Saturday, January 1, 2011

Le Cercle rouge (1970)


Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.
Starring Alain Delon and Bourvil.
In a Nutshell: A thief enlists a murderer in a heist while pursued by the police.

Cigarettes, trench coats, fedoras, deception. Le Cercle rouge is heaven for noir fetishes, and a refreshing example of conduct for film’s sake. Its characters seem to act in spontaneous harmony like jazz musicians, all within the unspoken code of criminals. But it is fate’s will that noir’s fatalism shall bury them in the end, their fate orchestrated by its master Jean-Pierre Melville. Le Cercle rouge could be a case study of the actions of men, if such actions existed outside of the hard-boiled universe that only novels and films can entertain. Alain Delon stars as Corey, a thief who in true Alain Delon fashion, broods intensely behind a guarded blue gaze. Upon prison release, he encounters a man named Vogel (Gian Maria Volonté) who escaped from the grasp of police captain Mattei (Bourvil). Corey enlists Vogel and ex-cop Jansen (Yves Montand) for a heist while Mattei pressures nightclub owner Santi (François Périer) for information.


Everything unfolds and collapses for the men with Melville stripping down any frills and redundancies. Sparse mise-en-scène and clipped dialogue complements the men’s bare characterization. Even with such austere “cool” assigned to the players, Bourvil and Montand skillfully play up their respective character’s pathos, while Delon, Volonté and Périer squirm and bluff under the heat. The mannered tough-guy aesthetic makes every plot twist and coincidence feel fated, but understated enough that its artifice does not feel self-aware. It is the most advantageous stylistic move by Melville, and the folly of each man rolls out with unforced precision offering a complete view of this gangster world. Undeniably studied, but fewer films hold its internal laws to such rigor.

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