A gangster film that should be much better known and appreciated: Le Deuxieme Soufle

 Jean-Pierre Melville's 1966 film, Le Deuxième Souffle (Second Wind is the best translation) is one of those gangster movies closely modeled on the American hardboiled crime films that the French seem to do so well - and this, though little known today, is one of the best. The plot is a bit tangled at the start, but the essence of the crime and punishment becomes clear and stark and inevitable as the film progresses (it's pretty long, at 2:30). The basic story line concerns a gangster (Gu, played well by Lino Ventura, who worked with JPM on many films I think) who escapes from prison near Paris and needs to make one big score big score before fleeing, with his "girl," Manouche (Christine Fabrega) by boat to Sicily. Of course things go wrong. In the process, there are some extraordinarily powerful scenes: the prison break (fantastic start to the movie!), the shootout at the gangster bar/hangout, the terrific show put on by the wily and unexpectedly insightful Police Detective Bolt (Paul Meurisse), most of all the heist (of bars of platinum!, being shipped, stupidly, from one bank to another with somewhat flimsy police protection) that Melville shoots in real time - far more intense and intelligent than any other heist I've ever seen on film. Things go right, and then they go wrong, as Gu gets picked up and risks his life to protect his honor-among-thieves demeanor. Yes, it's just a gangster movie, in the end, but there's so much to look at and think about throughout that it rises well above its genre and should be as well known as its American counterparts, in film and TV/cable. 

Melville's French New Wave tribute to American noir

Like so many French movies from the New Wave era, Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai (1967) owed a huge debt to American noir - and it pays off the debt as well. The title is a bit of a joke, as the central figure, Jef Costello, portrayed really well by Alan Delon, is not a Japanese feudal warrior, but he does share the morality or nonmorality rather of the Samurai: He is a hired killer, who can off someone just for the payout, without a shiver of fear and without emotion. We see him in the opening sequence set up an alibi, steal a car, enter a nightclub, and without flinching he shoots the owner in his office. Then the trouble begins: by coincidence, he's one of the suspects rounded up by the Paris police; a beautiful woman jazz piano player at the club witnessed him fleeing after the shooting, but she refuses to ID him to the police. When Delon goes to collect his pay, he gets shot in the arm - the team that hired him thinks he's double-crossing them. From that point we go on an elaborate chase and escape, some seen from Delon's POV and some from the police, as the police close in on him; throughout, he remains incredibly cool, and a highlight is a cat-and-mouse game as he eludes about 50 police officers pursuing him through the Metro (part of the fun of this film is getting a look at Paris in the '60s - many fewer cars, a lot more urban poverty, and the Metro pretty much the same). To be honest, the complex conclusion of this drama swept right by me; I never quite get who exactly hired Delon or why and have no idea of the role of the supercool (and living in luxury) jazz pianist, whom Delon confronts in the final sequence (I won't give anything away), but this movie isn't really about plot, it's about atmosphere, which Melville creates beautifully: the dark streets and long alleys, the seedy apartment, the excellent use of tracking shots through long scenes of investigation and interrogation, the contrast between the flashy nightclub and the grim world on the streets, and most of all the presence of Delon throughout, always in moxie, with his trenchcoat (he chases from beige to blue after he's shot in the arm), white dress shirt, cocked fedora.

Melville's first film is simple, austere, and a tour de force

Jean-Pierre Melville's first film, The Silence of the Sea (1949) is simple, austere, and a tour de force. Based on a pseudonymous novel or short story published in France during the war - an incredible act of bravery in itself - the story concerns an elderly man and his 20-something niece living in a small town in an unnamed province, during the Occupation, who are forced to billet a German lieutenant. Throughout the movie the man speaks almost entirely in voice-over narration and the niece, as far as I can recollect, says only one work. Almost all of the movie takes place in their parlor, and the German officer is the only speaker. But Melville does so much with this material: The German tells them about his love of France, about his hopes that the Occupation will build a beautiful relationship between their 2 great countries; he's cosmopolitan, cultured, well-traveled, and well educated, a man of feelings and sensitivity. He seems interested in the niece. But the man and his niece never say a word to the German; in every scene the man puffs on his pipe, the niece works on some embroidery - they refuse to offer him the least civility - a great political statement! I won't give much away, but at one point the German gets a two-week leave and heads to Paris, which has been lifelong ambition. These scenes are amazing; he visits the various sites, and we often catch, just against the margin of the frame, the Nazi flag or a group of German soldiers. The officer spends time in a club w/ other German officers - another fantastic scene, with one of the men singing a mournful ballad and as others watch there's the hint of homo-eroticism. Eventually, a political discussion ensues, and the German officer seems to begin a transformation (the political argument is the one possibly heavy-handed moment in the film). The three lead actors are all great, w/ special props to Nicole Stephane as the niece - her facial expressions are  as restrained yet powerful and emotive as those of Jeanne d'Arc in Dreyer's great silent film. Silence of the Sea is a great report on the agonies that many good French people (silently) endured during the occupation.

