447-448 Le doulos and Le deuxieme souffle

[Black Hat]

He's basically an unrepentant scumbag

I have to take issue with this. Gu was who he was and although the profession he chose forced him to make tough choices just as many professions do, even murder, I think he was far from a scumbag. The loyalty he invoked with his girl and friends speaks to that. If anything within his field he was most honorable and at first even showed Jo mercy. I think Blot and the choices he made mirrored Gu's which brings me to the theme of the movie which was about time passing, growing old while the world stays fresh with ideas forcing you to fight as hard as you can to stay relevant to the place you think you should hold or once held. As others have said I thought the opening sequence was masterful, especially the sound design but even then with Gu struggling to get on the train we see that he might be over hill. The film goes beyond the narrow perspective of Gu also striking me as being from the perspective of that genre of film altogether that really had been around since sound entered film. This is where Gu's words to Blot while handcuffed to the wall about how times have changed struck me as the most important lines of the film making what was essentially a suicide mission an easy choice because it was not just an opportunity for revenge but also an opportunity to stand up for how things used to be. The juxtaposition of the young Antoine trying to kill Gu as he was trying to teach him something further reinforced how out of touch the man really was.

[jindianajonz]

So the opening words (which I don't have available to me right now) say that if somebody gives into death because they are weary of life, their life is wasted. Do you think this applies to Gu?

[matrixschmatrix]

I think, to me, that Gu's dilemma is that he wants to find a meaningful death, instead of simply giving in and dying- which somewhat resolves the driven towards death/apathetic about death question. In that sense, it's not a particularly tragic ending- Gu has what he needed, Manouche is now with the better and less vicious Orlaff, and Fardino is no longer running a regime of torture. Somehow, though, the happy ending all round isn't what one feels...

[zedz]

He's basically an unrepentant scumbag

I have to take issue with this. Gu was who he was and although the profession he chose forced him to make tough choices just as many professions do, even murder, I think he was far from a scumbag. The loyalty he invoked with his girl and friends speaks to that.

That is indeed the best argument for something good about Gu, and that would be the lazy function of those characters in most films, but I really don't think we see any evidence that he's not just a charismatic thug (and don't underestimate the loyalty and affection that can be inspired by dark charisma). The string of murders we see him commit are all atrocious, and only the first two are even arguably 'necessary'. In almost all filmic renditions of an 'honourable' criminal code there's some bullshit about only killing in self defence, something which Melville doesn't just leave unmentioned, but actively violates, without even a flicker of existential angst on Gu's part. Whatever unseen acts of nobility he may once have performed to win the affection and loyalty of his angelic trio (and you'd think that if Melville was really concerned about whitewashing his hero he'd at least allude to something of this nature), I can't believe any of them outweigh killing that motorcycle cop.

But I think this is a real strength of the film, seeing how so many films with criminal protagonists tie themselves in ludicrous narrative knots to ensure they only kill 'bad' cops, shoot in self defence, 'accidentally' force their antagonist to kill themselves in some unlikely fashion, or otherwise shrug off the full moral responsibility for their worst crimes.

[Sloper]

Gu was who he was and although the profession he chose forced him to make tough choices just as many professions do, even murder, I think he was far from a scumbag. The loyalty he invoked with his girl and friends speaks to that.

You have a point, but notice the contradiction in your wording: 'the profession he chose forced him to make tough choices'. When you say 'Gu was who he was', this echoes Manouche's declaration of unwavering faith, 'Gu is Gu'. I don't think the film is so much about external forces cornering Gu into doing certain things; it's more about some unalterable part of his inner being manifesting itself in his actions. He talks about this in his fateful conversation on the beach, in terms of 'mentalité' - translated by Criterion as 'principles', but it also means 'mindset'. Gu cannot change who he is. In the context of that conversation, he is saying that he could never violate his 'mentalité' by ratting on his colleagues. But the killing of the motorcycle cop is another manifestation of this same mindset, this same set of so-called principles. Everyone involved in the robbery is aware that killing the policemen is 'wrong', but they do it because they 'have to'. One has to ask - why do they have to? Because they want to steal the platinum and get rich?

This leads to an even deeper problem. It would seem that Gu is motivated by simple greed, and just as we are made to sympathise with the murders on the basis that they are necessary, so we are made to sympathise with his greed on the basis that he needs to flee the country but also needs money to start a new life. Again, necessity drives him - but again, he only needs to flee the country because of the robbery he committed and was imprisoned for ten years earlier. In a different kind of film, this would be a story about how one bad choice engenders a spree of tragic actions, each apparently dictated by 'necessity', but each in fact a consequence of the original sin. Le deuxième souffle is not like this, because we don't see the protagonist's 'original sin'. He simply is who he is - he just is a criminal, a robber, a murderer.

Rather than be doomed from the start, I have to believe that Gu really was serious about leaving France and starting a new life, but the way I see the film, as the plot progresses he slowly realizes that he's been outmanoeuvred by circumstance (as soon as he "has to" kill those thugs - but again, this is a choice, as is his indifference to covering the deed up - he knows he's compromised), and fatalism sets in. Towards the end of the film, he understands that the chances of getting out of this alive are pretty remote, so his Plan B becomes Dying a Good Death.

