|
Suffused with wry humor, Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob Le Flambeur melds
the toughness of American gangster films with Gallic sophistication to lay the roadmap for the French New Wave. As the neon is extinguished for another dawn, an aging gambler navigates the treacherous world of pimps, moneymen and naοve associates while plotting one last score -- the heist of the Deauville casino. This underworld comedy of manners possesses all the formal beauty, finesse and treacherous allure of green baize. |
|
 An Essential DVD:
Crime
Jean-Pierre Melville's 1955 Gallic meditation on American gangster films has been given a
brilliantly clean and sharp presentation by The Criterion Collection. Aside from being a prime formal influence upon the
soon-to-be-born French New Wave, Melville's film is also one of the finest heist movies of the 1950s. Roger Duchesne
takes the title role as an aging gambler who, disheartened with a string of bad luck and the advent of less stylish
forms of criminals, decides to plan one last big score -- the robbery of the famed Deauville casino. Melville conveys
the genuine flavor of Montmartre and Pigalle with hand held shots and slow and stately camera tracking moves, while
cinematographer Henri Decae captures the evanescent glow of a city awakening at dawn. Infused with Melville's love of
film and his wry humor, "Bob le Flambeur" is as cool and dry as champagne cocktail. Besides, what more can be said about
a film that ends on a lawyer joke with the punch line delivered straight into the camera? The special features include a
twenty-minute interview with actor Daniel Cauchy, a 1961 WBAI radio interview with Melville, and the theatrical trailer.
An enclosed booklet contains a short essay by Luc Sante and a 1970 interview with Melville, excerpted from Rui
Nogueira's "Melville on Melville." — PAUL BRENNER |
