathy), Riccardo Cucciolla (Paul Weber), Michael Conrad (Louis Costa), Paul Crauchet (Morand), Simone Valère (Paul's wife), André Pousse (Marc Albouis), Jean Desailly (Distinguished gentleman who was robbed a statue), Valérie Wilson (Gaby).

 

There are many sad things about Jean-Pierre Melville dying early – at only 55. Just looking at his career accomplishments, he died before most people realized what a master filmmaker he was – his masterpiece, Army of Shadows had been buried, and little seen, and during his career he never quite seemed to be in favor – always a little ahead of the curve. Another career aspect that is somewhat sad is that Un Flic was Melville’s final film. It’s a fine film as far as it goes – although by this point, he could pretty much do this type of thing in his sleep, and to be honest, there are moments when he seems to be doing that in Un Flic. It is another crime drama, another film about the thin line between cops and criminals, with long stretches without a lot of dialogue as master professionals go about their business, and criminals either violate, or refuse to violate, the code of ratting on each other, etc. I said about Le Cercle Rouge, his previous film, that it was masterfully done – but having watched so many Melville films over a few months’ span, I wondered if there was enough different about it to make it one of his very best. With Un Flic, I know there isn’t. There are still sequences here that are great – and it’s still very much a Jean-Pierre Melville film – which means there are things here most directors couldn’t do at all. So even minor Melville is better than a lot of films – but it’s still undeniably minor.

 

There are two main set pieces in Un Flic – and they are both wonderfully staged, and show Melville’s fascination with the small things that go into pulling off a job. The four main criminals, led by Richard Crenna’s Simon, pull off two heists in the movie. One is at a bank, and another is aboard a moving train, on which he is dropped from a helicopter. And yet although Melville could clearly make robberies look exciting, he spends more time setting up the heists, than the heists themselves. In the first, the criminals sit, minute after agonizing minute, for just the right moment for the heist to begin – they spend longer waiting, then they do in the robbery. For the train robbery, it almost feels like we spend more time Simon as he prepares a disguise for himself on board the train – changing into pajamas and an overcoat, slicking back his hair, etc. – so that he will appear to any witnesses as a passenger with insomnia. That Melville spends more time on this than he does with Simon get onto a train from a helicopter, committing a robbery, and then getting back on the helicopter, tells you something.

 

Simon is only one half of the coin here though – in fact, Un Flic means cop, and that would be Alain Delon’s Coleman. He is investigating the bank robbery – which he suspects may or may not involve his friend Simon, but as with everything else in the film, he is doing so half-heartedly. We see him investigate other crimes, and not really care. He is sleeping with Cathy (Catherine Deneuve), who is also sleeping with Simon (which is odd since Delon and Crenna look and act the same, you think she may want some variety, but I guess not) but even this love triangle doesn’t inspire much passion in any of the three participants. They cannot be bothered to get worked up over much of anything.

 

So ultimately ends up feeling like a crime drama about a cop and a criminal who have lost their passion for everything, and are just going through the motions – made a filmmaker who is going through the motions. Like his characters, Melville is so good at his good that even just going through the motions is still pretty darn good. And his trademark style, and the way he liked to drain the actors of emotions anyway, means its less noticeable for Melville than it would be for many other filmmakers. And yet, that’s still what it feels like just the same.

 

I do wonder what Melville would have done had he not died at 55. For a filmmaker who was able to make Le Deuxième Souffle in his late 40s – a film that feels like an old master’s final statement on something – I think it could have fascinating. Of course, we will never know how Melville would have evolved – or not evolved – had he lived longer, and we didn’t get the grand final statement from him. We got Un Flic – and film that is undeniably the work of the same filmmaker who made all those masterpieces – but a film that feels like perhaps his heart was no longer in making those films anymore.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Starring: Alain Delon (Corey), André Bourvil (Le Commissaire Mattei), Gian-Maria Volontè (Vogel), Yves Montand (Jansen), Paul Crauchet (Le Receleur), Paul Amiot (L'inspecteur général de la police), Pierre Collet (Le Gardien de prison), André Ekyan (Rico), Jean-Pierre Posier (L'assistant de Mattei), François Périer (Santi), Yves Arcanel (Le juge d'instruction), René Berthier (Le directeur de la P.J.), Jean-Marc Boris (Le fils Santi).

 

In some ways, it feels like Le Cercle Rouge was the film that Jean-Pierre Melville was building towards for years before he made it. It is another film of cops and criminals, and the very thin line that separates them, and how they each have to live by a moral code of sorts. Yet in Le Cercle Rouge, Melville pushes this farther then he has before – this sameness between the cops and criminals and their morals is pushed further than before. In terms of filmmaking, its as stripped down as it can get – there is little dialogue in the film – little is needed – and it certainly isn’t quite as much fun as some earlier Melville films were. What it is though is a meticulously crafted crime thriller, about cops and criminals, each deciding where their moral line is – and how far they will go over it.

 

The film once again stars Alain Delon – this time as a thief named Corey. When the film opens, he’s in jail – but is offered a deal by a prison guard who has setup Corey’s release. All he has to do is pull off an elaborate jewel heist when he gets out – it will set both Corey and the guard up if he can pull it off. Corey isn’t overly interested – but really, what choice does he have? When he gets out his first move is to take revenge on Rico – the gangster whose betrayal landed him in jail in the first place, and to make matters worse, Rico has stolen Corey’s girl while he was away in prison. Corey should have left well enough alone.

 

The other major plot involves Vogel (Gian-Maria Volonte), who we first meet as he is in the custody of Commissionar Mattei (Andre Bourvil) – who is transporting him by train to jail – his crime only vaguely spoken about. Mattei falls asleep on the train – allowing Vogel to pick his handcuffs, and leap from the train in a daring escape. Vogel will, quite by happenstance, run into Corey – and soon will become a member of his team to pull off the robbery. Mattei, humiliated at letting Vogel get away, will come after them hard.