On the surface, it does seem that Gu was serious about his escape plan; jindianajonz has also said that there would have been a real possibility of Gu fleeing and leading a happy life if the robbery (or rather, its aftermath) had gone to plan. I don't believe this. Can we really imagine Gu being happy, under any circumstances? Those two shots where he's sitting reading the paper and eating the paté are the best examples we can come up with. That's about as much happiness as he seems capable of expressing. Gu's problem isn't that he's broke, or that he may go back to jail, and the solution to his problem isn't an escape to Italy or Miami. Like most of Melville's protagonists, Gu is suffering from the inherent and inescapable solitude of the human condition.

I like to read this Melvillean solitude in two ways: on the one hand, it stems from mortality, from the fact that we are all going to die alone; much more interestingly, it can be seen as stemming from narcissism. Narcissism, for me, is by far the richest theme in Melville's work. So here are a few rambling thoughts on the subject, with reference to this film.

Ginette Vincendeau, in her book (An American in Paris), distinguishes Gu from the typical Melvillean narcissist (best exemplified by Alain Delon) on the basis that he doesn't cut as dashing a figure as Delon would do in the later films. Instead, he appears dishevelled, lower-class, sometimes anonymous, and takes relatively little care over his appearance. There are exceptions, most notably the scene where Gu painstakingly brushes his hair - but more than this, I would say that Gu is a classic narcissist in ways that go much deeper than dress sense or grooming.

I think Gu rebuffing Manouche in small ways, but ones which lead to his tragic end, is perhaps apparent as early as in the scene where Manouche sends word that she is going to visit and cook for Gu in the safehouse, only to find on her arrival that he has already cooked. A touching moment, but one which suggests that Gu doesn't really want to allow Manouche to be making the decisions for him.

This is a great example. He cooks the meal, not because he wants to do something nice for Manouche, but in order to show her that he is independent of her, that he is self-sufficient. He says that he has cooked for her because she is his guest, but he's hardly an ideal host except in the most superficial ways, and the following conversation only accentuates the gulf between them. Gu pessimistically but casually discusses his own fate, and Manouche tries to involve herself in it. Finally she reaches out her hand across the table, and Gu makes an effort to smile as he takes it. Then he moves to open the champagne, clearly not comfortable with this moment of intimacy. Manouche looks at him with a kind of horror. Is this because she knows he is right, and that his days are numbered - or is it because she realises that she is permanently shut out from his world, that he essentially feels nothing for her, and yet that she loves him too much to detach herself from him? This moment is repeated at the end, after Gu knocks Orloff out. And it's true of most of Gu's relationships in the film...

Part of the reason we, as a viewer, feel well-disposed to this (as you say) scumbag is that he's surrounded by such decent, loyal, self-sacrificing people (Manouche, Alban, Orloff), to the point where you believe there has to be a good reason they're all so kind to him. Their own virtues rub off on him. It's hard not to feel how selfish he is, tho', considering he never does a single thing for any of them in turn and even throws away all of their careful concern when he runs to his death

Again I would say this is clearly a tenable reading, but I would approach it from the other direction. These people are like Echo to Gu's Narcissus - their virtues don't rub off on him, he sucks them in like a black hole. Narcissists go through life damaging people left right and centre, and those people lie bleeding in the narcissist's wake, saying 'He can't help himself - he is who he is'. It's a curious fact of life that such utter self-absorption is weirdly seductive (zedz just mentioned this too) but in fact it isn't hard to see why. We love and admire such people largely, I think, out of a kind of envy. To be that self-sufficient, that solitary, that detached from other people, is as impressive as it is reprehensible, and people with these qualities tend to elicit fierce loyalty, and passionate affection, from others. I think they often become politicians.

As far as the glamorization of criminals- in one respect, that seems a ludicrous notion, as Gu's lifestyle is hardscrabble and mean, and pointed inevitably towards death; we see him riding the bus, sleeping in shithole hotel rooms, and isolating himself further and further throughout the narrative, but we never see anything like the material rewards of a big score. Yet it's not totally off base, as Gu's archaic sense of honor is itself alluring, and the reason that we as an audience can be brought to care for a cold blooded murderer- he's glamorous in the sense that he's a rather romantic figure, a man with a code more absolute than would be an adherence to the law or to conventional morality

Gu does indeed adhere to a code that is more absolute than adherence to the law or morality. As I said above, it's a code that justifies any given action - robbery, murder, cruelty - on the basis that the action is 'necessary', even though it usually isn't. This is also a code that enshrines loyalty as the highest principle of all, and demonises informers even when (like Therese in Le doulos) they are courageously helping the authorities to tackle crime by putting themselves in serious danger. A code that sentences such people to torture and death, while idolising thieves and killers, might already seem pretty well suited to the narcissistic temperament, since it is transparently designed to sustain indefensible behaviour in a circular and irrational way. Yet we might want to buy into the notion that these thieves and killers are really more principled than the cops trying to bring them down, and police corruption is certainly another running theme in Melville's work.

So is this fundamental principle of the gangster's code - loyalty - not about sustaining indefensible behaviour, but about protecting a truly principled community from the corrupt forces that threaten it? (As Mattei says in Le cercle rouge, the police are nothing without informers; I think Blot says something similar.) Are these gangsters representatives of an almost-lost golden age when the bonds between men really meant something?

Such a reading might work for films like Touchez pas au grisbi or Le trou; for instance, think of Jean Gabin's bond with Riton in the former, and the bereft look on his face at the end. For all the bleakness of that film, it invests deeply and earnestly in the emotional bonds between the characters, and as such is deeply moving. It seems to me that there is nothing like this in Melville's work. Whenever a meaningful bond is hinted at, the film goes on to dissolve or undermine it. Are Gu and Paul Ricci really good friends? At moments, they seem to be, but look at that wonderful sequence, just before the robbery, where Paul is looking down at the ants, and then the camera tracks along that metal railing to find Gu at the other end of it, in the same posture. That shot is about distance and alienation - solitude, above all - not connections. And as for the ants...

