Le Cercle Rouge

When one sits down to write about the work of Jean-Pierre Melville, you understand right away that you are dealing with a different animal. Try to plumb a Melville film for metaphor and hidden meaning, and you will be frustrated, because he doesn’t put that stuff up on a billboard. His films invariably contain similar elements: They are usually about men. These men are stoic and even cold, and don’t draw attention to how they go about their lives. They don’t talk much. They don’t laugh and they certainly don’t cry. A smile might happen on the odd occasion.

Melvilles 1970 masterwork Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) opens with an explanation of a Buddhist legend that states that men who are destined to meet, will invariably meet no matter what – Inside a red circle. This is a Melville fabrication, much like the writings that open Le Samurai, but that is irrelevant. This is the director’s device for getting us to buy into an incredible co-incidence that the rest of the film depends upon.

The film begins by following two plot threads; In one, a cop (Andre Bouvil) is escorting a dangerous criminal named Vogel (Gian Maria Volonte) by rail. At the same time, a thief named Corey (Alain Delon) is getting out of jail, but not before being informed by one of the jailers about a potential big heist. It is the particular genius of this film that Corey first states that he has no intention of going back to prison, but relents at the last moment and says something along the lines of “Well, Let’s hear the plan anyway”. Melville then cuts away from the scene before the jailer lays it out.

The film follows Corey as he pays a visit to a former employer who he “borrows” some money from. There are a couple of points to be made here. Corey feels he has earned the money because he didn’t rat on the other man. That’s his code – you take your punishment like a man, and don’t turn rat. Also, he leaves a photo of a woman in the place of the cash – The same woman who is waiting and listening in the next room. Corey probably utters fewer than ten words in this whole exchange, but this is plainly a power play; I am taking your money, and I have also had your woman. I’m tougher than you.

Meanwhile, Vogel has broken away from his captors in a move that is startling in its simplicity and nerve. He takes off on foot with dozens of police following him. The sheer volume of the police response in this sequence is used to point up that Vogel is a dangerous criminal. That is significant, because the film doesn’t actually come out and tell us what he has done. Again, Melville has given us info in an indirect way. We accept that Vogel is smart and dangerous.

The Buddhist saying at the beginning has already suggested that Corey and Vogel will ultimately meet, and this pre-selling allows us to not mind the contrivance when the escaping Vogel finds himself hiding out in Coreys trunk as he eats in a restaurant. What’s notable in this passage is the cool demeanor that Corey keeps. Although we don’t know it, he has seen Vogel get in the trunk, and knowing about the man-hunt, has deduced who he is. That’s what makes a scene where he goes through a police check-point so enthralling. Knowing he has the fugitive in his trunk, he is asked to open it, and is only rescued but a fortunate diversion. So what was Corey’s plan? We have no way of knowing, but his façade never cracks.

Eventually the movie introduces us to the third member of the team. Again, this character is pre-introduced to us as an ex-cop and expert marksman. When we actually see Jansen (Yves Montand), it is in a startling scene of him deep in the throes of alcoholic tremors. As he shivers in his bed, he is covered with live rats, lizards, and snakes. This literal illustration of delirium is a bit out of character for the rest of the film, but it is invaluable in establishing Jansen to us. When Corey calls him during this attack, he pretty much agrees to go along with the job sight unseen. Anything has to be better than what he is living through now.

It is also notable to see him during his meeting with Corey. Corey is checking him out, and the man he sees across from him is not the same man we saw earlier frothing at the mouth. Jansen is now cleaned up and sober, and well-dressed. He has grasped this heist as a drowning man grabs a life-preserver. Jansen is the most interesting character in LCR. While Corey and Vogel are pretty much just criminals, Montand as Jansen is a bit more. As a former cop who seems to have washed out due to the bottle and turned to crime, he is a man who carries scars. That’s why he grabs so hard onto this opportunity when it comes. He is proving to himself that he still has worth. He throws himself into preparation: Staking out the site, target practicing, and working to create the bullets he will use to do the job.

At the other end of the spectrum is the detective Mattei (Bouvil). Taking it as a personal affront that Vogel escaped literally right before his eyes, he is grimly determined to re-capture him. In much the same vein that Corey and Vogel have no real identity besides being crooks, so it is with Mattei and his police work. Melville only gives a couple of personal glances into Mattei, where he comes home and feeds his cats. It is interesting to note that the two short sequences are virtually identical to each other, suggesting that Mattei is a man who loves regimen and order. It’s easy to miss, but he has a photo of a woman in the apartment, as well, although there is no sign of her. Is it possible that she is gone due to her husband’s single-minded devotion to his job? Impossible to say, but we have at least been given a small hint.

The heist itself plays out in an extended sequence of some 25 minutes that is presented with no dialogue. We would expect nothing else, really. The men don’t talk much anyway, and each one knows their job, so there is nothing left but to just do it. Melville lingers over the minute details of the job, like cutting a hole in a window, or jimmying a door so that they can get back out. It’s also not hard to see that the collaborative aspect of the job is being celebrated.

Le Cercle Rouge has a bit of a curve ball for the viewer – Jansen does something during the job that seems like madness, but that we can appreciate. It dovetails completely with what we have already seen from him, and confirms that for him, the money was never the issue. Jansen needs to re-establish himself as a man, and the culmination of the robbery is his personal triumph. When he says he needed this job to get rid of “The beasts”, his colleagues don’t know what he is talking about, but we do.

The thing is, however, that the job has already started to unravel, due to an offhand remark by the jailer. This leads to a mysterious letter winding up on the desk of Mattei, and the proposed fence being unable to handle the stolen goods. The dominoes are starting to fall. As the investigation accelerates, Mattei takes the step of bringing in the young son of one of the suspects on a trumped-up pot charge. When the young man tries to kill himself with an overdose, Mattei quickly moves to try to use the event to his advantage. This scene leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth, and that is likely just what Melville intends. At a point early in the film Mattei is being grilled by his superior over Vogels escape and is told that “All men are guilty.” It’s no accident that this line comes back to Mattei when he is working this scam with the young son. The cop has just demonstrated that he can be just as calculating and cold as the men he pursues.

Think back to the quote that opens the film: “Men who are destined to meet, will meet.” It’s not logical that all four of the primary characters show up in the same place at the films conclusion, but in the context of this movie, it is inevitable. At one level, it’s the typical cop flick finale with a hail of bullets. In a Melville film, there is also the sense of a balancing of accounts. Jansen and Mattei were once colleagues on the police force, who went different routes. When they cross paths for the last time, Mattei is aghast to see who the third thief is. He may not have needed it, but here’s another illustration of something he already knows. All men are guilty.

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My commentary on Melville's Magnet of Doom