 

There are two other major characters. First there is Santi (Francois Perier) – a bartender who knows everything and everyone, and who Mattei will lean on – with increasing pressure – to give up the information he needs to know, even as Santi insists he is no rat. Then there is Jansen (Yves Montand) – a former cop, and expert marksman – now an alcoholic with the DT’s – who Corey and Vogel have to recruit to pull off the elaborate heist. Jansen isn’t in it for the money – he just wants some self-respect back – wants to prove he can do it.

 

For most of the runtime, Melville moves things at a meticulous, but never boring, pace. He starts the movie with a (made-up) quote from the Buddha about people who are destined to meet each other will eventually meet each other – perhaps only because it allows him to pull off his plot that is so heavy with coincidences. The other quote that stands out comes from Mattei’s boss – who observes “No man is innocent. They start out that way, but it doesn’t last”. That becomes true, in its way, during the course of Le Cercle Rouge – as we will witness a lot of these people, on both sides of the law, make bad decisions – perhaps no one worse than Mattei, who is so hell-bent on catching Vogel, on saving face from letting him get away, he will do anything to catch them.

 

The whole movie climaxes with a masterful, 25-minute wordless sequence where the three criminals pull off the elaborate jewel heist. If you’ve seen Jules Dassin’s excellent Rififi, it will likely remind you of that legendary sequence – although Melville’s sequence is perhaps even more elaborate (if not quite as intense – although it’s very close). Apparently Melville delayed making Le Cercle Rouge for years because he wanted to get away from the comparison to Rififi – but why not be compared to the best?

 

The movie ends as it must I suppose. This is a return to the types of films that Melville was making before his masterpiece Army of Shadows (1969) – about his time in the French Resistance of WWII. It is similar to Le Samourai, Le Deuxieme Souffle or Le Doulos. Perhaps it’s just because I’ve seen those films so recently – or that a part of me prefers black and white – but it feels like Le Cercle Rouge is perhaps a notch below those films. It takes Melville’s moral universe to the extreme – but in its way, his characters don’t strike me as quite as complex. Still, it’s telling that most directors could never even dream of pulling something off as meticulously crafted as Le Cercle Rouge – that if they did it would be the defining film of their career – while for Melville, it’s just another masterful crime thriller.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Army of Shadows (1969)

Army of Shadows (1969) 

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville based on the novel by Joseph Kessel.

Starring: Lino Ventura (Philippe Gerbier), Paul Meurisse (Luc Jardie), Jean-Pierre Cassel (Jean François Jardie), Simone Signoret (Mathilde), Claude Mann (Claude Ullmann dit 'Le Masque'), Paul Crauchet (Felix Lepercq), Christian Barbier (Guillaume Vermersch dit 'Le Bison'), Serge Reggiani (The hairdresser), André Dewavrin (Colonel Passy), Alain Dekok (Legrain), Alain Mottet (Commander of the camp), Alain Libolt (Paul Dounat), Jean-Marie Robain (Baron de Ferte Talloire).

 

Army of Shadows is perhaps the film that best exemplifies the very different reactions that director Jean-Pierre Melville received during his life, and what happened when his work was rediscovered in the years after he died. Army of Shadows was barely seen in 1969 – it was denounced in France as being right-wing Gaullist, and retrograde, and never made it out of the country. When the film was restored and released into American theaters for the first time in 2006, it was rightly hailed as the masterpiece that it is. Like much of Melville, the timing was off for him to get the credit he deserved during his life – but at least we can correct that now.

 

The film is about the French Resistance during WWII, something Melville knew all too well because he was a part of it. This is not a film of excitement and action, raids and spy craft however – it has some of all of that of course, but the bulk of its runtime is made up of the tense everyday experiences that members of the resistance lived through – knowing the whole time they were likely to die, but doing it all anyway. They were anonymous and secretive – brothers don’t even know that they are both a member of the same group – and being arrested probably meant death – but it could also mean betrayal, and you were never quite sure who to trust. Melville basically turns the film into an unbearably intent two-and-a-half hour waiting game – when what everyone is waiting for is death.

 

The main character here is Phillippe Gerbier – played by Lino Ventura, who had been great in Melville’s Le Deuxième Souffle three years prior. Like all great Melville leads, Gerbier is a man of few words, who are defined by his actions more than anything else, and played in a calm, almost flat style that Melville preferred – you will never see someone overact in a Melville film. He has been arrested when the film opens, taken from one anonymous room by German guards after another – he knows in one of these rooms, he will be killed eventually – and he devises a crude and simple escape – he literally just runs when given the chance. The whole film may be summarized in the scene where after his escape, he ducks into a barbershop for a shave. This is suspicious of course – it’s night time, you almost wonder why the barber is even open. The two men barely say a word, and when he goes to leave, the barber gives him a different overcoat. Both men know what this was, but don’t say a word about it.

 

There is a plot in Army of Shadows – but not much of one. The Germans are barely seen in the film, and whatever the resistance is doing on a day-to-day basis is not something that Melville really dives into. The film is more about just the day-to-day will or survival – that winning means surviving another day, even though you know you will not win forever. When Gerbier is arrested again, he and others are led into a yard, where the Germans tell them all that they will be given a chance to run – make it to the wall first and you’ll be killed with the next group of prisoners, instead of this one. Gerbier isn’t sure if he should even run – if he should give them the satisfaction of running. But of course he runs. They all run.

 

Eventually more characters start to emerge. Melville favorite Paul Meurisse as the head of the resistance – at least this small chapter. The great Simone Signoret as Mathilde, the only woman in the group, and held in such high regard by everyone that they speak of her almost reverently. The closing scenes in the film hurt then, because we know that as much as they were all prepared for death – and how what they do is necessary – how much it still hurts to have to do it.

