French Crime Wave
Aug. 8-Sept. 11 at Film Forum
It’s been apparent since the earliest film noirs that nobody could produce suave delinquents like the French. The image of the wise-but-not-old gangster passing on his street smarts to the next generation of hoods in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le Flambeur (1955) or Julien Duvier’s Pépé le Moko (1937) could just as easily describe the French noir’s relationship to American pulp flicks. While Scorsese and Coppola would lead the latter to the forefront of the genre, the charismatic style of auteurs like Jacques Becker, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Alain Corneau, Jules Dassin and Jean-Pierre Melville showed them how to get there.
These writer/directors had a way of rhapsodizing poetic about the suave safecracker, the jaded thief, the refined gambler, the charming gunman, the voluptuous but faithful dame, the savvy killer and, sometimes, the noble working-class stiff who also happened to be a cop. Their stars were Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Jean Gabin and Yves Montand, actors whose world-weariness not only presaged their wrinkles but would later complement them.
At Film Forum’s The French Crime Wave, you get some of their best collaborations, like Becker’s Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954) and Melville’s Un Flic (1972), two films that make getting old look good. In Grisbi, Gabin’s middle-aged robber is as bitter as he is experienced, making his calculating stare an all-time high for hip thieves. Likewise, Un Flic, Melville’s last film, is an almost perfect last hurrah for manliness that kicks off with a bank heist that would make Michael Mann and Johnny To weep.
Attendants can gain insight into the criminal mind in Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959) or René Clément’s Purple Noon (1969) or just as easily beat the heat with more cool attitude than psychology. Becker’s Casque D’or (1952), Dassin’s Rififi (1955) and Henri Verneuil’s The Sicilian Clan (1969) fit that bill nicely, proving that the old—and now almost entirely gone—kings of vice still rule.
Aug. 8-Sept. 11 at Film Forum
It’s been apparent since the earliest film noirs that nobody could produce suave delinquents like the French. The image of the wise-but-not-old gangster passing on his street smarts to the next generation of hoods in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le Flambeur (1955) or Julien Duvier’s Pépé le Moko (1937) could just as easily describe the French noir’s relationship to American pulp flicks. While Scorsese and Coppola would lead the latter to the forefront of the genre, the charismatic style of auteurs like Jacques Becker, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Alain Corneau, Jules Dassin and Jean-Pierre Melville showed them how to get there.
These writer/directors had a way of rhapsodizing poetic about the suave safecracker, the jaded thief, the refined gambler, the charming gunman, the voluptuous but faithful dame, the savvy killer and, sometimes, the noble working-class stiff who also happened to be a cop. Their stars were Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Jean Gabin and Yves Montand, actors whose world-weariness not only presaged their wrinkles but would later complement them.
At Film Forum’s The French Crime Wave, you get some of their best collaborations, like Becker’s Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954) and Melville’s Un Flic (1972), two films that make getting old look good. In Grisbi, Gabin’s middle-aged robber is as bitter as he is experienced, making his calculating stare an all-time high for hip thieves. Likewise, Un Flic, Melville’s last film, is an almost perfect last hurrah for manliness that kicks off with a bank heist that would make Michael Mann and Johnny To weep.
Attendants can gain insight into the criminal mind in Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959) or René Clément’s Purple Noon (1969) or just as easily beat the heat with more cool attitude than psychology. Becker’s Casque D’or (1952), Dassin’s Rififi (1955) and Henri Verneuil’s The Sicilian Clan (1969) fit that bill nicely, proving that the old—and now almost entirely gone—kings of vice still rule.
