Le Cercle Rouge (Film)

LE CERCLE ROUGE
Dir: Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 1970
25/03/09

Made a few years before his death at the age fifty-five, Le Cercle Rouge is usually considered in the pantheon of classic gangster films that Melville made in the latter part of his career. It certainly is a stylish display of fate and inevitability, that like the best film noirs that influenced it seems to play fast and loose with coincidence and fleeting connections.

The film follows four main protagonists as they all converge around a jewelry heist. First we have commissioner Mattei (Andre Bouvril) escorting his prisoner, Vogel (Gian-Maria Volonte), on a train, but after Vogel escapes Mattei finds himself under intense pressure to put things right. Then there's Corey (Frequent Melville collaborator Alain Delon), who on the day of his release is given a job offer by a prison guard. Corey says he wants to go straight but is easily enticed into the job. As these three stories are expertly woven together by Melville we follow the meeting of Corey and Vogel, seemingly by pure chance, but the two help each other through several scrapes and Corey lets Vogel in on the job. The final character is Jansen (Yves Montand), an alcoholic ex-cop who is needed by the robbers for his sharpshooting skills.

It's obvious that Melville doesn't mind the slow build up to bring his pieces together (Jansen isn't introduced until an hour into the film, yet is no less fleshed out then any of the other characters), but this is to the films credit. We are shown the little details that inhabit the criminals, and police officers lives such as Vogel having to strip off his clothes and then put them back on to cross a river whilst being chased by dogs (modesty is not a particularly good trait to have as a fugitive. These are not suave and cool gangsters in the mould of Scorsese, they do what they have to to get the job done). We also see such things as Jansen tediously making bullets, and the robbery itself, which is shown in minute detail as we watch Vogel and Corey ascending a building and clambering across rooftops for several minutes before they even get to their destination. This of course is intended. The inevitability of these characters' downfall is never in doubt, yet Melville wants to show us the pointlessness of their actions; no matter how much preparation they make, they can't escape their fate.

There are many tense moments in this film, dealt by Melville with expert precision. Keeping in line with the films style, he creates the tension out of small moments. In the near silent robbery for example, it is the creaking of a pane of glass whilst a security guard decides whether to recheck the toilet, or a security system that doesn't seem to turn off when the switch is flicked that gets out hearts racing, one of the best of all being when Vogel, breaking free of his handcuffs on a train must move slowly and silently whilst holding his handcuff up, so as not alert the attention of Commissioner Mattei sat up on the bed below, only inches away.

The films actors, besides the seemingly overconfident Mattei, play their characters with a stoic like determination, seemingly possessing a psychic connection with each other. This is the style of acting Melville liked (because, it is said, it reflected his own personality), but it gives the characters a sense of depth and intrigue, something deep inside that the camera can't penetrate. These traits are best embodied by Alain Delon's Corey who manages to express emotions without ever changing his face, such as when he visits crime boss Rico (Andre Ekyan) to take some money. He is no less restrained then in any other scene, yet the hate and potential violence he emanates is easily felt (In fact this scene, which is one in which we see anything resembling feelings from Corey's character, can perhaps in part be blamed for his downfall later). The cinematography therefore is left to reflect on the characters' quiet exterior by being restrained and unobtrusive, it does what it needs to do and does it well.

Melville knows how to use this acting style to his advantage to get genuine surprise from the audience, such as Corey's reaction at Vogel shooting two gangsters or when during the robbery Jansen lines his gun up carefully on a tripod aiming exactly at it's target, and then, without any warning removes the gun from it's stand to take the shot without any aid. The shocked reaction of the usually laconic Corey and Vogel can't help but create a brief moment of panic in the audience.

The theme of the film seems to be an almost original sin style philosophy, embodied particularly by the Chief Of Police (Paul Amiot). "All men are guilty, They are born guilty, but it doesn't last" he says to the shocked Mattei with a seriousness that is almost humorous. Mattei later seems to accept the philosophy when pimp and bar owner Santi's (Francois Perier) son is arrested on trumped up charges which turn out to be true. Melville ties this in with his theme of fate by quoting Buddha at the beginning about how certain men are destined to meet in a red circle (Le Cercle Rouge). It seems that Melville wants us to believe that the fate awaiting all men is not only inevitable, but deserving.

It has been said elsewhere that Melville's use of zoom is somewhat dated, but i think it suits the film fine, and is used sparingly or unknowingly, usually to emphasize something, though i think dated could be applied to the editing. One scene in particular, which adds to the theme of pointlessness is when Jansen makes bullets. The use of several wipes here is quite tedious, as is a shot of Corey going down in a lift as the camera raises upwards, which is a perfectly good shot (emphasizing the feeling that Corey is about to meet his fate) but doesn't need to be shown twice in a matter of seconds. But these are small matters that were noticed once or twice in a film clocking in at over two hours.

It seems to me that whilst Melville was undeniably influenced by American cinema of the forties and fifties, this film, which maintains much of that look (the costumes, the cars, the downbeat mise en scene), feels far more like the kind of film we would see coming out of America in the proceeding years. The emotional void of it's characters and pessimism of it's story echo just as much in films like The Conversation (Coppola, USA, 1974), Chinatown (Polanski, USA, 1974) or Network (Lumet, USA, 1976). These films seep in the darkness that was inherent in the old American film noirs but given a more fatalistic and paranoid essence by the French directors who took the genre and moulded it into their own vision, influenced much more by the memories of the second world war. Melville, who like many of those future directors saw himself as a loner, fills his film with this sense of embitterment. The sometimes intense, and other times desolate scenes these create make for an ultimately satisfying and absorbing experience.