 

In many ways, Army of Shadows is an odd film for Melville – it’s one of the only films he made that you could describe as political at all, although I’m not sure it really is. Calling the film right wing and Gaullist as it was at the time seems odd – the film hard exposes political thought at all. What it is about, really, is what many Melville films are about when you strip away the genre trapping – existential dread. The feeling that death is around the corner, and you cannot stop it, may not even want to. The feeling of never being sure who you can trust, as soon or later, someone is bound to betray you – if you don’t betray them first. Melville makes you sit in that tension for the entire runtime – he doesn’t let his characters, or his audience, ever get relief from that tension. The film is, quite simply, a masterpiece.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Le Samourai (1967)

Le Samouraï (1967) 

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville and Georges Pellegrin.

Starring: Alain Delon (Jef Costello), François Périer (Le Commissaire), Nathalie Delon (Jane Lagrange), Cathy Rosier (La pianist), Jacques Leroy (L'homme de la passerelle), Michel Boisrond (Wiener), Robert Favart (Le barman), Jean-Pierre Posier (Olivier Rey).

 

In many ways, Le Samourai is Jean-Pierre Melville at his most stripped down. Gone are the complicated plots and schemes in films like Bob La Flambeur, Le Doulos or Le Deuxième Souffle in what really is a simple story of a doomed hired killer who is effortlessly cool, and who seems like the coldest bastard you could ever meet, and yet suggests that perhaps there are some hidden depths to him. He could survive if he wanted to – at least for a while – but he is so rigid in his routines, that he cannot, does not want to. It is the film that defines Alain Delon’s effortless cool – that would be an inspiration to John Woo and Quentin Tarantino and Michael Mann, and many others. The surface of the movie is perfect and cool and cold – but there are depths here.

 

We basically learn everything we need to know about Delon’s Jef Costello in the opening frames of the movie. We see him lying on the bed of his flat smoking. It’s a simple flat – one room, there are no decorations on the wall, no sign of a personality anywhere – except perhaps the sparrow he keeps in a cage. The two are a matched pair – they are trapped. Costello is a hired killer, and we see him methodically go about his latest job – stealing a car with a giant ring of keys, taking the car to a garage as spare as his room, where a mechanic replaces the license plates with barely a word spoken. The job goes off without a hitch – Costello calmly and coldly executes a nightclub manager. The only problem is that when they round up dozens of suspects, Costello is one of them. It doesn’t matter that he has a double alibi – his girlfriend (played by Delon’s then wife, Nathalie) and then a group of men he gambled with at a club later. The police still suspect him. And that doesn’t sit well with those who hired Jef to pull off the job. For the rest of the movie, Jef has to dodge his employers and the police. And he shows as little emotion as he did at the beginning of the film – he never panics.

 

Le Samourai is defined by its cold, cool style – that is in every aspect of production, from the brilliant cinematography, then never rushes, and is full of cool colors, to Delon’s performance. Delon barely speaks in the film – certainly not near the beginning – and like many a Melville character, is defined purely on his actions. He is a man of constant routine and professionalism. It’s amusing when the cops place a listening device in his room – in a wonderful sequence that goes on for minutes without a word being spoken, just the tweeting of the sparrow, who gets agitated. Jef finds the device easily, almost as soon as he walks in the door, but even if he didn’t, what would the police actually learn? He barely speaks, and has no visitors.

 

Delon is, of course, ridiculously attractive – with those features, and those eyes – and the film spends some time on his relationship with two women – his “girlfriend” Jane (Nathalie Delon) – who loves him, won’t even give him up when she’s threatened with the vice squad by the cops, and the piano player at the club (Cathy Rosier) who also backs him up with the cops. As the noose tightens around Jef’s neck, he eventually will see both women one last time. He is cold with Jane – trying to let her down gently I suppose, and then in the unforgettable final scene goes to see the Pianist. He’s been in this club before – to perform the hit – but this time, he checks his coat. He won’t need it again, he knows. Just like he doesn’t react when his mechanic friend tells him this is the last time he’ll help him. He won’t need that either.

 

What does the final revelation of Le Samourai mean? I know what it means in terms of plot – that Jef wasn’t really planning on doing anything, and he knows this is the end. But it suggests something about Jef’s character that is somehow deeper than he have seen up to this point – suggests that there is something to Jef that we didn’t notice before. It’s a haunting ending – and a perfect one.

 

In many ways, Le Samourai is a simple film. It’s easy to follow the plot, and the film has many sequences that pass by wordlessly. It is as fatalistic as any film ever made – by Melville, or anyone else. It is the perfect vehicle for Delon – and a perfect film for Melville. It brings together his influences, from American gangster movies, to the French New Wave, to Japanese films – but it is undeniably Melville’s. After years of struggle for Melville – not knowing his place, not belonging anywhere, he creates this film – a perfect film – that can last as the definitive example of why Melville was a master.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Le Deuxième Souffle (1966)

Le Deuxième Souffle (1966)

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Written by: José Giovanni and Jean-Pierre Melville based on the novel by José Giovanni.

Starring: Lino Ventura (Gustave 'Gu' Minda), Paul Meurisse (Commissaire Blot), Raymond Pellegrin (Paul Ricci), Christine Fabréga (Simone - dite 'Manouche'), Marcel Bozzuffi (Jo Ricci), Paul Frankeur (Inspector Fardiano), Denis Manuel (Antoine Ripa), Jean Négroni (L'homme), Michel Constantin (Alban), Pierre Zimmer (Orloff), Pierre Grasset (Pascal), Jacques Léonard (Henri Tourneur), Raymond Loyer (Jacques, le notaire), Albert Michel (Marcel le Stéphanois), Jean-Claude Bercq (Inspecteur Godefroy), Louis Bugette (Théo, le passeur), Albert Dagnant (Jeannot Franchi), Sylvain Levignac (Louis Bartel).

