LE DOULOS
(THE FINGER MAN)
[900]

Stock Status: In Stock

$32.95

Label: BFI

Genre: Art House

Country: France

Year: 1963

Le Doulos (The Finger Man), based on Pierre Lesou's novel from the famous Serie Noire crime series, introduces the great run of gangster films that were to make Jean-Pierre Melville the greatest master of the genre outside the USA.

Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as Silien, underworld criminal and police informer and Serge Reggiani as the dogged villain Faugel, Melville creates a twilit world of ambiguity and betrayal, in which 'all characters are two-faced, all characters are false.'

This was the film he called 'my first real policier', and already the characteristic elements of the French film noir are in place; the bleak, downbeat atmosphere, the gangsters in their trench-coats and felt hats, American-style smoky jazz clubs and big-finned cars, themes of male friendship, loyalty and betrayal and always a sense of impending doom.

Le Doulos takes place in the edgy, alienated world of urban noir. It pays tribute to the American gangster films of the 1940s whilst retaining a uniquely French perspective. Where the Hollywood noir strives for clarity and simplification, Melville's films and Le Doulos in particular, retain their ambiguity throughout, leading to a dramatic final showdown.

Le Doulos was Meville's seventh feature, and by this stage his technique had become confident and assured. Women, as is usual in Melville's crime films, figure little and mostly in a negative light, but from his male actors he draws subtle performances, making effective use of Belmondo's shifty charm and Reggiani's frail tenacity. The film also features photography by Nicolas Hayer and a jazz score by Paul Misraki.

DVD FEATURES

Anamorphic (16:9) Widescreen (1.66:1) Version

French Audio

English Subtitles

Filmed introduction and commentary over selected scenes by French cinema expert and Melville biographer Ginette Vincendeau

Video interview with assistant director Volker Schlondorff

Original trailer

Director's biography

LE DOULOS

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Product 270 of 652 in category Art House

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LE DOULOS(THE FINGER MAN)[900]Stock Status: In Stock

$32.95

LE DOULOS
(THE FINGER MAN)
[900]

Stock Status: In Stock