Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966)

 Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Deuxieme Souffle"


By 1966, the 'gangster flick' was a nostalgic genre of film that wasn't too prevalent in the modern landscape. Particularly, the French gangster flick, which had its heyday fairly recently, as that style held prominence in the 1950s, before the explosion of New Wave cinema. So, when Jean-Pierre Melville released "Le Deuxieme Souffle," a modern gangster film, it breathed life into the stagnant genre - while also exploring the possibility for the genre to go in the modern age. This exploration opened the door for late 60s political and crime films, and even created a new landscape in the 70s with the array of crime films that were to come - especially in the U.S.

The film feature an ensemble of various characters, but mostly centers on Gu - a widely respected gangster in the French underworld. He is widely known for never giving the police any information on his accomplices, which is why he is in prison at the beginning of the film. After escaping prison and saving his love interest from extorters, the police have a target on his back. Before leaving the country, he does one last job. However, when the police catch him, they smear his name and make the entire criminal underworld believe he gave up the name of his accomplices. 

While watching "Le Deuxieme Souffle,' I noticed that the pace and ambiance of the film far more matched the crime dramas of what was to come in the 1970s far more than the classic crime and gangster flicks of the previous decades. The pace of the film felt more dramatic and less like a serial. Perhaps why this felt like a deviation of the traditional standard of the genre - Melville treated the characters and situations far more like a dramatic film than an action or commercial crowd-pleaser.

Because of this, there is a far greater emotional attachment to each character and their place in the story, rather than just the story itself and how it will resolve. This has a far greater effectiveness on emotional stakes, stoking the viewers' interest in people rather than situations. The stakes feel higher, because we care about Gu and his ability to clear his name and escape the police.

Overall, I had a great time with "Le Deuxieme Souffle." It still was a commercial piece that didn't offer much depth thematically. But, its central focus on characters navigating their criminal lives creates an emotional palette that is felt far more than most typical films of the genre. Not only this, "Le Deuxieme Souffle" created an idea for how the genre would springboard into the cinematic future.



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