As mentioned, I’ll stick with older films in the crime genre but this time I’ll look at how they do it around the globe. (Although I remain very much unconvinced a fedora has any place in 21st century fashion)Ī few weeks ago I took a look at Italian crime films from the 1970’s available on Kanopy. The era before most urban landscapes became dominated by a glut of global franchises creating a look of sameness.Īnd just maybe since I haven’t worn anything that includes a collar for over 6 weeks I enjoy a little nattiness on the screen – because I sure don’t see it when I look in the mirror these days. One thing that draws me to of the films I’m going to look at is that being from the 1950s – 1970s they give me a chance to see the character of cities like Paris and London as they used to be. No doubt about it, times are hard right now so maybe it’s the relief that comes after watching the action and telling yourself “Well…at least I’m having a better day than those guys there.” Sure you have spent 23 of the last 24 hours inside but you’re still probably thankful that it’s not you who is on the lam (unless it’s the ever-cool Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Breathless in which case maybe you wouldn’t mind being them…just for a bit.) Why are people drawn to crime films? Maybe similar to horror films, there is some degree of escapism, but also catharsis and perhaps curiosity about how (or if) it will all be resolved by the time the end credits roll. Always popular, they keep coming to the screen year after year. I gravitate towards crime movies in all their varieties: the heist film, the gangster film, prison break film, police procedural and so on. The biggest genre out there may be the one that I’ll refer to broadly as crime films. Okay, I’ll stop before I get arrested for torturing the metaphor any further. And best of all? No one has to split up the riches! (If I’ve learned anything after watching a lot of crime films I’ve come to appreciate that the divvying up of spoils is so often where things go very wrong) But it’s a different outcome for the audience – they make their getaway from the experience all the richer with a metaphorical loot-bag of rewards for their eyes, ears and mind – not a bad haul for their viewing efforts. Jacques Becker’s 1954 heist thriller Touchez pas au grisbi was the comeback he needed, and it propelled him into a successful second act, which lasted until his death in 1976.In the movies, crime might not pay quite the opposite generally. Following a brief, less successful stint in Hollywood and a period of fighting with the Allies in North Africa during World War II, Gabin saw his film career slow down, and he appeared mostly in supporting roles for a while (including in Ophuls’s Le plaisir).
” Soon after Pépé, Renoir’s antiwar masterpiece Grand Illusion hit, and it was an even bigger smash, cementing Gabin’s superstar status in this and all of his most successful roles ( La bête humaine, Le jour se lève), Gabin played some form of working-class social outcast, and he always provided audiences with a strong point of identification.
As Michael Atkinson has written for Criterion, “Without its iconic precedent, there would have been no Humphrey Bogart, no John Garfield, no Robert Mitchum, no Randolph Scott, no Jean-Paul Belmondo (or Breathless or Pierrot le fou), no Jean-Pierre Melville or Alain Delon, no Steve McQueen. His work with director Julien Duvivier would prove his most important: they collaborated on two successful films in the midthirties ( Maria Chapdelaine and La bandera), but it was their third, Pépé le moko, that, in creating the romantic criminal antihero archetype, shot Gabin into the stratosphere. This led to roles in silent films, but it was with the advent of sound that Gabin found his true calling-even if his quiet stoicism was what he would become best known for. He eventually followed in his family’s footsteps, though, appearing onstage at various Paris music halls and theaters, including the Moulin Rouge. Though his parents were cabaret performers, Gabin-born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in 1904-put off show business at first, working instead as a laborer for a construction company. With his penetrating gaze, quiet strength, and unshakeable everyman persona, Jean Gabin was the most popular French matinee idol of the prewar period, and remains one of the great icons of cinema.
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