Le deuxième souffle (1966)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Jean-Pierre Melville

Writers:

José Giovanni (novel)
José Giovanni (dialogue) ...
(more)

Release Date:

1 November 1966 (France)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

Gustave Manda, better known as Gu, a dangerous gangster, escapes from jail. He goes to Paris to join Manouche and other friends...

Plot Keywords:

Gangster | Trap | Armored Car Robbery | Brutality | Motorcycle Cop

Cast

Lino Ventura	...	Gustave 'Gu' Minda
Paul Meurisse	...	Commissaire Blot
Raymond Pellegrin	...	Paul Ricci
Christine Fabréga	...	Simone - dite 'Manouche' (as Christine Fabrega)
Marcel Bozzuffi	...	Jo Ricci (as Marcel Bozzufi)
Paul Frankeur	...	Inspector Fardiano
Denis Manuel	...	Antoine Ripa
Jean Négroni	...	L'homme (as Jean Negroni)
Michel Constantin	...	Alban
Pierre Zimmer	...	Orloff
Pierre Grasset	...	Pascal
Jacques Léonard		(as Jack Leonard)
Raymond Loyer	...	Jacques, le notaire
Régis Outin		(as Regis Outin)
Albert Michel	...	Marcel le Stéphanois
Jean-Claude Bercq
Louis Bugette	...	Théo, le passeur
Albert Dagnant	...	Jeannot Franchi
Sylvain Levignac		(as Sylvain)
Roger Fradet
Roger Perrinoz
Jean De Beaumont
Marcel Bernier
J. Dubos
Pierre Gualdi
R. Pequignot
Betty Anglade
A. Layle
Nina Michelsen

Directed by
Jean-Pierre Melville

Writing credits
José Giovanni		(novel "Un reglement de comptes")
José Giovanni		(dialogue) and
Jean-Pierre Melville		(dialogue)
Jean-Pierre Melville		(adaptation)

Produced by
André Labay	....	producer
Charles Lumbroso	....	producer

Original Music by
Bernard Gérard		(as Bernard Gerard)

Cinematography by
Marcel Combes

Film Editing by
Michèle Boëhm		(as Michele Bohem)
Monique Bonnot

Production Design by
Jean-Jacques Fabre

Set Decoration by
Guy Maugin

Costume Design by
Michel Tellin

Production Management
Marcel Correnson	....	unit manager: Marseille
Raymond Favre	....	unit manager (as R. Favre)
Francis Peltier	....	assistant unit manager
Robert Porte	....	unit manager: Paris
Alain Quefféléan	....	production manager (as Alain Queffelean)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Jean-François Adam	....	assistant director
Ole Michelsen	....	second assistant director
Georges Pellegrin	....	assistant director

Art Department
Jean Dardeau	....	property master
Claude Thery	....	upholsterer
Daniel Villeroy	....	property master: furniture

Sound Department
Jacques Gallois	....	sound recordist
Alex Pront	....	sound director
Alex Pront	....	sound mixer

Camera and Electrical Department
Jean-Claude Boussard	....	assistant camera
Jean Charvein	....	camera operator
Jacques Nibert	....	assistant camera
Vincent Rossell	....	still photographer (uncredited)
Joseph Tavera	....	still photographer (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Catherine Moulin	....	assistant editor
Ziva Postec	....	assistant editor

Other crew
Roger Cosson	....	collaborator
François Dupont-Midi	....	collaborator (as François Dupont-Midy)
Suzanne Durrenberger	....	script girl
Paulette Laubie	....	jewels
Louis Seuret	....	location manager
Henri Tiquet	....	collaborator
Claude Vériat	....	collaborator (as Claude Veriat)

Production Companies

• Les Productions Montaigne

Distributors

• S.N. Prodis (1966) (France) (theatrical)
• Criterion Collection, The (2008) (USA) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Hortensia  music publisher

Also Known As:

Second Breath
Second Wind (USA) (informal English title)

Runtime:

150 min | West Germany:117 min (theatrical version)

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Company:

Les Productions Montaigne

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Nel cuore della notte (2002)

An Exercise In Style That Transcends That Status

Why do I always care about thieves in heist films, no matter how bad they are? As is common in Jean-Pierre Melville's later films, this meticulously crafted crime film opens with a title card that epigrammatically sets out a foreboding epigram that molds ostensible meaning into the action: "A man is given but one right at birth: to choose his own death. But if he chooses because he's weary of his own life, then his entire existence has been without meaning." It's invariably inhibiting to totally apply these fatalistic, existential aphorisms to the films that thus proceed, but they tend to cast a distinct outlook across the film. I'm not so sure that this slow, deliberate caper, or any of Melville's others for that matter, seeks all of the indications of this quote, but its pretext of fate, mortality and grim, solipsistic judgment corresponds with the essential themes of the film.

Like Le Cercle Rouge, Le Deuxième Soufflé is a nominal saga, an antithetical and composite film in which the life seems as if to impose and simultaneously exhale. Ventura's performance is both innate and disciplined by his claustrophobic settings. There are several instances set within moving cars, less to expand the atmosphere than to show the inhibition of the space they employ.

What frustrates and somewhat detaches me however is that Melville never seems to give his characters any involved cognitive measure. They're characterized and assessed by the black and white of their behavior. Gu is a ruthless, intractable and curtailed presence who gains recognition, even from Inspector Blot, another wonderfully named character, played by Paul Meurisse, who respects his deadly actions because he eventually complies with and doesn't veer from his dang "code."

Much of this 1966 cops-and-robbers film can be explained just in terms of its distilled preoccupation with the reference to the conventions regarding the treatment of Chandler, McBain, W.R. Burnett, Jim Thompson, stylish Hollywood crime dramas, and classic American gangster pictures. Melville's films in this mode have the element of photogenics, conformity to modern ideas and models nourished by a shadowy nonchalance and the characters' affectedly memorialized mannerisms. For instance when a dutiful thug prepares to meet the other gang members, casing the place first, but also anticipating the blanket preconditions of the scene. This dogmatic behavior underscores the salutary definitions of these characters, their movements having a textbook role. You can also see Melville's influence on Tarantino's Jackie Brown when the thug is dramatically pre-performing the differing poses of the impending standoff. Also, it's not until Gu changes into clothing more mindfully echoing that of a gangster that he is allowed to free himself from being so secretive and concealed.

The sullen, inflamed and exceedingly conventionalized quality of this typified film conveys Melville's immersion in the downbeat deliberation of the play of loyalty and destined disloyalty. With this transcendent crime film, as per Melville's usual, complete with another great title, Second Wind, Melville pushes the tonal qualities and gray scale of the image to new levels. The movie's preoccupation with issues of fellowship, abnormally all-consuming professionalism, silence, and duplicity reverberates with Melville's own distinction as an egocentric, tight-lipped, fringe-dwelling figure in French cinema, who despite his success never truly declared participation or involvement in any founded generation or evolution of filmmakers.