Le Doulos - Criterion Collection
 | Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, Fabienne Dali, Michel Piccoli The Criterion Collection, 1963, DVD |
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The backstabbing criminals in the shadowy underworld of Jean-Pierre Melville's Le doulos have only one guiding principle: Lie or die. A stone-faced Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as enigmatic gangster Silien, who may or may not be responsible for squealing on Faugel (Serge Reggiani), just released from the slammer and already involved in what should have been a simple heist. By the end of this brutal, twisty, and multilayered policier, who will be left to trust? Shot and edited with Melville's trademark cool and featuring masterfully stylized dialogue and performances, Le doulos (slang for an informant) is one of the filmmaker's most gripping crime dramas.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Selected-scene audio commentary by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau, author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris
Video interviews with directors Volker Schlöndorff and Bertrand Tavernier, who served as assistant director and publicity agent, respectively, on the film
Archival interviews with Melville and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Serge Reggiani
Original theatrical trailer
New and improved subtitle translation
PLUS: A new essay by film critic Glenn Kenny
Though he had forced his way into French film culture by working entirely outside his country's studio system in the 1940s and 1950s, by the 1960s director Jean-Pierre Melville was working with larger budgets and well-known actors such as Jean-Paul Belmondo, star of Le Doulos. An extension of Melville's fascination with the existential milieu of American gangster films, Le Doulos presents New Wave icon Belmondo as Silien, a man newly released from prison and by reputation a professional informer. A figure, then, of possible duplicity and ambiguity, Silien is the perfect Melvillian hero, difficult to read but propelled by internal forces manifested as direct action. Maintaining friendships with both cop and crook, Silien's notoriety as a "finger man" who informs on the latter is underscored when one acquaintance, a police inspector (Daniel Crohem), waits in ambush for another, a burglar (Serge Reggiani), to perform his next job. But did Silien actually rat out the fellow? Melville pushes the envelope of our perceptions by making it appear Silien did, and then goes through the tale again to reveal another story. A much darker film than his celebrated Bob le Flambeur, Le Doulos is an absorbing tale of a world that seems to exist between light and shadow. — Tom Keogh
Title: Le Doulos - Criterion Collection
Sales Rank: 4802 in DVD
Actor: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, Fabienne Dali, Michel Piccoli
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Studio: The Criterion Collection, 2008-10-07, Theatrical Release: 1963
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Digital Sound, Mono, NTSC, Acpect Ratio 1.66:1
Languages: French (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Audience Rating: Unrated
Region Code: 1
Running Time: 109 minutes
Package Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches, 0.2 pounds
- I'm hard on movies
- Excellent movie, unpredictable plot, nice twists and turns, but the final results end up feeling a tad contrived - if it weren't for this last item, I'd give this a 5-star rating. The extras include runnin commentaries for 3 of the scenes, rather than for the whole movie, but the other extras give us insights into the director's complex… More reviews
- Betrayal and double crosses, style and irony, with some cool-looking trench coats
- To dramatize gangsters because of some fictitious "code"...to romanticize them by dressing them in trench coats with the collars pulled up and Borsalinos on their heads...is not just naive, it's downright silly. One wonders what Melville, with Cagney and Raft in his system, would have done with some modern thugs like Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, Peter "Rabbit"… More reviews
- Melville's Promise of Films Still to Come.
- Based on a novel by Pierre Lesou, Jean-Pierre Melville's French crime-thriller Le Doulos (The Finger Man) stars Jean-Paul Belmondo (Classe Tous Risques; Breathless) as Silien, a gangster recently released from prison and Maurice Faugel (Serge Reggiani), also an ex-con. As the film's title suggests, Silien may have informed on Faugel to the police following what should have been a simple heist.… More reviews
- A Theft and Revenge Story
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1962 Le Doulos (Criterion) ***
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- Melville on speed
- Le doulos = hat = police informant.
For Jean-Pierre Melville, this is a surprisingly fast-moving story based on the distrust between criminals, police and police informants. It turns into a fine whodunnit so it helps to keep you wits about you.
This is the second Jean-Paul Belmondo performance I've seen in a Melville films and they were both outstanding. He is more subdued in these… More reviews