Throughout the film, when Gu follow's the code, things go relatively well for him- He is able to escape prison with dignity and have his reputation intact because he didn't squeal while he was on the inside. Presumably, the fact that he was considered trustworthy is what allowed him to escape in the first place, since it is unlikely his plot would have been successful if there was some element of mistrust between the escapees (see Le Trou). Once on the outside, it is this adherence to the code that gets Gu a part in the heist, and I think the entire heist scene is a testament to how the code works- the trust, honor, and discipline allows these men to work so closely together as limbs of a single body that they no longer need words to communicate while the heist is going on. This is emphasized by the scene where Paul Ricci watches ants crawling along the ground; immediately following the scene we see the heist, which contains a number of long shots of the black-suited men working together against the same pale backdrop as the ants, implying that as the ants work for the greater good of their colony, these men work for the greater good of their team. It is their code that allows this level of collaboration to occur without doubt, questioning, or conflict mucking things up.

The problem I have with this reading is that the ants in that shot are not shown 'working for the greater good of their colony'. They're just crawling around in various random directions on that barren patch of ground, and the image is suggestive of futility rather than meaningful communal action. You're absolutely right about the men working like a well-oiled machine during the heist. Heists are usually among the highlights of Melville's films. But what, ultimately, is the point of these exploits? To get money? This of course never works out, but even if it did, would it cure these men's existential angst? I think the point of the heists has nothing to do with any alleged outcome. The heist is more self-contained than that. It is impressive activity, plain and simple, like a conjuring trick or a feat of strength or agility. I call Gu a narcissist because all his words and actions are directed, not towards clearly defined outcomes, not towards the fulfilment of 'principles' in the normal sense of the word, and not towards the happiness or even survival of other human beings, but simply towards the maintenance of his - Gu Minda's - image, by which I mean both his self-image and the way he is perceived by others.

He tells Fardiano, 'I'm not proud of killing the motorcycle cop'. But what is he, then? Ashamed? In the context of that scene, he is only making this claim in order to signal Fardiano's impending death, so it's really a sadistic taunt rather than a confession. In any case, it's typical of his general attitude towards the killings. He kills innocent people but he says he's not proud of it, and anyway he had to do it. So he's really an honourable man, see?

Fardiano is the only one who challenges Gu about the moral implications of the robbery, and as matrix said earlier the film seems to deprive Fardiano's self-righteousness of any credibility by having him torture Paul Ricci during the very same sequence. And to balance out what zedz says about the lack of special pleading for Gu, I do think it's important to acknowledge the extent to which this film celebrates its protagonist, if only on the most superficial level of the narrative. The film insistently tells us what a good, honourable, strong, tragic man Gu Minda is, and it has hundreds of ways of telling us this. The nearest analogue I can think of is Winding Refn's Drive, an overt celebration of masculine strength, self-sufficiency and self-assertion, but one riddled with cracks and loose ends (in that case, the hero's psychotic violence is the not-very-subtle clue that the film as a whole is set within the deluded fantasies of a crazed narcissist).

Melville was about to perfect his treatment of this theme in the Delon films. Think about the epigraph to Le samourai: it's something like, 'There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle, perhaps.' Melville's eloquent invention here sums up the process whereby narcissism translates into a kind of impressive and tragic 'solitude'. This man isn't a lonely sociopath who kills strangers for money. No, he's a samurai, a tiger in the jungle - but the 'perhaps' is crucial here. Does it suggest that the samurai may be even more solitary than the tiger, and does this make the samurai 'more' or 'less' than the tiger - more formidable, or more pathetic? Is Jef Costello's final action at the end of the film a grand gesture of honour, or an admission that he is empty and impotent beneath that impeccably angled hat?

I also get a sense that Antoine, Orlaff, and Gu are three stages in the life of the same archetypal person. Antoine is the youthful, with more physical prowess (he is able to kill a cop with three bullets while Gu took four, and at a longer range too) but less experience and instinct, which leads to him being swayed by Jo. Orlaff is the peak- he has more developed instincts than Antoine (as seen when he is able to outsmart him with his hidden gun trick) and isn't physically burdened by age in the same way Gu is (we see Gu almost missing the jump when escaping from the prison, was struggling to keep up with the train, and had to use 8 shots to kill the two thugs who tried to rob Manouche). It is because of this that Orlaff is the only person who manages to escape these events unscathed. I admit there isn't much evidence to this hypothesis, but I figured I'd throw it out there if anybody wants to help support it or shoot it down.

I think this is a great point, and might try and post about it again later on, but just wanted to mention that this pattern is also visible right at the start in the differing ages of the three escapees: one is very young, and overshoots the wall and dies; Gu is the eldest, and almost misses the wall; in between is a man in his prime, who has no real problem jumping to the wall, or jumping onto and then off the train - and indeed, he apparently does a better job of choosing his own death, and choosing it for some reason besides that he is 'sick of life', than Gu finally does. The epigraph is worth considering in relation to that whole opening sequence. The one who falls doesn't exactly choose his death, does he?

You can also see the same age range in Le cercle rouge, with Vogel, Corey and Jansen. Different layers of the one narcissistic personality, perhaps?