 

One of the interesting things about watching all of Jean-Pierre Melville’s films in a row is figuring out why some have become the types of films that critics describe as masterworks, and others have fallen by the wayside – still not overly examined or talked about, even if others in his filmography have been rediscovered. To this point in his filmography, Le Deuxième Souffle is the most curious case of this – because it is clearly a transitional film for Melville – part Bob La Flambeur or Le Doulos and part Le Samourai – but not quite either. It’s his final film in black and white, and shows Melville’s absolute mastery of the shadows and light that make it such a wonderful format for movies. It’s also hugely entertaining – and was, at the time, Melville’s most successful film commercially. And yet, Le Deuxième Souffle hardly gets mentioned – not nearly as much as other Melville masterworks, but it clearly deserves to be. Hopefully it’s one that everyone just needs to catch up with.

 

The film is another of Melville’s looks at a criminal underworld – concerned with loyalty, friendship and betrayal, which perhaps represented what Melville himself was feeling at the time – as he was ostracized from much of the mainstream in French filmmaking, and the New Wave at the same time. It has similarities to Le Doulos, but while that film was fast moving and fleet of foot – with a complex web of a plot nearly impossible to unwind, the plot here is relatively straight forward – and is more drawn out. This is a film that runs two-and-a-half hours, and uses that time wisely.

 

After some customary title cards – about a man choosing his own death – the film opens with a terrific wordless and music-less scene of three men breaking out of prison that will likely bring to mind the extended climax of Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped (1956) for some. One of the men don’t make it – and we don’t really care about one of the other two. Who we concentrate on is Gu Minda (Lino Ventura) – a man who has been in prison for 10 years for a robbery, and was never going to get out again if he didn’t escape. No he’s out – but not really free. His escape is a major story – a dogged police detective, Blot (Paul Meurisse) is on his trail, and isn’t likely to give up so easily. Gu has no money with which to build a new life, even if he can get out of France. What he does have are some loyal friends – a sister who is willing to do anything to help get him free, and some connections to the underworld which may have a job for him that would allow the kind of money for which he can live on for the rest of his life. But that opening quote – about a man choosing his own death – hangs over the movie. We know things aren’t going to end so cleanly here.

 

Gu is an older character than many in Melville’s films – he is 47, but because of the last decade behind bars, he seems even older, wearier than most men his age. In many ways, it kind of feels like Gu has broken out of prison, not to build some big, new exciting life – but rather to end his life on his own terms, not as some sad sack prisoner, but as a man of action. When, late in the film, Gu’s action become the subject of much debate as to whether or not he was a rat, all he really wants to do is set the record straight – to secure his legacy as a standup criminal, not because he’s worried about the consequences. Those have already been set, and there is no going back.

 

The film has a couple of brilliant action set pieces in it. The first is obviously that wonderful prison break sequence. The other one is the extended robbery sequence at the half way point – where Gu has teamed up with four other criminals, much to his sister’s chagrin, to pull off essentially an armored car robbery. The robbery is violent – people are killed – but it is an example, as in much of Melville, of a job that is planned, and executed, with precision and professionalism. Of course, the fallout from that robbery is the fallout from almost every big screen robbery – as the cops close in, and the various gangsters are brought in by the cops, and start turning on each other. In some ways, it is Le Doulos all over again – with people concerned over who is the finger man, and plotting based on incomplete information, that ends in nothing more death. But this time, it isn’t wrapped in such an entertaining package – it’s a sadder state of affairs here, with a clean getaway impossible no matter what they do.

 

There is a lot here to unpack. In many ways, I think this is perhaps the most like a Michael Mann film – namely heat – of all of Melville’s work. Melville is often brought up in relation to Mann, because both filmmakers don’t really concern themselves with psychological depth, as much as they allow the character’s action define their morality. They like people are professionals, defined by their work, by their adherence to a code. In the relationship between Gu and Blot, you see some similar dimensions of what you would see between DeNiro and Pacino in Mann’s epic masterwork. They are on opposite sides of the law, but respect each other because they both adhere to their own code – Blot goes as far as to give a reporter a story of what really happened with Gu – retroactively giving him his legacy back, even if he’s not around to enjoy it.

 

Le Deuxième Souffle is not often mentioned when discussing Melville’s best films – it doesn’t get the attention that Bob La Flambeur, Le Samourai, Army of Shadows or The Red Circle get – not even the attention that Le Doulos gets either. But it deserves that sort of attention. It is a key work in Melville’s career – kicking off what would be one of his greatest stretches of output – and it is every bit the precision masterwork that those other films are as well.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Magnet of Doom (1963)

Magnet of Doom (1963) 

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville based on the novel by Georges Simenon.

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo (Michel Maudet), Charles Vanel (Dieudonné Ferchaux), Michèle Mercier (Lou), Malvina Silberberg (Lina), Stefania Sandrelli (Angie, Hitch-Hiker), Barbara Sommers (Lou's friend), E.F. Medard (Suska), Todd Martin (Jeff), André Certes (Émile Ferchaux), Andrex (M. Andrei) 

 

It’s no real secret that Jean-Pierre Melville didn’t really get the respect he deserved during his career – or that it took longer than it should have for people to recognize his genius. Perhaps it is simply because he was a forerunner to the French New Wave – but never quite a part of it, with some admirers turning away from him when he admitted he made Leon Morin, Priest to make money – because he was tired of making films no one saw. Perhaps it was because he died too young, before people had a chance to revisit his films. But it is true that it’s only been slowly that people have come around to Melville – with more and more of his films finally being recognized as influential as they clearly were. His 1963 film, Magnet of Doom, remains one of his least known films – and there is reason for that, namely that it isn’t anywhere near his best work. And yet watching it, you get the sense that once again, Melville was ahead of the curve on somethings. It’s impossible to know if Wim Wenders saw this film – but it certainly taps into the same ennui that informed his famous road movies – Alice in the Cities, Wrong Move and Kings of the Road – and similar films made in America before them, but after this – like Easy Rider or Two Lane Blacktop. The film probably hasn’t really been rediscovered because, again, it’s not particularly good – especially when compared to Melville’s best, and it comes in between his much more famous crime movies. But it’s still an interesting film to watch – as time capsule at least.

