This was the culmination of his career making French gangster films. All of the elements gathered from his past work show up here polished and in their final form. Cold, unemotional criminals, corrupt officials, crackling good heist sequence carried out in almost complete silence, betrayal and death at the end of the road.
This form was born in post-war America, honed by people like John Huston and Jules Dassin. They moved on but Melville kept working the field. With this film and Le Samurai he surpassed them all.
Fine, fine work.
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