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LE CERCLE ROUGE
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LE CERCLE ROUGE Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Cercle rouge" begins with a
Buddhist quotation: Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, drew a circle with a piece
of red chalk and said: "When men, even unknowingly, are to meet one
day, whatever may befall each, whatever their diverging paths, on the said day,
they will inevitably come together in the red circle." Some of the best French films are screen adaptations of American
crime fiction and noir movies, what the French call films policiers.
I'm thinking of René Clément's "Plein Soleil" (from Patricia
Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley"), Truffault's "Shoot the
Piano Player" based on the David Goodis novel "Down
There"), Dominique Molle's
"With a Friend like Harry," a clever take-off of Hitchcock's
"Strangers on a Train," and any number of Jean-Pierre Melville's film
noir thrillers. The Criterion release of Melville's "Le Cercle
rouge" affords us the chance to see the best French film noir since Jules
Dassin's 1955 "Rififi chez les hommes," and to realize that though
there are affinities with American film noir, the French films are a different
breed, due not only to their settings and the era they were made (most ten or so
years after the heyday of American noir) but also because of a certain reticence, a reluctance
on the part of the protagonist to think about himself, to put himself before the
job at hand. What is most surprising for me is Melville's refusal to explain
his characters or their motivations; rather he is content to let the crystal spareness
and inexorability of the plot line, and the tenacious professionalism of the
three gangsters and their pursuer, to get under our skin. If we come away
from "Le Cercle rouge" with morally ambiguous feelings, so much the
better. This is certainly the case with Corey, the protagonist of
"Le Cercle rouge." Corey (Alain Delon), the thieves' leader, is a loner with his own moral
code. He's a thief, but not a killer. We have To illustrate the lust bit. While Corey and his boss are
talking in the apartment, Melville cuts to the bedroom and the In Melville's films society is seen as infected, venal.
The criminals are no worse than those they steal from. They are, in fact,
highly motivated. They have their own reasons (we never know what they
are) and their own code of ethics. Only once, and for a brief moment, we
are permitted a glimpse into one of the thieves. During the famous jewelry heist, the centerpiece of the movie, there is a brief cut to Jansen (Yves Montand),
a former policeman and now a heavy drinker who is abstaining from liquor for the duration of the robbery.
As his two fellow robbers are This emphasis on the individual and his motivations lies
at the heart of Melville's film; the fact that they are never stated does not
diminish this. Melville's camera remains outside, so that what we experience is a
hard reality. Unlike his superiors in the police force, Captain Mattei (André Bourvil) does not consider every
prisoner guilty before proven so. The chief of police despises Mattei for
this weakness, tells him that all men are guilty and should be treated as such. "They're born innocent but it doesn't last."
It seems to me that these opposing beliefs are close to being at the heart of
Melville's film. It is curious that the final words spoken in the movie
belong to the police chief and not to the humanist Mattei. After the final
bloodletting, the chief arrives on the scene and then looks at Mattei and says, "Tous les hommes,
Monsieur Mattei."
("All men, Mr. Mattei..") But Melville isn't quite finished. The last
image is a slow tracking shot of Mattei returning to the scene of the shooting. He says nothing
to his aide. We don't know what he's thinking, only that he is profoundly
sorrowful--and troubled. Does he agree with his superior that these men
were guilty of a crime? No doubt. Yet he is still unwilling to condemn
them out of hand. Melville seems to be asking, "Who should condemn
them?"
(THE RED CIRCLE) 1970
a commentary by Tony McRae
no idea what motivates
him, only that he is highly motivated. We learn early on that he has been
betrayed by his boss, a Marseille
criminal, who lets Corey plead guilty to a crime, then steals his girlfriend while
he is in prison. We think Corey is now out for revenge, but every time we
begin to read him we are fooled. In the scene when he visits his old boss
in his luxury apartment, Melville shows Delon coming out of the elevator, hands
in pockets, looking for all the world like an assassin, a cool killer in a
trench coat. Wrong again. This is the way he dresses. He is a dignified man, conscious of the proprieties of society.
One thing we are certain of is his determination, which moves the film's action
inexorably toward the robbery and its aftermath. Corey's flaw, it seems, is
the simple fact that he is a thief. He appears indifferent to the things
that money can buy, indifferent to those motives we associate with gangsters, at
least movie gangsters: revenge, jealousy, greed, lust. 
boss's mistress, Corey's former girlfriend, eavesdropping on their conversation. She is naked, having just gotten out
of bed. Having seen scores of noir movies in which women
often feed off masculine insecurity, we might
not be amiss in thinking that this gorgeous creature and Corey would soon cross
paths. The problem is Corey feels neither insecure or lustful. Yes,
there is a brief scene in a café just before Corey enters his former
boss's apartment building. He is drinking coffee at the counter and a
young woman passes behind him. For a brief moment he looks at her, but we
are not certain what is on his mind, only that he's eyeing a pretty woman.
The fact that it comes immediately prior to his seeing his boss--and we seeing
his former girlfriend--can be no coincidence. Melville sets his scenes
meticulously. As for the girlfriend, we never see her again. For
Cory she--along with the woman in the café--has
nothing to do with the jewelry caper.
stripping
Broussard Jewelers in the Place Vendome clean, he pulls a silver flask
for his vest pocket, unscrews the lid, smells its contents, screws back the cap and returns it to
his pocket. We've already learned that Jansen is a serious
alcoholic--the
first time we see him he is going through delirium tremens. Ah ha, we now think, here's the beginning of the end for these
guys: at some point Montand will get stinking drunk and blow the entire
operation. But it doesn't happen. We never see the flask again; 
Jansen stays iron-rod sober. So why the cut to the flask if it doesn't
play into the plot? For Melville it's not a gimmick but rather a brief
entrée into Jansen's head. Perhaps he
is testing himself. Or he thinks about taking a drink,
maybe to ease his tension, but he does not. He can hold off drinking as long as
others depend on him. It's a question of self-esteem, and to watch
Montand's almost balletic moves throughout this sequence is to see that he is
self-assured, in control of himself. Will he go back to drinking
after the heist? Probably, but that is of no concern here. 