 

This was Melville’s first film in color – and the second shot at least partly in America, a country Melville loved, although there is no real love lost here. Once again, many of the exterior in the film were shot in America, with the interiors on soundstages in Paris – much like Melville’s Two Men in Manhattan. In fact, much of the scenes shot in America take place inside a moving car – with the camera pointing out at the road as it passes by, and we listen to Jean-Paul Belmondo’s narration – almost as if the budget only allowed Melville and a camera to go to America, and the rest was added in later.

 

The movie has a classic three act structure. In it, Belmondo (in his last role for Melville) plays Michel Maudet, a boxer, who isn’t particularly good as boxing. We see him in his life in Paris – losing his fight, talking to his girlfriend, etc. – before he gets a good as basically a secretary/driver/gopher for a rich man Ferchaux (Charles Vanel) – a crooked banker. Even after Michel as proclaimed his love for his girlfriend, we see him literally sneak behind her back and abandon her with nothing, to go with Ferchaux to America. At first, they go to New York, where Ferchaux gets his ill-gotten gains, before the pair of them head out onto the road t0 New Orleans. The final act has the two men in that great American city – with Michel increasingly annoyed by the much older Ferchaux, whose health is failing him, and wants constant attention – while Michel wants to go about his life without any commitments.

 

You can certainly see the roots of characters like the aimless Europeans who made up Wenders films in Michel – driven by the same rootlessness, the same desire for freedom, without really knowing what that is. We get a lot of voice over monologues from Michel – the types of monologues that if they were in a film in 2019 would be described as typical, privileged, entitled Millennial navel gazing – a reminder that young people never really change.

 

But it doesn’t really appear that Melville’s heart in is this film very much. The style here is much more muted then normal – the camera movement doesn’t flow as much as normal. The storytelling isn’t great either – in large part perhaps because there isn’t much story here at all. And Melville, well into his 40s by now, I’m not quite sure gets the angst of Belmondo’s character.

 

The result is a fascinating movie in many ways, without really being a satisfying one. Melville made some great films in his day – but perhaps what drew him to this one was more the chance to go America, which he loved, again, rather than the story. There is a reason why 9 out of 13 of Melville’s films are available on Criterion DVD – and this isn’t one of them. I doubt it’s just a rights issue.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Le Doulos (1962)

Le Doulos (1962) 

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville based on the novel by Pierre Lesou.

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo (Silien), Serge Reggiani (Maurice Faugel), Jean Desailly (Le commissaire Clain), René Lefèvre (Gilbert Varnove), Marcel Cuvelier (Un inspecteur), Philippe March (Jean), Fabienne Dali (Fabienne), Monique Hennessy (Thérèse), Carl Studer (Kern), Christian Lude (Le docteur), Jacques De Leon (Armand), Paulette Breil (Anita), Philippe Nahon (Remy), Daniel Crohem (L'nspecteur Salignari), Michel Piccoli (Nuttheccio).

 

Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Doulos is one of those crime thrillers so full of double crosses and misdirection’s that even if you had the whole thing mapped out, I’m still not sure it would make all that much sense. That is part of the point in this film about “no honor among thieves” as the film takes great pleasure in deliberately misdirecting the audience in its story where it’s impossible to know who to trust and how to root for – and you just sign up to go along for the ride. It may not be as deep about morality as some of Melville’s later gangster pictures would become – but it’s perhaps even more entertaining.

 

We are informed from the start the a Doulos is a type of hat worn by police informants – and the film deliberately tries to keep you guess as to which of its characters is really the so-called finger man in question. Melville delights in shooting men with similar builds, wearing similar clothes and hats from behind, all to make things even murkier. When the film opens, we are following Maurice Faugel (Serge Reggiani) who has just been released from serving our years in prison. The long, brilliant opening scene sees Maurice go see an “old friend” about getting a “job”, some money and perhaps a gun. But in what will become part of the storytelling of Le Doulos, the scene ends with Maurice doing something that at first seems explainable – but later, in a dialogue heavy scene, will make sense in retrospect. Melville does this repeatedly throughout the film – providing the reasons for things after the action.

 

At times in the film, the focus will shift to Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo) – an old friend, and crime partner of Maurice’s, who is perhaps looking to get out of the game before he ends up in jail or dead. The film, of course, wants us to believe that Silien is the finger man – and truly, we see a lot that directly points at him. But is the film playing straight with us – or is it doing more of that misdirection? Or is Melville three moves ahead, and knows that by making Silien look guilty, we’ll assume he’s innocent, when really he’s guilty?

 

The movie will introduce a lot more characters – on both sides of the law – and none of them seem all that trustworthy. Motives are often murky – and there are long dialogue scenes between various characters where they both tell the truth and lie at the same time – so untangling fact and fiction becomes impossible. Melville delights in these long dialogue scenes – and keeping us on edge.