One final thought/question: what connections might be made between the references to 'derision' in the epigraph to this film and that of Un flic? And, I guess, the laughing Buddha at the start of Le cercle rouge?

[jindianajonz]

Great analysis, thank you Sloper! I think it is going to take me some time to fully digest it.

Can we really imagine Gu being happy, under any circumstances? Those two shots where he's sitting reading the paper and eating the paté are the best examples we can come up with. That's about as much happiness as he seems capable of expressing. Gu's problem isn't that he's broke, or that he may go back to jail, and the solution to his problem isn't an escape to Italy or Miami.

I agree, and I wouldn't be surprised if on some level Gu realizes this as well. After completing the heist, he has an easy course to a "happy ending"- everything is within his grasp as long as he just sits tight at home until he has time to sell off some platinum (possibly through Alban or Manouche) and escape. We have already seen how he prefers solitude, so this shouldn't be a problem for him. Instead, he does the most foolish thing possible- he starts venturing out in public. Not only is this against his nature, it goes against the careful behavior he displayed earlier in the film. To me, this is Gu at his most self destructive.

I wish I had taken better notes on the commentary, but you are are familiar with Ginnette Vincendeau, so hopefully you are more aware of her argument than I am: How does her interpretation of Gu being most comfortable with solitude jive with your interpretation of him being a narcissist? I would think that a narcissus would thrive on being around others in order to show off to them. Or to put it another way, how can he be most concerned with how he is perceived by others when he prefers to not show himself to others?

Heists are usually among the highlights of Melville's films. But what, ultimately, is the point of these exploits? To get money?

I think the point of the heist (and by extension, the code) is indeed to get money, and it succeeds. Gu's problem is that he realizes he doesn't really want the money (as evidenced by his abrupt turn from satisfaction to self destruction following the heist) and, after having the code turned against him, he also abandons the code.

[matrixschmatrix]

I also listened to the commentary, and I don't think the picture she presents of Gu as a loner- or the idea of a loner in general- really conflicts with the construction of narcissism, as narcissists generally do not have the need for companionship or the ability to accept interdependence that usually characterizes a full and happy life. I think it may be an issue of the conflict between the psychological conception of the term and the colloquial; in the psychological sense, narcissism relates more to an inability to perceive others as having importance matching one's own, rather than a need to impress or dominate them. Or at least, that's my understanding, which may be off base.

Narcissists often do impress and dominate others, and are sometimes extremely charismatic, in the way Sloper describes; there is little more alluring than someone who doesn't need you or anybody else, and lacking the desire to impress while maintaining meticulously one's own sense of style and ethics comes close to being the definition of 'cool'.

[colinr0380]

There is something tragically touching though about the way Alban is certain that Gu wouldn't have blabbed about the heist to the police which occurs very late in the film, contrasted against the early scene of Manouche's slow realisation of Gu's death wish with her question about what will happen to her afterwards, which she only asks once and never brings up again even at the moment of their final parting. Perhaps it shows that Manouche is at a different stage of acceptance than Alban, due to her greater 'intimacy' with Gu? It was interesting to hear in the commentary that the original novel has Manouche getting together at the end with Orloff, the even more detached and 'cool', but with less of a death wish and more of a sense of honour, companion to Gu. Perhaps the moustache both Gu and Orloff sport signifies that connection, with Gu symbolically shaving it just before going to the final confrontation, as if to get rid of that persona now he doesn't need to pretend to be someone else any more.

What is the opinion on the police methods used to torture Paul, in a water boarding scene that according to the commentary was very controversial on first release (presumably inspiring the opening title about such treatment of prisoners not being representative of police methods, though the commentary refutes the idea the title card is expressing) and censored/cut up into a more abstract form where you just see the aftermath of Paul gagging and covered in water?

It perhaps makes The Battle of Algiers look even more groundbreaking in depicting such acts, albeit with a classical soundtrack and religious allusions softening the blow, and in a film that despite tackling the French-Algerian conflict is a little more detached from that milleu with its Italian production. Although if you want to know more about the Ben Barka incident that the commentary states that the sequence in Le deuxième souffle is relating to, then it might also be worth watching I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed, the film from 2005 about those events.

I find it particularly interesting to contrast the way that they go to such deceptive lengths to trick a confession out of Gu (knowing his weak spot) and with the more tight-lipped Paul they resort almost immediately for blunt torture to try and wring a confession out of him.

[swo17]

This film does not concern itself with how codes allow members of the underworld to survive; it's interested in how codes drive people to their death. This is a film of constriction.

I don't know if you meant this comment to apply to codes in general, or just to the kinds of explicit codes that show up in these kinds of films, but I would argue that everyone lives by a code of some kind, even if only subconsciously. There are certain things that people are or aren't willing to do, certain things that become priorities in one's life. And even if someone says "I don't live by any codes, I just do what I feel like when I feel like it," guess what, that's a code too. Gu's failing isn't that he lives by a code, but that his code is no good to begin with, that it's too simplistic or unrealistic, that it's perhaps partly self-contradictory, or that he only selectively lives by it.

