Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.
Many of the filming techniques that characterized the French New Wave beginning in 1959 were already old hat to Jean-Pierre Melville a decade or so earlier. He was filming outdoors in real locations using mainly a handheld camera before the future New Wave auteurs had even sharpened their pencils at Cahier du Cinema. Like some of the New Wavers, Melville had a fascination with everything American – including its gangsters. Melville was, however, quintessentially independent. He had distaste for collaboration because it forced compromises on his creative vision. Though his early films, including Le Silence de la Mer (1949), Les Enfants terribles (1950), and Bob le Flambeur (1955) can be see as antecedents of the New Wave, Melville was quick to reject any excess of association, stating, "If I have consented to pass for their adopted father for a while, I do not wish to anymore, and I have put some distance between us."
For one thing, Melville made no claim of realism in his films. On the contrary, Melville's style, despite his subject matter and settings, was fundamentally classical, meaning intricately composed and synthetic. "I am careful never to be realistic," he said, adding, "What I do is false always." The beauty of Melville's style is that it combines the actual with the fully imaginary. On the one hand, Bob le Flambeur was shot in real locations in Montmartre and Pigalle, often with skeleton crews so as not to disturb the reality of the nightlife. The interior settings were reconstructed with great attention to authenticity and period detail. On the other hand, there is a distinctly dream-like atmospheric quality to his films that gives viewers the sense akin to living inside a comic book or cartoon.
Historical Background: Jean-Pierre Melville's real name was Jean-Pierre Grumbach when he was born on October 20th, 1917, but he later took Melville as a professional name by way of honoring the great novelist. His love for cinema was so profound that he began making amateur films as a teenager. During the war, he fought in the resistance and was later part of the Free French Forces that took part in the liberation of France by the Allies. He made his first feature film in 1949 and only thirteen over a twenty-five year career, all produced outside of the studio system. He wrote the script for Bob le Flambeur in 1950, though he was not able to begin filming it until nearly five years later.
His first big success was Les Enfants terribles, which was a cinematic adaptation of a novel by Jean Cocteau. Melville was obsessed, however, with the American film noir of the forties and specialized over the next two decades in spirited crime films with a distinctly Gallic flavor. For Melville, gangster films were first and foremost character studies and morality plays, not mere action films. Bob le Flambeur, for example, is far more about the relationships of the main protagonist – with his protégé, with a beautiful young girl who arouses paternal feelings, and with the police inspector. Melville's characters are humanized, but being gangsters, there is never any real doubt about what outcome lies in store for them. Just as their look and accoutrements are predictable, so to is their fate.
After the failure of Deux Hommes dans Manhattan (1959), Melville made a conscious decision to modify his film style a bit in an effort to reach a larger audience. After 1960, Melville dissociated himself from the low-budget experimental style of the New Wave, began working with established stars (like Belmondo and Emmanuelle Riva), and more closely adopted the stylistic standards of European art films, but his distinctive powers of observation remained unchanged. Melville's most successful film from his later period was Le Samourai (1967). Melville also performed occasionally as an actor, appearing in Orphée (1949) and A Bout de Souffle (1959). Melville died August 2nd, 1973.
The Story: Since Bob le Flambeur is essentially a suspense film, I'll follow my usual rule of saying relatively little about the plot, beyond providing the set-up. The film is set in the sleazy Pigalle red-light district of Paris, which is separated from the ornate Sacré Coeur church atop Montmartre by a cable car, symbolically as hell is separated from heaven. Pigalle is where Bob (Roger Duchesne) hangs out, a compulsive high-rolling gambler. Bob was once a bank robber, but served his time in prison and has remained clear of the law for the last twenty years. His habits are distinctly nocturnal. He gambles through the night and goes to bed with the sunrises. He has a young protégé named Paolo (Daniel Cauchy) who tries to model himself after his mentor. Though tough and worldly, Bob has a heart of gold in some respects. He refuses to help a pimp, Marc (René Havard), who is trying to skip town after beating up one of his street girls. Bob once provided Yvonne (Simone Paris) with the start-up money for the bar that she now owns and operates, and she obviously cares about him. Even the police inspector, Ledru (Guy Decomble), considers Bob a friend because Bob once deflected a pistol aimed at the Inspector by a thug, probably saving the Inspector's life. Bob notices the fresh young face of a new girl in Pigalle – Anne (Isabelle Corey). When he later sees her being enticed by Marc, the pimp, he paternalistically goes to her rescue. He permits her to stay at his place, but makes no effort to seduce her, preferring to play the role of surrogate father. When Paolo later ends up in bed with her, Bob accepts their relationship as the appropriate one.
