Le Doulos
Jean-Pierre Melville
When he is released from prison, Maurice Faugel burgles and murders the fence responsible for the death of his wife. Once he has hidden his loot and the crime weapon, he prepares for a new break in with two accomplices, Silien and Rémy. But Silien, a friend of Commissaire Salignari, is a grass...
With : Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, Fabienne Dali, Michel Piccoli
Screenplay : Jean-Pierre Melville (d'après le roman éponyme de Pierre Lesou)
Image : Nicolas Hayer
Sound : Julien Coutellier
Editing : Monique Bonnot
Decors : Daniel Guéret
Screenplay : Jean-Pierre Melville (d'après le roman éponyme de Pierre Lesou)
Image : Nicolas Hayer
Sound : Julien Coutellier
Editing : Monique Bonnot
Decors : Daniel Guéret
Production : Rome-Paris-Films
Distribution: Tamasa Distribution
Distribution: Tamasa Distribution
"You have to choose... you can die, or you can lie", warns Melville at the beginning of the film, quoting Céline. Developing his favourite themes of ambiguity, lying, betrayal and façades, Melville lays down the foundations of a detective film, clearly influenced by the great American directors he admires, and in particular, John Huston, but which turns out to be far off the beaten track. "With Le Doulos (The Finger Man), Melville reaches the maturity of his "noir" style associating intense formal beauty with an extremely complex trompe-l'oeil scenario (...). His aestheticism, which may seem vacuous to the inattentive eye, is a wonderfully manipulative tool enabling the director to lead us to the traps the characters fall into, to involve us in the atmosphere of deceit and duplicity that is the source of the characters' cruelty" (Denitza Bantcheva).