Le Cercle Rouge is the second last film by the brilliant French filmmaker (God) Jean Pierre Melville and was released in 1970. In the film, we follow French criminal Corey (Alain Delon) after he gets released from prison and has an intention to never again return. However, Corey is quickly pulled back into the underworld after an encounter with escaped murderer Vogel (Gian Maria Volonté) who he befriends. Along the way, Corey and Vogel meet up with a former policeman and a current alcoholic Jansen (Yves Montand), and together they plot an intricate jewel heist, one last score to get out of the crime world for good. All the while, Police Commissioner Mattei (Bourvil), who was the one to lose custody of Vogel, is determined to find him and imprison him.
I've spent a lot of time researching Melville as a person watching numerous interviews and reading tons of articles. The quote that I think stuck in my mind the most was Melville's response to what he thinks about gangsters. Melville called them "pathetic losers". That quote gave me a whole new perspective on the entity of Melville's filmography and gave me clarity on what Melville is really saying with his many gangster flicks.
Because in Le Cercle Rouge we don't see characters. We see placeholders. Throughout the runtime, the slick, stylised coolness of the main cast gets contradicted on numerous occasions, making them come off as foolish and stupid, injecting Melville's stance on the patheticness of those who chose to engrain themselves in the crime world.
The film's title The Red Circle apparently refers to a saying of the Buddha that men who are destined to meet will eventually meet, no matter what.
What does the red circle have to symbolise. Ultimately to me, what Melville is trying to say here is that all evil will eventually meet. It's fate brings all of these pathetic characters together and it is that same fate that destroys them later in the film, in the red circle of life and death. It's a never ending spectrum of death and meaninglessness. Life, death, everything between occurs inside the red circle.
Le Cercle Rouge is just as stylish as Le Samouraï, if not more so. The film also includes one of my favourite frames in cinematic history, this shot, of our three leads driving and having a conversation. I find it absolutely incredible that in all of Melville's gangster films, the country of France looks different. Obviously because they aren't all set in the same town, but these gangster worlds surely can't be so different from one another. The police in Le Samouraï operate completely different to the police here. The underworld in Bob Le Flambeur looks completely different to what it looks like here. The nightclubs in Le Doulos feel different to here. I think personally, it's this film's incredible use of blue that really separates it from Melville's filmography. Le Samouraï is covered in grey to view Jef Costello's view on the world, but Le Cercle Rouge is covered in this blue tint. I think this ultimately not just represents Le Cercle Rouge as a much different film than Melville's other films but also goes further into showing the lifelessness found inside this gangster world.
With exception to arguably Melville's two war films (Le Silence De La Mer and Army Of Shadows), I'd argue that Le Cercle Rouge is Melville's best directed film. Not a single moment is missing tension, not a frame doesn't feel damp, not a scene doesn't feel like it's missing significance and not earned. Melville doesn't feel the need to cut away from conversations, to awkward, unnecessary, shots, I think this creates such an amazing sense of flow in these talks and make them feel incredibly intimate.
Le Cercle Rouge is a triumph. The ones who say this film is missing meaning are ether ignoring it or choosing not to look into it. It's an expertly written, brilliantly acted, tightly directed and wonderfully shot masterpiece, another from the long list from Melville.
I've spent a lot of time researching Melville as a person watching numerous interviews and reading tons of articles. The quote that I think stuck in my mind the most was Melville's response to what he thinks about gangsters. Melville called them "pathetic losers". That quote gave me a whole new perspective on the entity of Melville's filmography and gave me clarity on what Melville is really saying with his many gangster flicks.
Because in Le Cercle Rouge we don't see characters. We see placeholders. Throughout the runtime, the slick, stylised coolness of the main cast gets contradicted on numerous occasions, making them come off as foolish and stupid, injecting Melville's stance on the patheticness of those who chose to engrain themselves in the crime world.
The film's title The Red Circle apparently refers to a saying of the Buddha that men who are destined to meet will eventually meet, no matter what.
What does the red circle have to symbolise. Ultimately to me, what Melville is trying to say here is that all evil will eventually meet. It's fate brings all of these pathetic characters together and it is that same fate that destroys them later in the film, in the red circle of life and death. It's a never ending spectrum of death and meaninglessness. Life, death, everything between occurs inside the red circle.
Le Cercle Rouge is just as stylish as Le Samouraï, if not more so. The film also includes one of my favourite frames in cinematic history, this shot, of our three leads driving and having a conversation. I find it absolutely incredible that in all of Melville's gangster films, the country of France looks different. Obviously because they aren't all set in the same town, but these gangster worlds surely can't be so different from one another. The police in Le Samouraï operate completely different to the police here. The underworld in Bob Le Flambeur looks completely different to what it looks like here. The nightclubs in Le Doulos feel different to here. I think personally, it's this film's incredible use of blue that really separates it from Melville's filmography. Le Samouraï is covered in grey to view Jef Costello's view on the world, but Le Cercle Rouge is covered in this blue tint. I think this ultimately not just represents Le Cercle Rouge as a much different film than Melville's other films but also goes further into showing the lifelessness found inside this gangster world.
With exception to arguably Melville's two war films (Le Silence De La Mer and Army Of Shadows), I'd argue that Le Cercle Rouge is Melville's best directed film. Not a single moment is missing tension, not a frame doesn't feel damp, not a scene doesn't feel like it's missing significance and not earned. Melville doesn't feel the need to cut away from conversations, to awkward, unnecessary, shots, I think this creates such an amazing sense of flow in these talks and make them feel incredibly intimate.
Le Cercle Rouge is a triumph. The ones who say this film is missing meaning are ether ignoring it or choosing not to look into it. It's an expertly written, brilliantly acted, tightly directed and wonderfully shot masterpiece, another from the long list from Melville.