ElMaruecan82
Along a long walkway, emerging from the dark, the shadowy silhouette of Serge Reggiani as Maurice Fogel, a taciturn and solitary figure walking beneath a bridge in a long track shot paralleled with the opening credits. His footsteps resonate as the passing of time's ticking. At one point, the camera 'loses' him to follow the long shots of horizontal linearity tracing a destiny foreshadowed by the opening existentialist sentence : 'One must choose … to die or to lie'.Maurice enters an isolated sinister house and sees himself in the mirror. He meets Gilbert in a dark little room upstairs and their discussion economically delivers precious information on Maurice's background. He's an ex-con, who lost his touch and a girlfriend named Arlette and is preparing a robbery. Gilbert is obviously an old friend, warning Maurice about one of his acquaintances : a man named Silien, he offers him food, advice, and even a gun … what follows introduces us the duplicitous relationships prevailing in the underworld.There starts a mind-blowing masterpiece of deliberate confusion, as the fundamental element on which survival is based. This ability to lie is vital for le Doulos, literally, the man with the hat ('le Doul' in French slang), the cop informer, Silien, portrayed with the perfect mix of detached elegance and methodical professionalism, by a young Jean-Paul Belmondo. "In this business, you either die like a bum or full of lead" Silien highlights the ephemeral and futile nature of his profession, whose only exit is to get rich and leave. Silien's plans feature a big house in Province, a beautiful woman, and a nice retirement for his friend, Maurice.Friendship and loyalty are recurring themes in Melville's filmography, even in a world of thugs and murderers. Without principles, there would be basically no character to root for, and ultimately no tragedy. Both Silien and Maurice are crooked, but not morally corrupted. Maurice killed his friend Gilbert because he 'silenced' Arlette, and he could never have killed him if he hadn't turned his back. Melville was ahead of his time in his way to juxtapose ethical behavior with criminal acts. And if Silien's actions and involvement with the police inspire our suspicion, a long flash-back sequence debriefs us about Silien's true motives : Melville 'got us'."Le Doulos" contains all the classic Melvillian codes. The perfectionism of Silien and Maurice echo the iconic Samurai of Delon. The movie is so attention-demanding, several scenes need to be seen again like Maurice cleaning all the spots he touched before leaving Gilbert's house. The cops have this intelligence and refinement that create sumptuous interactions with the criminals. There's an extraordinary sequence where Silien discusses with Clain, the Police Chief, with a 360° panoramic view and no edit during exactly 8 minutes. The stunning black-and-white cinematography embodies the grim atmosphere. The first scene itself is an expressionist masterpiece in the way light reveals Maurice's duplicity with only half of his face visible, an ambiguity illustrated by the swinging lamp's dizzying effect.Melville's genius is in the way he manipulates us, our regards toward the characters' motives are altered all through the film, and no conclusion is to be taken for granted, a reminiscence of the Occupation years when anyone could be a resistant or a collaborator, a friend or a traitor. The script and the editing maintain a suspenseful uncertainty as we never see Silien and Maurice interact. And even our perceptions change, we all see Silien as a vicious individual in the beginning, but when he takes off his hat, he's a vulnerable kid, an innocence confirmed by his smiling expression when we walks in the last scene, mirroring the first one with a sad premonition, subtly hinted by an allusion to "The Asphalt Jungle"'s ending, the theme of failure was also particularly cherished by John Huston.John Huston, William Wyler, Robert Wise … Melville, who took his name from the novelist Herman Melville, was a vivid admirer of the great American gangster films. "Le Doulos" is to Melville, what "Kill Bill" is for Tarantino, a tribute to a worshiped genre. It features fedora hats, trench coats, cocktail bars, glasses of scotch, unfaithful dames, guns, lies, betrayal, honor and redemption, an anachronistic universe when we consider the Paris of the 60's. There is something totally Americanized and 40's in Melville's Paris. I was even surprised by the cars, so unusually big for the Parisian setting. Ultimately, the only indications of the sixties are the hairdo and clothes of Maurice's girlfriend Therese.Which brings up a controversial issue : Melville's universe is a male