In fact, Gu might only have his little junior mint of a code in place as a means to separate himself from the reality of the acts he commits. "Having a code" sounds like a noble thing (even if, as I've said, really everyone has one) and "living by the code" is a nice euphemism for killing and robbing that's a whole lot easier for the conscience to swallow. You see similar things in the real world when, say, faced with a near consensus of opinion that the new Madame de... transfer is an utter travesty, some people still say "well, I buy everything Criterion puts out,"** because living by a simplistic code like this (i.e. as a robot) is much simpler than going through life alertly, reacting to each situation on its own terms. Codes like this are a hindrance to the achieving of your potential, but it needn't be this way. Indeed, I'd say that the secret of life lies in formulating your own intricate, city map-sized code dictating your own behavior, and the great challenge of life is living by it. Neither of which, of course, did Gu do.


**or there are possibly other examples related to things more important than DVDs

[Mr Sausage]

I was talking about how the highly specific way codes of honour within a particular subset (criminals here) work in Melville's films, or at least Le deuxieme souffle. There are all sorts of personal codes of behaviour; in Melville's films, these tend to be codes that favour external, absolute values and extreme expressions (vengeance, justice, suicide, ect.).

With the latter part of your post we're getting into a problem of definition. You are interpreting a personal code as any expression of value or mores that may condition action. The word code derives from law, specifically Roman law, and means a systematic collection of statutes. So while I see where you're coming from, I understand a code of honour as being something more rigid, systematic, and codified than our everyday negotiations of value, most of which are neither strict nor systematized. Most of us decide how to act on a case-by-case basis with a wide array of social institutions and private opinions influencing our decisions; few of us decide our actions from the start. But, essentially, a code of honour is a way of regulating one's own behaviour within a specific convention of value.

So codes, by their very nature, are constraining; they prescribe. This is great for Melville since it lets him put the screw to these characters and see their codes force them into impossible choices. Since codes tend to be inflexible, you'll find them very often in tragic narratives (either where a character must take his code to its bitterly logical end or must give up his code and suffer a spiritual defeat). I don't think Melville wants to glamourize these codes the way, for example, John Woo does because I don't feel he's particularly absolutist or nostalgic. I think he likes the dramatic possibilities and the peculiar intensity these codes lend the narrative; but while he may admire the way Gu follows his code even up to the end, he's careful to imply how futile and wasteful the whole thing is, how there were happier ways to end it all. It actually reminds me of Chigurh again, who says: "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" I don't think Melville is insensitive to this point; I think Manouche's reaction to things is probably much closer to his own: a weary pessimism.

You're probably right that Gu's code lets him justify certain acts (eg. when a code prescribes what kind of people you can and can't kill, which gives a false sense of moral elevation to the decision), but I don't feel Melville is all that interested in this aspect. I think he's more interested in the way these characters choose to embody their values in in a more ancient and anachronistic form (note how Gu's honour means little unless everyone else also believes it--a manner of thinking that predates the modern invention of the private self with its private beliefs) and the way this atavistic conception of value drives men to extreme acts (death, basically). Codes don't drive people in general to throw everything away in order to embody some value (especially in a low, vulgar setting like the underworld), but they sure do in Melville's films.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's also worth remembering that there's a sort of games theory level on which a code- particularly one of omerta or no snitching or whatever else you want to call it- is beneficial in a purely selfish way; not only does it benefit you if other guys don't talk about you, it means that if you're arrested, there isn't a pressing need for your partners in crime to silence you themselves. If everyone's trustworthy, the prisoner's dilemma becomes a simple and safe question. Moreover, having a knowable code of any kind means that alliances and joint activities amongst outlaws are possible in the first place- otherwise, gangsters are by definition people who will steal and cheat, and thus people with whom only the insane would expose themselves at all. So a code, universally adhered to, isn't really constrictive, in the sense that it allows a greater breadth of action by virtue of making those actions reasonably safe.

In that sense, it's perfectly logical that Gu's code is based on how he is seen rather than any existential idea of how he knows himself to be- in many ways, it's a code designed for show, rather than one designed for ethics.

[Mr Sausage]

There is a functional reason for "no snitching," yeah, but it has a more-than-functional value to Gu. Here, a value meant to assure survival drives a man to his death, drives at least two to their death, actually (the other escapee). This is the point at which functional rules become abstract codes. Once Gu had escaped and was on the boat with Manouche and Orloff, there was no practical reason for him to go to his death: he was leaving the underworld anyway, so his reputation was irrelevant, and even so, Orloff was on his way to repair that very reputation. Gu goes to his death because he wishes to embody a certain extreme form of value. The actual practical use of this rule is irrelevant.

[swo17]

Intriguing points. It's interesting--as part of my chosen profession, I literally have a code of conduct by which I am required to abide, mostly addressing common sense ethical issues. (I imagine most professional organizations have one?) If I were to flagrantly break the code, I could be sued, stripped of my credentials, or perhaps even incarcerated. Like the gangster's code, my professional code is perhaps geared toward self-preservation, in the sense that if I follow it, I have a reasonable guarantee of being able to go about my daily work without obstruction. I suppose if you take all that goes with being a criminal as a given, the desire for self-preservation or just staying out of trouble isn't necessarily a bad thing. So perhaps it's not the code itself that's the problem, but Gu's chosen line of work, and the fact that he ultimately elevates the code above all else, when it's only ever meant to be a means to an end.