Is Jean-Pierre Melville as good as Hitchcock?

I've felt at times when I revisit a Hitchcock film that he's a bit overrated - is North by Northwest really that good, by today's faster-paced standards? - and I'm starting to feel, watching two Jean-Pierre Melville films on back-to-back nights, that he's under-rated, or at least under-recognized: Surely Melvilles 1970 "Le Cercle Rouge" is as good a jewel-thief movie as you're going to get - not perfect by any means, but smartly told and acted, well paced, and clear about the multiple strands of the plot. I have some quibbles that I'll get to in a moment, but first of all I was struck, in Cercle, as I was the night before in Bob le Flambeur, by the great use of location shots - in this movie, some in Marseilles, many in Paris, beautifully capturing the look and feel of the neighborhoods, with the old Hotels and apartments in some "quartiers" and the trashy shops and clubs and bars in some of the other - and also great outdoor footage - the chase through the snow, the shooting in muddy field. And: the escape from the moving train, perfectly choreographed and surprising. All that said, the plot turns out not to be as challenging or imaginative as it seemed at first: what happened to the whole element of a prison guard setting a prisoner up for the great robbery? I thought there would be a huge payoff there, like it's all a trap or like the police inspector is in on it - but that was just dropped. And how can anyone explain the ending? What leads the jewel thief to the final location? How did he know it was a trap? How did he get there? lots of unanswered details at the end - but, still, a really entertaining movie that doesn't feel dated at all, except for the 1960s-era Plymouth barreling along the highway.

A true time capsule of Paris 1956: Bob le Flambeur

Jean-Pierre Melville's 1956 noirish French gangster movie, "Bob le Flambeur" (Bob the Gambler - you won't find the word in your Larousse) is a sharp, well-narrated, well-paced movie that doesn't feel dated at all. Bob (does the name sound exotic to the French?) is an elderly, distinguished looking sharpie who makes his living through gambling in the Montmarte/Pigalle neighborhoods; after string a bad luck he gets the idea to rob the vault in a casino (Deauville), assembles a team, but one of the weak links blabs to his girlfriend, she blabs or boasts to a guys she's carrying on with on the side, he's a mug who owes a favor to the police, he squeals, but the cops are also in with Bob - the whole plot clicks together like a fine piece of machinery. Few people have seen this movie I suspect, though it's a natural for a contemporary remake - maybe that's already been done, in fact, in one version or another, though I think an action-filled, glossy color remake would spoil all the charm, as part of the pleasure of watching Bob the Flambeur is the period locale, Paris in 56 still impoverished from the war, very few cars - Bob drives a huge Plymouth, a real stylist - and the gorgeous scenes at night all evidently shot on location on the streets of Paris with the trashy nightclubs and bars of the Pigalle, and even some background music from some of the jazz bands who must have been playing the clubs at the time: a true time capsule, one of the great pleasures that film can still provide.

Unique among French films? A movie with no sex: Leon Morin, Priest

"Leon Morin, Priest" - a movie just about as interest as it sounds. Not. I expected so much more from this vintage (1961) Jean-Pierre Melville movie - which is briefly described as a story of a priest in Nazi occupied France during WWII. Melville did the truly great movie about the Occupation and French Resistance, Army of Shadows. But Leon Morin has none of that greatness - it's just slow and ponderous, something like an Eric Rohmer movie, lots of talk, but with even less action. The only truly interesting element is that Belmondo plays the very chaste and upright Morin: kind of like casting James Dean as a Mormon minister back in the day. Belmondo actually plays the part quite well, for what that's worth. It starts off promising: some women in occupied France send their children off to the countryside so that they won't be singled out as half-Jewish. One of the women, Barny (what a name!) goes to Morin for confession, and then begins a relationship of many years that she sees as perhaps flirtatious but Morin sees as purely spiritual - when at last she comes on to him, just a little, he storms off in outrage. They pass blithely through the Occupation - it's all happening offstage, there are no daring Resistance activities and no big conflict with the Nazi troops, and then it ends. By the end, Barny, a very sensual and probably bisexual young woman, realizes she can have a relationship with a man, Morin, that isn't based on sex and that doesn't become sexual (that in itself unusual if not unique in French cinema!), that Morin is interested in her as a person and as a soul to save. OK, possibly - but there's no drama as this works out - partly because Morin himself is such a stiff straight-arrow, never tempted even for a moment as far as we see. If he is tempted, it would be good of Melville to show us that - his own confession, his own torment - but within the borders of this film, Morin is saintly. Saints are boring.