one where women hardly play a significant part. I was shocked by the treatment of the beautiful Therese, before her informer nature is revealed. She's slapped, knocked out by Silien, tied up. He empties a bottle of whiskey on her face, humiliating her by messing up her face while he stays elegant. This brutal treatment followed by her fatal disproportional punishment, illustrates the gangster's cold-blooded nature, and the outsider status of women. Melville used women as foils for the virility of his characters, he didn't even cast female stars, as their acting seem awkwardly inferior to the men. Thérèse was played by an amateur, Melville's secretary, and she was a good an actress as the informer was a liar. Get the point? But despite all the precautions taken by Silien, he couldn't prevent Maurice from hiring someone to kill him, while he was still considered a rat. Silien's house gave the unfortunate clue that he wasn't going to end like a bum. The thrilling climax responds to the codes of Greek tragedy with the two men who can't escape from their nature. Silien looks at himself in the mirror with the figure of a man entrapped in his condition, and the only way to get out of it, and conquers back a poignant humanity, is to let the hat fall
Camera Obscura
DOULOS: THE FINGER MAN (Jean-Pierre Melville - France/Italy 1962).Jean-Paul Belmondo is the duplicitous Silien, underworld criminal and police informer and Serge Reggianni as the dogged villain Faugel. Belmondo, who normally is a much more outgoing actor, has to play a very distant role as a gangster, much different than the wanna-be gangster he played in "AU BOUT DE Soufflé" (1959) by Godard (I know it's not soufflé but the IMDb doesn't accept my correct spelling). That's probably why Alain Delon became Melville's first choice in his later films, because Delon naturally had a much more restrained performance.Based on a novel from the famous série noire crime series, he made a film what he called 'my first real policier'. Perhaps there's a little too much emphasis on plot that has more than a few loopholes, as most film-noirs did, Melville's favorite inspiration for many of his films. I do think film-lovers are trying a little too hard to make this film into some kind of new forgotten masterpiece. By Melville standards, it still has quite a competent plot and does make sense but there's not really a central character like Bob in BOB LE FLAMBEUR or Jeff Costello in LE SAMOURAI to root for.Melville very much belonged to the Parisian post-war intelligentsia who were infatuated with American literature, music and above all, film. He was an ardent film lover and reputedly saw at least five films a day for a long period of his life. In LE DOULOS his obsession with American cinema becomes apparent. They drive American cars (and the occasional cool Citroën), behave like gangsters in American crime films of the '40s and Melville loves to use newspaper headlines to heighten some of plot elements, just like Godard famously did in AU BOUT DE Soufflé. French Melville aficionado Ginette Vincendeau put it best: 'Melville was a director very much influenced by American cinema but by no means someone who made copies of American films; in fact, he was a very French filmmaker'.I wasn't instantly captivated by this film as with LE SAMOURAI (1967), but the whole atmosphere, the ambiance, stunning camera movements and an almost perfect music score still make this a very agreeable Melville. This is cinema with style and class and a quintessential addition to the French gangster genre.Camera Obscura --- 8/10
MartinHafer
This film is a 1960s version of an American Film Noir flick. However, as it was made a little later and due to French sensibilities, there were some differences. First, the film was even more brutal, as one woman got beaten very convincingly and cruelly on film and another guy had a bloody bullet pulled from his shoulder. I didn't really mind these details too much, as the characters WERE bad people and you could easily see them behaving that way. Also, because this was created in the midst of the French New Wave, the camera work was a little fuzzier and cheaper than a polished Hollywood film. This isn't' necessarily worse--just different in style--sort of like some of Sam Fuller's films. The only real problems I had with the film is that the plot was a little confusing (probably less so if you are French) and there are many earlier, American Film Noir pictures that are simply better. This isn't to say this is a bad film--it's pretty good. It's just that I didn't feel it offered any sort of improvement over earlier works such as The Killers, DOA, Kiss of Death or any number of other Film Noir flicks.