[Black Hat]

You have a point, but notice the contradiction in your wording: 'the profession he chose forced him to make tough choices'. When you say 'Gu was who he was', this echoes Manouche's declaration of unwavering faith, 'Gu is Gu'. I don't think the film is so much about external forces cornering Gu into doing certain things; it's more about some unalterable part of his inner being manifesting itself in his actions. He talks about this in his fateful conversation on the beach, in terms of 'mentalité' - translated by Criterion as 'principles', but it also means 'mindset'. Gu cannot change who he is. In the context of that conversation, he is saying that he could never violate his 'mentalité' by ratting on his colleagues. But the killing of the motorcycle cop is another manifestation of this same mindset, this same set of so-called principles. Everyone involved in the robbery is aware that killing the policemen is 'wrong', but they do it because they 'have to'. One has to ask - why do they have to? Because they want to steal the platinum and get rich?

Great post. I must say the contradiction of my wording was more a result of my own folly of written language than representative of what I was trying to express. Yes he made a choice to be a professional robber but I don't think that's necessarily representative of Gu as a human being I saw it as being a result of him feeling he had no other choice. That feeling of being boxed in is more than anything else why he can't change. I think instead of posing the question of why the robbery, why kill the policeman, we need to ask and answer what other alternatives were available?

This leads to an even deeper problem. It would seem that Gu is motivated by simple greed, and just as we are made to sympathise with the murders on the basis that they are necessary, so we are made to sympathise with his greed on the basis that he needs to flee the country but also needs money to start a new life. He simply is who he is - he just is a criminal, a robber, a murderer.

Where are you getting his greed from? I don't think he showed greed at all. I think he took a job that he was going to be compensated for just like everybody else. His motivation to me was at first to remain free and second to keep his reputation.

Instead, he appears dishevelled, lower-class, sometimes anonymous, and takes relatively little care over his appearance. There are exceptions, most notably the scene where Gu painstakingly brushes his hair - but more than this, I would say that Gu is a classic narcissist in ways that go much deeper than dress sense or grooming.

Gu's appearance and class are essential to the film. In fact I would go as far as to say that his Tony Sopranion airs are what keeps us interested. Without them the film turn into lets spend 150 minutes in the presence of a rampaging monster escaped from his cage which it wasn't in the least.

Gu does indeed adhere to a code that is more absolute than adherence to the law or morality. As I said above, it's a code that justifies any given action - robbery, murder, cruelty - on the basis that the action is 'necessary', even though it usually isn't.

Usually isn't according to whom? Certainly not according to Gu. Therefore on what, or whose standards are we making this claim? It certainly can't be our own as he's not one of us.

He tells Fardiano, 'I'm not proud of killing the motorcycle cop'. But what is he, then? Ashamed? In the context of that scene, he is only making this claim in order to signal Fardiano's impending death, so it's really a sadistic taunt rather than a confession. In any case, it's typical of his general attitude towards the killings. He kills innocent people but he says he's not proud of it, and anyway he had to do it. So he's really an honourable man, see?

I think the way he was able to express awareness of his actions along with remorse makes him a more sympathetic figure and flies in the face of a lot of what a lot of you have been writing.

[Black Hat]

Gu's failing isn't that he lives by a code, but that his code is no good to begin with

What if he'd made of the apartment alive and on a boat to Italy with his money?

[swo17]

Fate would have caught up with him eventually. Or not, I don't know.

[Black Hat]

Fate? Really?

My larger point is that there are many, many people in the world adhering to Gu's code living very happy lives so I don't think we can reduce Gu's failings whatever they may be as being a result of the code he chose to live by.

[Mr Sausage]

Personally, I don't think the movie is a closed system run by the independent choices of everyone acting in it. To me there's a pretty clear external designer to this drama. A lot of plot points are determined by character choice, sure, but I always feel the added presence of Melville and co. organizing things so that the characters face difficult choices. I feel it especially in Gu's abduction and then the little ploy the police use to wring that false confession from him. All of that strikes me far less as a result of predictable character choices than a creator manipulating his characters into a situation that will force them to make hard decisions. All the more so since it happens so arbitrarily (with a rushed, back-hand mention of "oh, we're lucky some guard who'd housed you happened to see you walking in the street!" as if the whole police force didn't have access to a major criminal's mugshot). Why did the police happen to catch him at that exact moment, neither before nor after? Why did they do this elaborate ruse? Is it because the choices made by each party were clearly guiding them to that particular meeting? No, because Melville and co. are organizing it this way for no other reason than to place Gu in an improbably difficult situation where the extremes of his character can act out. It's nothing less than "how can we get a hardened, experienced criminal who'd never talk to confess accidentally?" Someone's turning the screws just as much as in a Hitchcock film. Melville uses all of his art to prepare us for it and get us to accept it (including a little speech by Blot about how catching Gu will depend on random luck), but it still doesn't disguise the fact that none of either Gu's or Blot's choices following the robbery actually lead them to that meeting. It's still arbitrary.

[matrixschmatrix]

Intriguing points. It's interesting--as part of my chosen profession, I literally have a code of conduct by which I am required to abide, mostly addressing common sense ethical issues. (I imagine most professional organizations have one?) If I were to flagrantly break the code, I could be sued, stripped of my credentials, or perhaps even incarcerated. Like the gangster's code, my professional code is perhaps geared toward self-preservation, in the sense that if I follow it, I have a reasonable guarantee of being able to go about my daily work without obstruction. I suppose if you take all that goes with being a criminal as a given, the desire for self-preservation or just staying out of trouble isn't necessarily a bad thing. So perhaps it's not the code itself that's the problem, but Gu's chosen line of work, and the fact that he ultimately elevates the code above all else, when it's only ever meant to be a means to an end.