 

Of course, Melville was a master storyteller, and a master stylist – and he’s in top form through Le Doulos. The film moves quickly and smoothly – moving from one great sequence to the next, but always taking its time getting there. Quentin Tarantino has said the film was an influence on Reservoir Dogs – and you can see that in its story where criminals don’t know who to trust, and everyone is a rat. But you can see a greater influence perhaps in the way Melville takes his time in those dialogue scenes – that can on minute after minute, when most movies would simply want to get what is narratively needed out of a scene and move on. You learn a lot about these characters, even when they are lying to everyone. You can also see the films influence on things the Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s movie, or perhaps The Usual Suspects, with Belmondo’s long monologue at the end of the film, which untangles the web that has been weaved throughout the rest of the film (or perhaps just tangles it in a different way).

 

And it’s also just a delight to see these actors work. Belmondo is in his more classic mode here as the slick taking conman than he was in Leon Morin, Priest. Michel Piccoli is a delight in a smaller role as a gangster who has a great final scene. Everyone else is working at the top of their game as well. I suppose one could call the film misogynistic if they wanted to – the film certainly doesn’t treat its female characters very well – but then again, everyone in the movie is horrible in one way or another. It’s the type of film you simply strap in for an enjoy the ride – enjoy being conned and lied to, and trying to figure out what’s true and what’s not. I bet that’s true even the second, third – or tenth – time you watch this film.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Leon Morin, Priest (1961)

Léon Morin, Priest (1961)

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville based on the novel by Béatrice Beck.

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo (Léon Morin), Emmanuelle Riva (Barny), Irène Tunc (Christine Sangredin), Nicole Mirel (Sabine Levy), Gisèle Grimm (Lucienne), Marco Behar (Edelman), Monique Bertho (Marion), Marc Eyraud (Anton), Monique Hennessy (Arlette), Edith Loria (Danielle Holdenberg).

 

Leon Morin, Priest is an odd film for the three principals who made it. For director Jean-Pierre Melville, it is a film set during the German occupation of France – which he explored in his first film, Le Silence de la Mar (1949) and would later explore in his masterpiece Army of Shadows (1969) – but it’s only partly about that. For Jean-Paul Belmondo, who plays the title character, it is one of the films he followed up Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless with – that film made him a star and a sex symbol. The real main character though is Barny, played by Emmanuelle Riva, also on the heels of a film that made her a star – Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima, Mon Amour. Yet, when you hear that Melville is making a film about the time of German occupation, you envision a thriller of some sort a film about the resistance. And yet, Leon Morin, Priest is really more of a religious conversation – taking place mainly in a room, where these two characters talk about religion. There is an undercurrent of sexual attraction between the two of them, unspoken mostly, but it’s certainly something both characters realize. He enjoys these sexual and theological games the two of them play – she’s not the only young woman who visits him in his room, although their relationship is different. The only thing that really makes him upset is that if you explicitly reference the sexual tension in the room.

 

The two of them meet when she storms into confessional one day, not to confess her sins, but to tell the priest that religion is the opiate of the masses. She is a communist and an atheist, a widow with a half Jewish daughter on the father’s side, who has relocated to this small town in the French Alps when the correspondence school she works at relocated there from Paris, when the occupation started. At first, it’s the Italians who are the occupying force, with silly hats with feathers in them. Things get more serious when the Germans arrive, and the Jews start being rounded up. With a couple of other women, she conspires to have their children baptized to try and protect them – and eventually, she will send her daughter away to live with a couple of old women on a farm, to get her out of the way. Perhaps she simply storms into that confessional to confront the priest because she’s bored and frustrated – spoiling for a fight, but unsure of who she can argue with.

 

For his part, Morin the priest doesn’t rise to the bait. He acknowledges that religion is used by some as an opiate, and responds equally mildly to her other accusations about the church’s obsession with material wealth –all the things churches have in them, and how they respond to wealthy people, while still defending the church – and more importantly, faith – itself. He’ll give her books to read, and then they come back together to discuss them – and everything else. The pair of them are clearly attracted to each other – they flirt in a strange way. We are privy to her thoughts – but not his. She obsessed over some slight movements on his part – the way he “accidentally” allows his cassock to brush against her during mass one day for instance.

 

With him, she allows herself to say what she could not to others. She is clearly a sexual being – with an attraction to another woman in the office, and perhaps women in general. He isn’t shocked by this. We see him with a few of the other young women who come into his office – one who is determined to sleep with him. He shuts that down very quickly, almost rudely. As long as these conversations remain the abstract – he seems to enjoy the underlining sexual tension in them. We don’t see him talk to any men for example – although to be fair, we don’t see many men anyway (when we do, at the tail end of the baptism sequence, they leave the church to go back to the woods, back to the resistance).

 

Leon Morin, Priest is a film about a lot of things. Yes, it’s about religion. The religious conversations that Leon and Barny are real. She comes to him with her doubts, and he doesn’t dismiss them – but he does have an argument for all of them, that is rooted in Catholicism. It is about politics and the occupation as well. It’s interesting that she clearly hates the Nazis, and yet doesn’t join the resistance herself, or even distance herself from her friend, who looks far more kindly on the Nazis, and far less charitably on the Jews. The politics and religion are linked – because as an atheist, she thinks separating people on the basis of religion is silly. Her daughter, who could be carted away, isn’t even really a Jew – and baptizing her didn’t really make her Catholic either. And it is about sex. Perhaps she keeps going to him for no other reason than that there are no eligible men around – they’re fighting, somewhere, or in the forest – and if she is a lesbian, or at least bi-sexual, that’s not the type of thing you can be open about. And Morin clearly relishes his role – he likes to get the women turned on, in a way, and then leave them wanting – he enjoys teasing them, then admonishing them if they read the “wrong” thing into it

 

Through it all, Leon Morin remains kind of an enigma. You get the sense that he is enjoying the sexual tension with these various women – but he very clearly has a line that he draws as well. He is a good priest – a progressive priest for his time who likes to live in the world of ideas. By the end, when he’s being transferred out to the countryside, he kind of adopts the posture of a willful martyr – he knows no one where he’s going will care about his books, that before he can talk about the things that really matter, he’ll also have to talk about livestock – but he will convert the world, one village at a time. But who is he really? What will he become? It is fitting that the film is called Leon Morin, Priest even if Barny is clearly the central character in the film. She is a complex character – rather daringly so for 1961 – and yet, he’s the one everyone is obsessed with.

