271 Touchez pas au grisbi

Message

oldsheperd · #26 Post by **oldsheperd** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 8:03 pm

Langlois, I couldn't disagree with you more. Melville is way better than Becker and has a longer lasting influence not only with the French New Wave but over most caper films made.

GringoTex · #27 Post by **GringoTex** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 8:37 pm

Arn777 wrote:Maybe not in the compilations, but Cahiers did a couple of long interviews with Becker in the 50s and always had long reviews of his films and defended a couple of them that were panned by the other critics.

Thanks- I'll try to track those down.

oldsheperd wrote:Langlois, I couldn't disagree with you more. Melville is way better than Becker and has a longer lasting influence not only with the French New Wave but over most caper films made.

The only influence Mellville had on the New Wave was mode of production: filming outside of the French studio system. But Mellville was only interested in fullfilling genre conventions (which he was good at, although he couldn't keep a narrative flowing)- something the directors of the New Wave had absolutely no interest in. Becker was interested in disassembling genre narratives. He set the stage for what was to come.

leo goldsmith · #28 Post by **leo goldsmith** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 9:08 pm

I'm not terribly interested in playing the influence game, but I would say that Melville was interested in a lot more than merely filling genre conventions. Le Cercle Rouge may seem to have a fairly conventional narrative structure for a heist film, but every shot, every detail is totally weird. It almost looks like a Kubrick film at times.

Touchez Pas bored the shit out of me in spite of the juicy frog-slang, but as it's been a little while since I saw it last, and as there seem to be so many advocates here (and at least one about-face), perhaps I'll give it another chance someday.

oldsheperd · #29 Post by **oldsheperd** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 9:21 pm

Don't get me wrong, Langlois, I enjoyed Grisbi. Much more than Le Trou. However, I think we're comparing apples and oranges. It's just if you were to ask me, I prefer Melville as a filmmaker to Becker. I really admire films with existentialist characters and I think Melville does a good job of portraying them in his crime films. In Grisbi, Gabin's character seemed more tired rather than hopeless.

Andre Jurieu · #30 Post by **Andre Jurieu** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:14 pm

flixyflox wrote:However, Melville's male- alone mileu and his narrative interests seem quite different to the all-male bonding, virtually misogynist milieu here (and in LE TROU) not to mention the hinted homoerotic ambience in both.

I love it when misogyny and homoeroticism come together and play nice with each other. It seems you can't find one without the other these days. They're such bossom buddies that they're almost inseparable.

colinr0380 · #31 Post by **colinr0380** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 pm

Well if you hate women there only seems to be one other avenue left open!

Actually that didn't come out quite right!

Narshty · #32 Post by **Narshty** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 3:17 pm

oldsheperd wrote:Langlois, I couldn't disagree with you more. Melville is way better than Becker and has a longer lasting influence not only with the French New Wave but over most caper films made.

The essential difference is, Melville makes "proper" crime films with gangsters and police and all those well-worn and loved genre trappings. Becker's film is basically anthropology with suits and guns. I especially love, and find remarkable, the fact there's no hint of police or the law in Touchez. The lack of an opposing moral parameter really allows one to take the characters on their own terms, as opposed to being firmly trenched on the typically "immoral but glamorous" side.

#33 Post by **zedz** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:08 am

What a wonderful film! Becker is such a subtle director of actors, and so much is conveyed in this film through gesture (Max and Riton's parting handshake as they leave the nightclub) and intonation (Marinette asking Max where he's going as he climbs the stairs). Even though the characters' dialogue and actions are probably pretty much the same as they'd be in a far lesser genre film, this finesse allows the actors to create far more convincing personalities and Becker to construct a far more convincing milieu.

Those aspects of the film are so much more important than the plot that it would be easy to be disappointed if you approached this as a simple caper film (in fact, the big score doesn't even appear in the film). Rather than Max and Riton's relationship being there to act as a plot motor, the plot is there to show us more about that relationship.

Beautiful movie, beautiful transfer.

planetjake · #34 Post by **planetjake** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 9:26 pm

Just rented this. Now I shall buy it. What an absolutely transfixing film! For me, the overall tone of the piece was wonderfully reflected in Gabin's (Eyes! Smirk! Face!!!) performance/persona.

Nonchalant...
Nothing to prove...
Sublime.

I came to be interested in it while watching Histoire(s) du Cinema the other night. The image of Gabin popping off a machine gun piqued my interest.

HerrSchreck · #35 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 3:31 pm

Add me to the list of those who were mesmerized by this film. What fun! What cinematography! What art direction and costumes! What... everything.

Just dazzling, and the perfect picture for a slightly chunkier, postwar Gabin to make a comeback with. I loved the conceit of the aged gangster slowing down and wanting out not because he's the baddest of them all and has accumulated all the wealth and power and girls in the world and is bored/wants to do something new.. but because he's old and can't get it on anymore. Despite all the young pieces a ripe warm trim thrown at Gabin's character ("must get heavy carrying those" palming a chick's tits) you really felt his dislocation and sense of apartness, cultivated by his age. It took a lot of the piss out of the stereotypical Top Cat None Durst Fuck With, typified by so many aging stars shoepolishing their hair and hoping no one will notice they're old next to all that young flash & flesh.

In the end the story registered for me as a couple of old guys feeling out of place-- though Gabin more than his pal Dary-- isolated by their age, and wanting to get out of their equivalent of the Post Office Job, to retire and focus on being friends together. I loved Dary's grabbing the sagging flesh on his aging face and staring into the mirror. The delicacy of the unfolding, the bravura cinematography, the magnificent mise en scene and performances... what a film.

And I could absolutely see gringo's (then langlois68's) linking the pedigree of this film to the Vague. The similarities to the string of films that came afterwards-- preVague & Vague-- are unmistakable. A lot of people owed a debt of gratitude, it seems, to this particular film.

HistoryProf · #36 Post by **HistoryProf** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 11:27 pm

Out of Print as of June 30, 2010.

Kokomo Blues · #37 Post by **Kokomo Blues** » Thu Aug 13, 2015 5:15 pm

Sometimes you need to read between the lines

Site Menu