Tackling the Oeuvre: Jean Pierre Melville

Le Doulos (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1962)

Hello all.

I am shamefully under-exposed to Jean-Pierre Melville. It goes right up there with the fact that I have only seen two films of François Truffaut (something that will hopefully change soon) in that I have had time to see films from both of these directors but inexplicably have yet to do so. For March’s “Tackling the Oeuvre,” we are attempting to take on Melville and I was assigned Le Doulos. After two viewings and a week to sit on it, I still feel as if I am underprepared to attempt to write anything on it. The best I can do is to try. There is something to be said about a film when you can feel a director’s touch while watching it. This is absolutely the case with Le Doulos. It’s an expertly crafted, finely acted film with an excellent and captivating story. As I normally do, I warn you as the reader to not continue reading this until you have seen the film. I am not going to go extremely deep into the film but I may discuss what happens after a major reveal and it may be impossible to adequately discuss that without going into some detail of the reveal. Enjoy.

One thing I failed to mention in the opening paragraph is the film’s screenplay. It is right up there in terms of quality with the film’s direction. In my two pages or so of notes on the film, I think I jotted down “the writing is top-notch” about six times. Its quality is that noticeable. For the sake of this paper, I want to put forth that the four most important categories when attempting to judge a film’s value, beyond entertainment and excluding theory for the most part, are direction, writing, cinematography, and acting. Le Doulos nails all four of these categories.

In terms of cinematography, this film excels as a result of its over-usage of shadows and single-source lighting. One particular shot comes to mind, towards the beginning of the film, Jean-Paul Belmondo’s character, Silien, kills somebody and as he is escaping, we are left with the haunting and brilliant shot of a lamp hanging upside down and swinging back and forth from its cord. Prior to Silien’s shooting of the other character, this lamp is the only source of light in the room thus the viewer is forced to notice it. This is a very common feature of film noirs. Throughout the entire film there are shadows everywhere and the viewer witnesses characters literally emerging from darkness frequently. These sorts of shots and usage of that type of lighting all are meant to help set the tone for the film. Getting down to it, this film is grim and nothing short of it. The characters do not trust one another, and hell, until the reveal, the viewer does not trust most of the characters.

Quick side-note, Silien makes the following comment right after his reveal (it is “his” reveal in the sense that he is at the focal point of what the viewer and Maurice are in the dark about), “in this business, you either end up a bum or full of lead.” This utterance is realized within ten minutes of it being said. Every criminal in this film either winds up dead or in jail. The beauty of that sentence is, the viewer knows what’s coming after it is said yet it takes nothing away from neither the utterance itself nor its realization.  I loved this film and I cannot wait to dive deeper into Melville’s filmography.

Thank you for reading!