I think that's what I was trying to get at- Gu's code is a professional one rather than a moral one (which is the point I was trying to get at in saying that it's fundamentally pragmatic), yet he has a fanatic's devotion to it. It's not hard to see that as a form of professional pride, rather than honor in a sense that I'd recognize it; if he betrays the code, he is no longer the legendary Gu, a great and powerful outlaw, he's just another rat who broke to the police. Again, that makes perfect sense for a code that is all about externals and how one is perceived, rather than how one is inside.

Fate? Really?

My larger point is that there are many, many people in the world adhering to Gu's code living very happy lives so I don't think we can reduce Gu's failings whatever they may be as being a result of the code he chose to live by.

Our world, perhaps, but our world is not Melville's, and does not necessarily work by the same rules.

As far as the possibility of Gu getting away- I mean, honestly, has there ever been a character performing one last heist who actually gets away with and retires happily ever after? I'd say participating in one in genre fiction is so uniformly a prelude to disaster that one must presume that it's written with the assumption that the audience will see it as such, and read it as a self-destructive action. I don't think Gu had a lifetime left in him.

[Mr Sausage]

I think that's what I was trying to get at- Gu's code is a professional one rather than a moral one (which is the point I was trying to get at in saying that it's fundamentally pragmatic), yet he has a fanatic's devotion to it. It's not hard to see that as a form of professional pride, rather than honor in a sense that I'd recognize it; if he betrays the code, he is no longer the legendary Gu, a great and powerful outlaw, he's just another rat who broke to the police. Again, that makes perfect sense for a code that is all about externals and how one is perceived, rather than how one is inside.

Isn't this a false dualism? Doesn't professional pride and individual/moral pride become indistinguishable in Gu?

Gu's code is essential to his identity, making that identity external and himself a kind of anachronism. So it makes sense for him to court death since his existence as an internal consciousness hardly matters--it's his external identity, who everyone else sees him as, that's important, much as it would be to, say, an ancient Greek or an ancient Japanese warrior. Hence he has no qualms sacrificing the one for the other.

I think we should consider the difference between fatalism and stoicism. Gu is a fatalist not only because he expects death to happen, but because he seems to think there's no point in avoiding it, hence he sets out to meet it. A stoic may likewise expect death to happen, but he resigns himself to it, content neither to avoid nor to meet it but simply to endure it patiently. Both communicate a strong sense of certain values, but fatalism is active where is stoicism passive.

[Drucker]

As far as the possibility of Gu getting away- I mean, honestly, has there ever been a character performing one last heist who actually gets away with and retires happily ever after? I'd say participating in one in genre fiction is so uniformly a prelude to disaster that one must presume that it's written with the assumption that the audience will see it as such, and read it as a self-destructive action. I don't think Gu had a lifetime left in him.

I am enjoying the discussion on Gu, and don't want to throw it off, but this quote allows me to bring up a point I want to make after watching Un Flic. I feel that nobody in Melville's films ultimately gets what they want. After stashing the loot found in Souffle, the criminals never really get close to it again.

But I'm fascinated by the complexities of the relationships between criminal and law in Melville's films. While Blot certainly has no love for Gu, he doesn't seem to enjoy his death at all. Did he want to bring him to justice? Is he sorry that the way he was treated while in police custody? Is he feeling guilty for his own involvement in driving Gu over the edge? Gu doesn't get what he wants. Manouche has no positive closure. Blot is unsatisfied as well.

My overall point is that nobody in Melville's films "get what they want." And just because the criminals often end up dead or in jail, doesn't mean the police are patting each other on the back. His films are not simple good guy/bad guy allegories.

[colinr0380]

I think we should consider the difference between fatalism and stoicism. Gu is a fatalist not only because he expects death to happen, but because he seems to think there's no point in avoiding it, hence he sets out to meet it. A stoic may likewise expect death to happen, but he resigns himself to it, content neither to avoid nor to meet it but simply to endure it patiently. Both communicate a strong sense of certain values, but fatalism is active where is stoicism passive.

I like this idea very much but there might also be a slight differentiation to 'active fatalism' in the sense that where someone like Hamlet might return to confront an almost certain death head on and on his terms there seems to be more of a 'death wish fatalism' in Gu where he is given a number of chances to escape (notably by Orloff before he knocks him out to take his place at the final meeting) and must know that there is no sense in confronting his suspicious gang mates but does so anyway to seemingly bring things (his affairs and his life itself) to an almost operatically neatly tied up climax.

Hamlet and those surrounding him might end up devastated in the same way but I think there is a key difference between an external fate driven by circumstances and other characters and an internal 'death wish' fate driven almost entirely by the main character themselves capitalising on a situation to bring about their end (and I agree that this key difference can be a slight one: a problem I have with some adaptations of Hamlet is the way that a decision can be made to play Hamlet as just being driven by that 'Thanatos' death drive to the hermetic exclusion of a wider view of characters trapped by their circumstances). Here I think is the key way that Le Deuxieme Souffle is a gangster film rather than a film noir - film noir is often about the external world closing in and trapping our protagonists into impossible decisions; gangster films are more often about the protagonists destroying themselves in their quests for more, which could be as specific as money or fame, or by some compulsive yearning that can be more abstract and indefineable, even to themselves.

In this discussion about Gu I'm also reminded a lot of Carlos, since that character also spends a lot of time in the final section of that film set in Sudan waiting for the inevitable capture, and he almost seems relieved when it comes as if he was afraid that if no police did capture him he would be left to waste away into irrelevance. Now with his capture he can start a new phase of his life as a media icon. Carlos has that sense of fatalism about his situation but he doesn't have the 'death drive' of Gu to actually set up the circumstances in which he will be captured or perhaps even killed - he is more of a stoic (with an added dash of narcissism), as portrayed in Assayas's film at least.