Bob runs into a losing streak at the Deauville Casino that nearly wipes him out. Bob's old crony Roger (André Garet) learns from one of the groupiers at Deauville, Jean (Claude Cerval), that the safe at the Deauville Casino is likely to hold about 800 million francs after the up-coming Grand Prix day. Bob and Roger decide that's too big a prize to pass on and start to assemble the gang that will be required to pull off a heist and crack the safe. The rest of the film proceeds as heist films do, with the planning of the heist and difficulties encountered.
Themes: Melville had little interest in big existential questions. He once stated, "It may be the business of other film-makers to discuss the big questions; personally, though I don't mind touching on them, I have no wish to explore them." Instead, Melville's strength lies in his ability to closely observe the details of life and relationships. Bob le Flambear is first and foremost a valentine from Melville to a Paris that existed prior to the War. The Parisian gangster scene, in particular, was irrevocably changed by the War because new lines of demarcation were formed. Some gangsters joined with the police to become the Parisian Gestapo while others joined the resistance. The old alliances could never again reform, even after liberation.
Production Values:Bob le Flambeur was the ultimate low-budget film. It cost just about one-tenth what the average French film cost at that time. Melville financed it out-of-pocket and since his pockets weren't all that deep in the mid-fifties, he had to film it in bits and pieces over a two-year period, whenever he could scrape together the money for the film stock. Many actors were unwilling to work on such a project, so the casting was as much by necessity as choice. Melville would call up the actors when he had pulled together some cash for a few days shooting. Actor Daniel Cauchy, who played Paolo, in his interesting interview included on the Criterion DVD, states that Bob le Flambeur was his third film when he began it but his seventh by the time it was finished! He had begun and completed four others during the two years that it took to make one for Melville. The final script was written by Auguste Le Breton, who was fresh off a huge success with Rififi (1954).
In Bob le Flambeur, we see Melville's characteristic concern for the significance of everyday gestures, inflections, actions, and communications as well as his highly developed mise-en-scène. Melville's foremost concern is for capturing the tone and atmosphere of the time and place. A terrific jazz-based score by Eddie Barclay and Jo Boyer adds to the flavor of the atmosphere.
One special aspect of Melville's observational style is readily seen in Bob le Flambeur. Melville skillfully integrates point-of-view (or subjective) shots with detached (or objective) perspectives. The characters are mostly fully engrossed in their activities but occasionally adopt an observational stance as if to examine their own actions or choices. One example of this externalization of perspective occurs when Bob looks at himself in a mirror and comments, "A real hood's face!" by which he takes stock of his entire life. Melville commented in an interview, "There is that moment of truth in all my films. A man in front of a mirror means a stocktaking, a summing-up." Melville also uses other distanciation techniques, such as stylistic flourishes like fades and wipes, to remind us that what we are watching is not reality. For the viewer, the result is that we, too, are both inside and outside of the films' action.
Although Melville was exclusively heterosexual in his sexual proclivities, he generally preferred the company of men and men's stories. He was what one might call a man's man rather than a lady's man. His films always have many more male characters than female characters and one had no female characters at all. Although Roger Duchesne had been a film star in the thirties, he had fallen out of favor and had gotten in with the mob, even spending some time in prison. Melville had to secure "permission" from the mod for Duchesne's return to Paris from where the mod had driven him away due to debts. Daniel Cauchy was a relative newcomer. Isabelle Corey had the looks and talent for bigger things to come, but her career somewhat fizzled after a turn in And God Created Woman (1956) as the second female role behind Bridget Bardot. The actor who plays the safecracker in Bob le Flambeur was an actual mobster.
Bottom-Line: The Criterion DVD version of Bob le Flambeur is typical of Criterion's attentive and masterful work. Both the video print and the audio are pristine restorations. The extras include a fascinating interview with actor Daniel Cauchy, who played Paolo, featuring his recollections of Melville and the project. The theatrical trailer is included as well as new and improved English subtitles. There's a radio interview with Melville on the DVD as well as another better one in the companion booklet.
The influence of Bob le Flambear was extensive, despite it being in and out of mainstream attention. Both Steven Spielberg and John Woo told Daniel Cauchy of their admiration for the film. It's influence can be clearly seen in the scripts of many subsequent films, from Seven Theives (1960) to Ocean's Eleven (2001). Bob le Flambeau thus forms something of a bridge between the Hollywood noir films of the forties and modern heist films. This is an excellent caper film, comparable in its quality and delights to Rififi (1954). If you enjoy a good heist film, check this one out. There's some real depth to the character portrayals as well as a nice touch of irony in the ending.
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