Bob Le Flambeur

	Rating: 5 out of 5 Release Date: 1956 Director: Jean-Pierre Melville Netflix Link IMDb Link

Aaaaah, Melville. I’ve been watching his films sparingly since there aren’t that many of them and he’s one of my favorite French directors. Melville just doesn’t have a bad film and this one is on par with everything else I’ve seen by him. It does have a heist, but the character, Bob, is less of a laconic gangster than Melville normally portrays. He is a worldly, old-time, happy-go-lucky, ex gangster who is trying to make it straight. Bob finds himself at odds with the world around him and, eventually, is forced into his old gangster ways by circumstance. The world is changing while he stands still, in contrast to his plucky protege, Paolo, who embraces change easily while Bob struggles.

Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard are generally credited with starting The French New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague), but most of the elements can be seen right here in Bob Le Flambeur, years before Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge (1958), Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959) or Godard’s Breathless (1960). Nouvelle Vague’s deep contrast shadows, hand-held camera, voyeuristic visual style, on-location shooting, unusual editing sequences, and narrative with lots of hip street lingo and indirect social commentary can all be found in this film. Melville rarely gets any credit, yet his influence on the world of film is incalculable. Godard acknowledges that this is his favorite Melville film and it’s quite obvious just how much influence it had. Everyone from Godard and Truffaut, to Scorsese and Tarantino have borrowed from it.

In context, Bob Le Flambeur was well ahead of its time, but even half a century later, it has an interesting, intricate story (written by the director) with great characters and cool direction. Bob Le Flambeur is a must-see for fans of French cinema.