It’s amazing how your perspective on movies changes the more you see and the more you open your mind to different kinds of films. In June 2009 I bought Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai as a blind buy. I loved it, and it remains my favorite Melville film to date. Since then I have seen Le Doulos, Army of Shadows and, of course, Le Cercle Rouge. All are films that change your perspective on filmmaking, and strangely, while Melville was obsessed with American films during his day, his films would turn an audience off today as quickly as they captured audiences attention over 60 years ago.
Case in point, Anton Corbijn’s The American, a film improperly sold to audiences as a thriller in the same vein as the Bourne franchise, but instead finds more of a relation to Melville’s cold and calculated features. In my review I referenced Le Samourai, which it more closely resembles thematically, but it holds a close comparison to Le Cercle Rouge as well, particularly in its execution.
Patience is where Melville excels. He has a profound understanding in what it means to build tension, but he doesn’t do it by merely forcing the audience to wait for what is to come. He puts us in the mindset of his protagonists, such as the case with Le Cercle Rouge, which centers on a trio of men (Alain Delon, Yves Montand and Gian Maria Volonte) whom fate has brought together to pull off an elaborate jewel heist. However, whereas today’s heist films would likely need to resort to computer gadgetry due to technological advancements, this is an old fashioned, down-in-the-dirt process.
Everything from glass cutters to rappelling equipment to custom made bullets are used in a nearly 30 minute heist sequence in which the three men must remain completely silent. This much time elapsing in a modern film without words would be laughed out of cinemas or shunned as boring as most of the commenters did on my review of The American. Then again, that’s what will happen when you sell an audience on chocolate and serve them Brussels sprout.
However, I can’t say this is a perfect film. Melville uses several narrative conventions to get himself out of frequent jams. Such instances include a pack of police dogs losing the scent of a fleeing convict after he crosses a tiny stream or the same convict avoiding a police roadblock when the man driving the car with the trunk he’s hidden in claims he doesn’t have the key to the boot.
I also find myself going back and forth on his decision late in the picture to have Montand’s character remove his rifle from the tripod he was originally going to use and instead shoot manually. I understand why Melville went that direction from a character perspective, but I didn’t think it was in keeping with the moment.
As far as this Blu-ray is concerned, the special features are all ported over from Criterion’s 2003 DVD release and like the features I’ve seen on other Melville releases these tend to cover similar ground including his love for American films (though this one doesn’t mention Melville’s use of the same sound effect he lifted from Robert Wise’s Odds against Tomorrow for Army of Shadows), the fire that burned down his studio and yet another disagreement with one of his actors.
As far as the image goes, I have never seen Studio Canal’s release of the same film, but just looking at the difference between screen captures over at DVD Beaver is a fascinating study. Gary Tooze of DVD Beaver points to the pool felt as the best example of the difference in coloring, but you can also see noticeable differences in skin tones and the color of the grass in his captures. I thought the picture and the audio on this release looked excellent, but as you can see over there, there are other options.
Overall, Melville is a fascinating director and I can’t wait to explore his work even further. Les enfants terribles and Bob le flambeur are two of his films I specifically intend to pursue next and I wouldn’t be surprised to see both of them or perhaps Le Samourai hitting Criterion’s Blu-ray shelves shortly. As for Le Cercle Rouge, it fits nicely next to my Blu-ray copy of Army of Shadows (read my review here) and is one I’m happy to have as part of my collection. When it comes to Criterion, one thing that makes purchase decisions easier is dedication to a particular filmmaker. For me Melville is worth dedicating one self to and for that reason I see this as a worthy purchase.
