Bob le flambeur (1956)

Bob le flambeur (1956)

For the lover of film noir, and the French dedicatee of American cinema, there is Jean-Pierre Melville's 1956 movie Bob le flambeur.

Mai oui, Bob le flambeur is a French film, but in many ways it could barely be more American.

It was made by director Jean-Pierre Melville who was obsesed with all things American, and who loved the gangster films of the 1930s, 40s and 50s so much, that he made many of his own.

In Bob Le Flambeur, we find is the first great hommage to noir, for Bob Le Flambeur is an outsider's view of American cinema, an attempt to make an American style film on foreign soil.  

The story features many film noir elements — it is set in the criminal underworld of a big city, and features a loner who at various times works on both sides of the law, even though he is essentially a crook. The urban settings and the odd camera angles will also be familiar to viewers of classic film noir, as will be one of the main themes — a man undone because of a woman.

Bob le flambeur has bags of film noir cred to commend it, and achieves its imitation of the American movies to perfection, and with plenty of French to spare. There is a conversation half way through the film, concerning whom imitated whom. Was Bob the first to imitate the Amercian hoods? Or did the Amercian hoods take the cue from his gang? One can sniff a whiff of the film asking the same question of itself

For those interested in the wider story of twentieth century cinema, Bob le Flambeur is sometimes presented as the first film of the French New Wave.  This is laregly because of technique, but of course, the new waver riffed greatly on the themes images and styles of film noir.

Number One Feature of "Bob Le Flambeur" is the many great street scenes of Pigalle, Montmartre and northern Paris, very often shot in the dawn.

In Bob le Flambeur, Jean-Piere Melville made a virtue of hand-held camera work, which was extremely unusual for its time, as was the jump-cutting.  Jump cutting, in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly, is something that is still odd today as it only serves to alert the viewer to the presence of the camera. But in 1956 it must have seemed mighty strange indeed.

Also in Bob Le Flambeur, there is also a strange but beautiful use of music — odd phrases are included, sometimes jazzy, sometimes classical, sometimes flimic and sometimes more baroque.  

Whatever they are, the music pops in and out of Bob Le Flambeur with no seeming logic, although it all works, and adds to the entertainment. It's a curiosity of style that is accentuated in the films of Jean-Luc Godard, which were to follow hot on the heels of this.

Gangsters in Pyjamas. French Film Noir.

In every resepct Bob Le Flambeur conforms to the classic characteristics of film noir — motif, visual style, mood, characterisation, paranoia and the use of anti-heroes. As in all good film noir, a virtue is made of criminality. The cops are crooked, of course, and surrounded by thugs, gamblers and a pimpin' wife-beater, Bob himself appears as a moralistic force, protective of a young girl alone in Montmartre, and refusing to help his friend who is on the run, for once again, violence against his female companion.

Comedy - Bob has a slot machine in a cupboard in his house. He takes this momentary hand releif, quite seriously.

Bob is a figure of warmth and even comedy. In one of the more ridiculous moments of what is already quite unusual fare, Bob opens a closet in his home, where he keeps a slot machine, proving himself the inveterate gambler. Here at this domestic oddity, and in close-up, Bob also claims never to win, which may well be the case. We've already noted that other than when the occasional coin toss goes his way, he doesn't much change in mood between winning and losing. Also, in this theme of gentleness, we must observe how the policeman on Bob's tail, really does want to save him from himself, and really tries to make this happen.

Melville had worked for the French resistance during World War Two and the struggle involved alliances not only with communists and left and right wing liberals - but with the criminal underworld, who played a largely unsung but important part in fighting the occupying Nazis.

During this time, Melville made contacts that were useful when he came to make crime thrillers.  The safecracker in Bob Le Flambeur, for example, was played by Rene Salgue, who was according to many, a real gangster.

Pigalle and Montmartre

Bob starts to win!

Not to spoil things, but Bob Le Flambeur is a comedy for sure, and although there is death at the climax, this is quickly forgotten as the loveable rogue fills the police car with his cash winnings, and looks forward to a reasonable stretch in jail . . . 

Although subtitled copies of Bob Le Flambeur may be hard to come by, it is not too hard to watch it in the original French, in which fashion it still works as an exciting viewing experience, simply because it's all about the sounds, settings and characters.

Bob le flambeur at Wikipedia