Immortality followed by death, like Parvulesco said. Rumour has it that Melville was dissatisfied with this film. Can't see why. Not long ago I bought the 6 DVD set of his flicks from 1956 – 1972. All masterful, but this is the one I keep coming back to, and I do think I think of it as a pinnacle of his metier.
What does Melville mean by invoking "Ambiguity and Derision" over the opening credits ? It's as though he's talking to himself all through the narrative, from beginning to end. The initial scene is one of the most hypnotic I've ever seen. Charged with palpable, palpitating tension, yet at the same time unnervingly surrealistic --- not Dali, more reminiscent of Magritte or Giorgio de Chirico --- it leaves Hitchcock standing in the suspense stakes.
The action begins with the Mystery and Melancholy of a Street. It is virtually certainly the Esplanade de la Mer, on France's Atlantic western coastline, abutting the Bay of Biscay, known throughout history as a stormy quarter of the ocean. That esplanade is near St Jean de Monts, between Brest and Bordeaux, and not far from La Roche-sur-Yon. Nowadays there's a golf course just north of St Jean de Monts. The names of these real places are supplied by the cinematography. Realistic surreality is also supplied, by the vast condominium block, presumably only just completed, in 1971, and still unoccupied. Although there was perhaps one inhabited window.
The fag-end of the day's weird financial activity in the corner BNP (not the British Nazi Party, of course) bank-shop is bizarre. Who are these glum people executing enigmatic transactions ? Where do they live ? How did they get to be there on what appears to be one of early January's most miserable afternoons ? It's riveting.
Skip now to the sequence on which so many have hanged themselves up. This is the insanely planned and impeccably executed robbery from a suitcase, minded on a moving train by Bagman Matthieu, of a large number of plastic packages filled with a powdery white substance. All film plots are completely phony, riddled with holes, but except for here, they fake reality. Melville, however, is deliberately saying that he knows you ought to know it's completely ridiculous: take a good, long, very long look at the dinky toys, the Hornby train set, the plastic manikin. Verfremdungseffekt, as one perceptive commentator puts it. Why ? But then, why not ? It's just a movie. Think about it. Flickering images in two dimensions.
What a phenomenal masterpiece this film is. You can see it must be, when you read the numerous failed reviews. Here's something for chewing on: "By disclosing and making obvious the manipulative contrivances and 'fictive' qualities of the medium, the viewer is alienated from any passive acceptance and enjoyment of the action as mere 'entertainment.' Instead, the viewer is forced into a critical, analytical frame of mind that serves to disabuse him of the notion that what he is watching is necessarily an inviolable, self-contained narrative. This effect of making the familiar strange serves a didactic function insofar as it teaches the viewer not to take the style and content for granted, since the medium itself is highly constructed and contingent upon many cultural and economic conditions." Why use five words, when fifty will do ?
What does Melville mean by invoking "Ambiguity and Derision" over the opening credits ? It's as though he's talking to himself all through the narrative, from beginning to end. The initial scene is one of the most hypnotic I've ever seen. Charged with palpable, palpitating tension, yet at the same time unnervingly surrealistic --- not Dali, more reminiscent of Magritte or Giorgio de Chirico --- it leaves Hitchcock standing in the suspense stakes.
The action begins with the Mystery and Melancholy of a Street. It is virtually certainly the Esplanade de la Mer, on France's Atlantic western coastline, abutting the Bay of Biscay, known throughout history as a stormy quarter of the ocean. That esplanade is near St Jean de Monts, between Brest and Bordeaux, and not far from La Roche-sur-Yon. Nowadays there's a golf course just north of St Jean de Monts. The names of these real places are supplied by the cinematography. Realistic surreality is also supplied, by the vast condominium block, presumably only just completed, in 1971, and still unoccupied. Although there was perhaps one inhabited window.
The fag-end of the day's weird financial activity in the corner BNP (not the British Nazi Party, of course) bank-shop is bizarre. Who are these glum people executing enigmatic transactions ? Where do they live ? How did they get to be there on what appears to be one of early January's most miserable afternoons ? It's riveting.
Skip now to the sequence on which so many have hanged themselves up. This is the insanely planned and impeccably executed robbery from a suitcase, minded on a moving train by Bagman Matthieu, of a large number of plastic packages filled with a powdery white substance. All film plots are completely phony, riddled with holes, but except for here, they fake reality. Melville, however, is deliberately saying that he knows you ought to know it's completely ridiculous: take a good, long, very long look at the dinky toys, the Hornby train set, the plastic manikin. Verfremdungseffekt, as one perceptive commentator puts it. Why ? But then, why not ? It's just a movie. Think about it. Flickering images in two dimensions.
What a phenomenal masterpiece this film is. You can see it must be, when you read the numerous failed reviews. Here's something for chewing on: "By disclosing and making obvious the manipulative contrivances and 'fictive' qualities of the medium, the viewer is alienated from any passive acceptance and enjoyment of the action as mere 'entertainment.' Instead, the viewer is forced into a critical, analytical frame of mind that serves to disabuse him of the notion that what he is watching is necessarily an inviolable, self-contained narrative. This effect of making the familiar strange serves a didactic function insofar as it teaches the viewer not to take the style and content for granted, since the medium itself is highly constructed and contingent upon many cultural and economic conditions." Why use five words, when fifty will do ?