My overall point is that nobody in Melville's films "get what they want." And just because the criminals often end up dead or in jail, doesn't mean the police are patting each other on the back. His films are not simple good guy/bad guy allegories.

This is interesting - I was wondering whilst watching the film how big an influence that Henri-George Cluzot had over French cinema after Les diaboliques and The Wages of Fear, and I think you might see it here in the way that the protagonists often do succeed, but in ways that are unsatisfying for the viewer. That give us a narratively satisfying climax but also leave us somewhat devastated and exhausted at the utter waste of lives, and of effort.

[Mr Sausage]

Probably should've been more clear that I was talking about a fatalist attitude, which does tend towards doom-eagreness, than simple fatalism that believes that events are preordained. In my experience a fatalist attitude doesn't provoke resignation and patient endurance like a stoic attitude; it provokes a willful self-destruction. Fatalist attitudes have a corollary in the determination to meet one's fate.

Hamlet's ambivalence is an interesting subject, but then the character himself invites such a wide range of interpretation, from him actually slipping over in real rather than merely feigned madness to G. Wilson Knight's position that Hamlet himself is the canker at the heart of Denmark.

Here I think is the key way that Le Deuxieme Souffle is a gangster film rather than a film noir - film noir is often about the external world closing in and trapping our protagonists into impossible decisions; gangster films are more often about the protagonists destroying themselves in their quests for more, which could be as specific as money or fame, or by some compulsive yearning that can be more abstract and indefineable, even to themselves.

I still believe that both happen: the external world closes in on Gu (how else to explain his random abduction and the improbable tricked confession?), but a lot of the film is determined by his death drive as well.

[jindianajonz]

So perhaps it's not the code itself that's the problem, but Gu's chosen line of work, and the fact that he ultimately elevates the code above all else, when it's only ever meant to be a means to an end.

I discussed it in my lengthy post on the first page, but I think the real problem is that Gu abandoned the code following the robbery (either through disillusionment after completing the heist didn't satisfy him the way he expected, or because Blot was able to turn the code against him- incidentally, I think this is also the point where Gu stops being stoic and starts being fatalist, to borrow from Mr Sausage's arguements). The code itself did exactly what it should have- allowed criminals to steal large amounts of money. The only reason the plan failed is, well, I'll respond to Sausage's post with that.

A lot of plot points are determined by character choice, sure, but I always feel the added presence of Melville and co. organizing things so that the characters face difficult choices. I feel it especially in Gu's abduction and then the little ploy the police use to wring that false confession from him.

The commentary mentions that the character of Blot is a stand-in for the director himself, which I didn't really understand, but this helps clarify it a little.

but it still doesn't disguise the fact that none of either Gu's or Blot's choices following the robbery actually lead them to that meeting. It's still arbitrary.

I think the fact that Gu went from being extremely cautious while in Paris to openly walking around the streets of Marseilles implies that some of this is Gu's fault. Especially when compared to the way Gu rushed into his first safehouse while Alban distracted somebody in the doorway, it is clear that Gu is very much letting his guard down.

I didn't have time for a full Melville retrospective while preparing for these films, but I did rewatch the heist scenes for Bob le Flambeur and Le Circle Rouge, and these seemed to support my argument on the code. The heist in Bob le Flambeur never even got off the ground because of betrayals from within, while in le Circle Rouge (and I hope my memory isn't failing me) two men who don't know eachother other than by reputation are able to flawlessly pull off a heist. I honestly can't remember the end of that movie, so maybe there is something big at the end that I'm missing, but I don't think there's any question about whether or not following a code in Melvilles movies will allow you to be a successful criminal. The real issue is do you let personal grievances get in the way of the code, or is the criminal lifestyle one worth following? Given Melville's near complete lack of glamorization of the criminal lifestyle (the commentary points out that none of his protagonists "live large" the way American gangsters do; see also Le Samurai with Jef's spartan apartment) the second question seems especially relavent- why would any of these people want to continue a lifestyle that is so high risk and seemingly offers very little tangible benefits?

Isn't this a false dualism? Doesn't professional pride and individual/moral pride become indistinguishable in Gu?

I think they are separate in this world. Look at Gu and Orlaff- they both share the same professional code, but have different moral codes, as evidenced by Orlaff's unwillingness to kill police officers.

[Mr Sausage]

I think the fact that Gu went from being extremely cautious while in Paris to openly walking around the streets of Marseilles implies that some of this is Gu's fault. Especially when compared to the way Gu rushed into his first safehouse while Alban distracted somebody in the doorway, it is clear that Gu is very much letting his guard down.

Gu walks openly down the street because the movie needs him to get caught.

I think they are separate in this world. Look at Gu and Orlaff- they both share the same professional code, but have different moral codes, as evidenced by Orlaff's unwillingness to kill police officers.

Gu's professional code and his personal code of honour are indistinguishable. The proof of this is simple: no one dies for just their professional code if they're on their way out of the profession. We're dealing with people whose identity is bound up in their profession. Being a criminal isn't merely a day job.

A code of honour exists within a set of conventional values. Orloff and Gu share those conventions, but that is not the same as sharing a code of honour. Their codes could differ or be very similar, it makes no difference.