Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, who also took the lead role of a sanctimonious journalist, Deux hommes dans Manhattan is a procedural. Two men, journalist Moreau and photographer Delmas, investigate the disappearance of France’s ambassador to the U.N. Their nocturnal search takes them throughout the electric city and into “darkest Brooklyn”—a reference that always […]
Daily Archives: September 18, 2007
Dieudonné Ferchaux (Charles Vanel, excellent as usual) is a Parisian banker an imminent investigation of whose corrupt dealings has him taking off for the U.S., accompanied by a newly hired secretary, an ex-boxer beautifully played by Jean-Paul Belmondo. The boy’s voiceover has him introducing himself as Michel Maudet, but adding, “At least you can call […]
Because of its religious material, an inheritance from the autobiographical novel by Béatrix Beck on which it is based, Jean-Pierre Melville, an atheist, disparaged one of his most beautiful films, Léon Morin, prêtre—like his first film, Le silence de la mer (1947), set in a small town during the German occupation. The central character is […]
The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Films list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis Written by Mark Peploe, Peter Wollen and the director, Antonioni’s The Passenger, a baleful, delicately mournful mystery, tests assumptions about identity, responsibility, authority. Antonioni also […]
The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Films list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis “The father grew maize. His son sowed bullets. That black bull will charge if sufficiently provoked.” Mirt Sost Shi Amit is a Brechtian parable about […]