 

It’s an odd film for Melville. It’s film with no real action in it, and done in a slightly different style than most of his work. It’s a calmer film – a stiller film (if that’s a term) in that it’s more a collection of moments and scenes, rather than a fluid story, which he so excels at. It is, of course, a film about moral complexity – that doesn’t see anyone either as good or bad, anything as right or wrong – but rather everyone as a mess of contradictions. It was Melville’s attempt at mainstream success – and it worked, perhaps largely because he was able to get Belmondo and Riva in the leads, and knows that at many in the audience are there to see how hot Belmondo is, even dressed as a priest. It’s perhaps a little too long (the version I saw, on the Criterion Channel runs 128 minutes, not the 117 minutes it lists on IMBD) – and eventually, you do tire a little or Morin’s games – Barny deserves more than this. But for this time, and place – Morin is the best she can do. There is a quality in her voiceover narration of someone looking back at her past – and perhaps being a little angry with herself for falling for it, while also maintaining a certain nostalgic longing for Morin. Their relationship is still complex, even viewed in the rearview mirror.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Two Men in Manhattan (1959)

Two Men in Manhattan (1959) 

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville   

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Starring: Jean-Pierre Melville (Moreau), Pierre Grasset (Pierre Delmas), Christiane Eudes (Anne Fèvre-Berthier), Ginger Hall (Judith Nelson), Colette Fleury (The Secretary), Monique Hennessy (Gloria), Glenda Leigh (The Singer), Jean Darcante (Rouvier), Michèle Bailly (Bessie Reed), Paula Dehelly (Mme. Fèvre-Berthier).

 

Watching Two Men in Manhattan you get the sense that Jean-Pierre Melville make a film set in America. Melville after all loved America – he loved American gangster film, and changed his last name to Melville to honor the writer. There really isn’t much to Two Men in Manhattan except for its style – taking place all over the course of one night., it tells a simple, straight forward story in just 84 minutes. The film has great style – and that’s about it. It’s also more than enough to make it an enjoyable film – even if an undeniably minor one in Melville’s filmography.

 

The film stars Melville himself as Moreau – a French journalist living in New York, who called in when the French delegate to the U.N. goes missing. He is to find out what happened to him. He enlists Pierre Delmas (Pierre Grasset) – a photojournalist who knows all the ins and outs of New York – all the seedy places in the city. And together, the pair head out into the night to figure out what happened.

 

They talk to all the women in the diplomat’s in his life – all except (tellingly) his wife and his daughter. There is the Broadway actress, the jazz singer, the burlesque dancer, the prostitute, etc. The exteriors of the film were shot quickly by Melville on location in New York, before he returned to France to shoot the interiors. The film does indeed look great – and moves swiftly from one location to the next. It is a film that is made up of stops and asides – Melville literally stops the film completely to simply watch the jazz singer perform an entire song.

 

In terms of its theme, Two Men in Manhattan isn’t a particularly deep film – and it isn’t nearly as dark as Melville was going to become in the 1960s (or even as he was, even while smiling, in Bob le Flambeur). It’s a little odd to watch the film about two journalists take the stance it does – Delmas may be a scuzzy photographer – paparazzi before they had a term for that. And yet, while he goes too far (way too far) at times, and breaks a lot of rules, the walk back the film does go too far. His instincts – of getting the truth out there – are correct. The film is almost naïve in its view there.

 

In general, Two Men in Manhattan feels much like what it is – a quickly tribute to film noir by a French director, who admired the American directors. The style is there, but the story is simple, and the characters are barely paper thin. The film then is all style, all effortless cool by Melville, all surface. It’s fun – it’s good. And it’s good to see a film that has essentially been forgotten by a master like Melville – even if when you see it, you understand why it isn’t better known. That doesn’t mean it’s bad – most B-movies of the 1950s wish they were this good. It just isn’t quite what Melville was about to go on and do in the 1960s.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Bob La Flambeur (1956)

Bob le Flambeur (1956) 

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville and Auguste Le Breton.

Starring: Roger Duchesne (Robert 'Bob' Montagné), Isabelle Corey (Anne), Daniel Cauchy (Paulo), Guy Decomble (Le commissaire Ledru), André Garet (Roger), Gérard Buhr (Marc), Claude Cerval (Jean - le croupier), Colette Fleury (Suzanne - la femme de Jean), René Havard (L'inspecteur Morin), Simone Paris (Yvonne), Howard Vernon (McKimmie - le commanditaire).

 

If you want to talk about what you typically think of as a Jean-Pierre Melville film, it probably all starts with Bob le Flambeur – Melville’s 1956 masterwork, in which we first start to see what Melville would excel at over the next two decades of his career. It is a film of effortless style, effortless cool, with brisk, confident storytelling that lays out a complicated plot with ease, a sly sense of humor, and a lead character who is cool, and lives by a code – even if that code can seem heartless, he stands by it.

 

That character is Bob – and his played with cool confidence by Roger Duchesne. He is a gambler, living in Monaco, where he stays up all night gambling. Everyone knows Bob – everyone loves Bob. He was convicted of a bank robbery years ago, spent some time in jail, but has given up that life now. Even the cops know and love Bob. His young protégé, Paulo (Daniel Cauchy) hangs on his every word. The young people in Monaco don’t have the same code as Bob – don’t have the same sense of respect, same idea of how things should be.

