Melville over Roger Duchesne.

« Le cercle rouge » (1970) opens on a quote from no less than Krishna : « When men, even who do not know each other, are meant to meet some day, no matter what may happen to each of them and how diverging their paths may seem, on the set date, they will all stand within the red circle. »
All is said. The quote reads like the film programme. From the first frame, Melville apparently gives up any idea of surprise : he tells us where the characters will end, though not how.
Throughout the movie, Montand and Delon look positively dazed, as if they, too, have read Krishna’s quote : hares again, frozen in car lights, foreseeing fateful turtles.

They seem to flash forward to their tragic end and be so hypnotised by their vision that they lose any wish to try and alter the course of events.

Melville’s cinema illustrates the physical laws of gravity : all characters fall together, at the same slow but irresistible speed. There are no winners, barely survivors : Bourvil’s commissaire Mattei comes out alive, but even more impotent, from « Le cercle rouge » : as he presumes to challenge Fate, his very actions turn against him and move all protagonists closer to Krishna’s circle.

There is no trace of humour or irony in a Melville film. Contrary to a Chabrol’s movie, a Melville picture is to be taken at face value ; there is no double reading, no retreat option, no tongue in cheek. Everything is dead serious.

Melville's films are first line soldiers : they march to the enemy at even pace under canon fire, their step never falters in the face of apparently certain critical and box office deaths ; they quietly defy all odds.

The director’s austere panache and total solidarity with his films win our respect, while their hieratic and solemn style proves contagious and makes their watch compelling.

While Melville uses his characters as clay which he models to his fateful ends, they lose their flesh and blood reality and become abstract figures of human condition, in the hands of Krishna, Melville and other cruel gods.

In « Le cercle rouge », laconic dialogues, under-acting verging on non-acting, colour film used to black and white effect, the bare geometry of the plot and visual treatment of natural and studio locations transform the movie as a whole into an abstraction : a minimalist picture where Melville draws his characters’ itineraries to the red circle.

Of all Meville’s U.F.O., « Bob le flambeur » is possibly the most disconcerting ; the first of his crime movies, his disparate elements have not seamlessly merged into the director’s unique formula yet.

But something else is amiss. We fail to grasp what, until we trace a similar sensation back to such films as Renoir’s « The river » or several Michael Powell works : no familiar faces.

« Bob le Flambeur » demonstrates by default what « carrying a film » means. « Le doulos »’s cast includes Jean-Paul Belmondo and Serge Reggiani, « Le samourai » (1967)’s Alain Delon, « Le cercle rouge »’s Delon, Bourvil, Montand.

Names and faces we can hold on to while we get our bearings in Melville’s uncharted universe.

In « Bob le flambeur », we are wrecked men in the middle of an unknown ocean, without a lifebuoy or a compass. Instead we have Roger Duchesne, Daniel Cauchy, Isabelle Corey, Guy Decomble.

Who are they ? Should we trust them ? Is there any chance they can see us safely to shore and a good movie, when they seem unable to elevate their on screen characters above third rate stereotypes ?

Some list « Wagon Master » (1950) among John Ford’s great western films. But John Wayne is missing, Henry Fonda and James Stewart too, even Victor Mature is not there. Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr and Ward Bond stand in their boots : substitutes from the bench, supporting actors promoted leading men, they are unable to fill them ; by failing to « carry the film », they demonstrate how invaluable a true star is.

In « Bob le flambeur », the entire bearing wall of acting is crumbling, yet the movie does not collapse. Who but Jean-Pierre Melville can claim to have made a good film starring Roger Duchesne ?