Breathless

Ok, I get it. I'm a terrible, bad person. I have no taste. I'm a vulgarian: the guy who shot off the Sphinx's nose.

BREATHLESS bored the hell out of me.

There were all these things about it that I know I was supposed to appreciate: the innovative use of jump cuts, the romantic amorality of its leads, its impact on cinema history. But the movie lost me the moment Jean-Paul Belmondo shot the cop, and that was only something like five minutes in. From there, I felt trapped as the spectator who watches a man fritter away his remaining moments of freedom. Not only did I want him to get caught because I wanted the son of a bitch to get what was coming to him, I wanted him to get caught because I knew that was the only way the film could (mercifully) end.

But this is an important film. It's the kind of film people study in school. It's one of those movies that taught the Boomers how to be cool. I understand that it's important, but I'm not in school, I'm not a Boomer, and I'm already cool.

Having said that, I'm open to the possibility that there's more there, that this is a film that can improve with study. Perhaps they'll offer a class in it when I wind up at Leisure World a few decades hence. Until then, this film represents only another Classic checked off the list.

Le Cercle Rouge

We were about ninety minutes into ‘Le Cercle Rouge’ when it dawned on us: “Hey, this is a heist movie!” ‘Le Cercle Rouge’ isn’t really about a heist, nor is it really about the people who take part in that heist. It’s more about a late-Sixties concept of cool, of honor, of codes and those who follow them. In that, it has a lot in common with ‘Bullitt,’ I suppose, but Alain Delon is no Steve McQueen. I found myself less than captivated.

Army of Shadows

Jean-Pierre Melville's ARMY OF SHADOWS is a brilliant, brilliant movie.

Released to failure in 1969, when it films about the French Resistance were decidedly not à la mode, ARMY OF SHADOWS now enjoys the full Criterion treatment, with a magnificently restored picture and crystal-clear sound. It's a tense, exciting, moving picture, and it captured my imagination from the first frame to the last.

The film begins at the Arc de Triomphe. It's just after dawn, and the street is quiet. Soon, we hear the sound of marching, then the music of a band. What kind of Frenchman gets up before sunrise to march in a band? No kind - only the Hun would do something as crazy as that. And then we realize that this is a Nazi band, the occupation is on, and things can't be good. From there, we meet Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura) a nondescript engineer who's being checked into a Vichy prison camp. He's just another middle-class guy, nothing special, but he becomes one of the hearts of this film, a character whose matter-of-fact, world-weary heroism packs more punch than that of a thousand action heroes.

It's important that we buy into this guy, because he's going to take us to some dark, dark places. ARMY OF SHADOWS is not a movie about romantically heroic Frenchmen clearing the way to victory, but fatalistic operators who kill with implacable horror and struggle to die with something approaching dignity. Moreso, it's about people living with the hovering spectre of betrayal, torture, and death, and ARMY OF SHADOWS winds us tightly in the tension of that existence and never lets us go. This is a film whose big action set-piece is basically three stonefaced people sitting in or standing around a truck, and it's a setpiece that had me on edge from beginning to end.

While this movie works strictly as a spy thriller, it's also a brilliant exploration of both leadership and human perception. Leadership, because its leaders aren't made of ribbons and external authority - they're made of quickness of wit, intensity of purpose, and ability to execute. It's fascinating to see how their power relationships develop, and how much their followers rely on them for their very lives. Perception, because it carefully explores how the human mind frames and parses reality, particularly in a scene I'll refer to as "The firing range," in which we see a character's recollection of the action as filtered through his perceptions at the moment of remembrance.

The more I think about this movie, the more I like it. ARMY OF SHADOWS is a must-see.

Bob le Flambeur

I found BOB LE FLAMBEUR thoroughly captivating. It's held together by the titular Bob (Roger Duchesne), a guy who reminded me Burt Lancaster right up to the moment when he dons a tuxedo, at which point he reminded me of George Clooney. Bob's a high-roller, which is another way of saying he's a gambling addict, and you know what always happens to gambling addicts: they lose. Once, long ago, he'd been part of a heist (presumably to cover his debts) gone wrong, but saved the life of a police officer during the arrest. Now he's done his time and he's generally a good guy, but he loves chance so much that he has a slot machine in his closet. And, of course, you know what always happens to gambling addicts.

BOB is a film that deals in shades of morality and people who choose just which shade they'll be. It deals with nobility and weariness, and it offers one of the best heist setups I've ever seen. Jean-Pierre Melville shoots it with just the right combination of glitz and grime, and I believed everyone and everything I saw on the screen before me. What a treat.