 

The plot grows increasingly complicated as it moves along. Bob is pretty much broke, down to his last few hundred thousand francs – and has no other skills other than gambling. A friend tells him that the casino has upwards of eight hundred million francs on Grand Prix day – and even if Bob gave up that life years ago, that’s a lot of money, and he could use it. He assembles a team.

 

In some ways, the film resembles something like Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11. Bob gets his crew, and they started training – walking us in the audience through their plan on step at a time. It grows more complicated however by the presence of women – they always mess things up, don’t they? Bob meets and befriends young Anne (Isabelle Corey – a teenager when they made the film, and who delivers the best performance in the film outside of Duchesne). She is on the verge of becoming a prostitute, working for Marc (Gerard Buhr) – one of those younger criminal Bob despises. He invites her to live with him – not because he’s a lecherous old man, but because he thinks he may be good for Paolo. Paolo does indeed fall in love with Anne – and does what all young men in love do, tells her things he shouldn’t. Anne isn’t an innocent either, and she turns around and tells Marc (the transition between Anne and Paolo in bed, and Anne in Marc in bed is handled well by Melville). And we already know that Marc is a police informant, so you know what that is going to mean. And even if this doesn’t mess up the plan – the inside man, a croupier, has told his wife – and she gets a little too greedy as well.

 

In Bob le Flambeur you can see why Melville was an inspirational for the French New Wave filmmakers, who would begin to make films in just a few years. Here Melville is in this film, made on a shoestring budget, shooting on the streets, with an editing style that Godard would adopt shortly. And Bob is a forerunner to those effortlessly cool protagonists of the French New Wave – like Jean-Paul Belmondo, who of course would make some films with Melville later on.

 

The ending of the film I justly famous, for the ironic way that Melville brings it all to a close – allowing Bob to be back on top, without really making him a criminal again. And yet, of course, people die because Bob – and he doesn’t seem all that bothered by it. He lived by his code after all, and they didn’t – and if they don’t, well then, perhaps they got what they deserved. There is a heartlessness to Bob that goes along with that cool – perhaps you need to be that heartless, to be that cool.

The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville: Les Enfants Terribles (1950)

Les Enfants Terribles (1950) 

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville   

Written by: Jean Cocteau based on his novel.

Starring: Nicole Stéphane (Elisabeth), Edouard Dermithe (Paul), Renée Cosima (Dargelos / Agathe), Jacques Bernard (Gerard), Melvyn Martin (Michael), Maria Cyliakus (The Mother), Jean-Marie Robain (Headmaster), Maurice Revel (Doctor), Jean Cocteau (Narrator).

 

There has been a longstanding debate about what in Les Enfants Terribles is the doing of director Jean-Pierre Melville, making only his second film at the time, and what belongs to Jean Cocteau, whose novel the movie is based, and who wrote the screenplay and even provides the narration for the movie. Cocteau apparently chose Melville because he liked his debut film, another adaptation - Le Silence de la Mer – but perhaps Cocteau thought that he could better control a younger director working on the material – and some even think Cocteau was hoping to push Melville out and direct it himself (why he didn’t, I don’t know – he was certainly an accomplished director at that time).

 

What is Melville and what is Cocteau in the movie is less important, than the film itself – but it does perhaps explain why the film is as uneven as it is. Cocteau apparently was the one who insisted that Edouard Dermithe be cast in the male lead of Paul – which hurts the film, because Dermithe is both too old and too bland to make you overlook the fact that he is too old. The film is essentially a series of perverse games between Paul and his sister Elisabeth – played by Nicole Stéphane, but it’s clear from the start who is going to win these game – Paul doesn’t have a chance against the much smarter Elisabeth, and Stephane acts circle around everyone else in the film. The film struggles in other ways – like when it tries to open things up a little. Like Le Silence de lar Mer, the film works best when it traps its characters in a room together, and doesn’t let them out.

 

The film is heavy on subtext. The film certainly plays with the idea of incest between Elisabeth and Paul, as they lock themselves away in a room by themselves – and pretty much stay there. The film’s gay subtext is fairly clear – especially for a film made in 1950 – as it is quite clear that Paul is in love with Dargelos – the schoolboy who injures Paul with a snowball with a stone in it, and in turn, Gerard is in love with Paul – Gerard brings Paul home after this injury, and then pretty much doesn’t leave. To make it even more clear, Renee Cosima plays both Dargelos and Agathe – the model that Elisabeth befriends, and then brings home to this house they are sharing, and of course, Paul falls for Agathe as well. Elisabeth’s own outside relationship is short-lived – she marries Michael (Melvyn Martin) – a wealthy American Jew, who leaves them the house in which they play when he dies shortly after the marriage – the narrator telling us that she married him for his death.

 

The film is basically about how these two siblings needle each other – and then bring Gerard and Agathe into their relationship as their playthings. Jealously erupts when Paul tries to assert his independence – first he moves out of their shared room, only to be followed to his new room, and then by confessing his love for Agathe – not to her, but in a letter that he puts the wrong name on, and then to Elisabeth – who sensing she is going to lose Paul, acts drastically – leading as it must to tragedy.

 

If you really wanted to determine whose film this is more – Melville or Cocteau, you probably have to side with the latter – it doesn’t really resemble anything that Melville ever made again, but you certainly see a lot of Cocteau in it. Melville is perhaps most present in the storytelling – he always seems to delight in setting things up in small details, and then letting them play out in front of our eyes.

 

Les Enfants Terribles in an uneven film.  Dermithe is horribly miscast (I learned after the movie that the character in the book is supposed to 14 when it begins – Dermithe is at least a decade too old, and it changes everything about his character – his actions makes sense for an impulsive teenager – not so much for someone older). But it’s a well-directed film, and a well-written one – and contains a killer performance by Stéphane. The questions over its auteur status make for fascinating conversation as well – even if they are ultimately pointless. A curiosity piece for fans of both Melville and Cocteau.