Second Wind (1966) User Reviews

The Second Chance of a Desperate Man

[mackjay2 · 7/10 · 12 January 2007]

Painstaking detail and near-real-time narrative pace characterize THE SECOND BREATH (WIND). This is another in Melville's series of caper films in which the viewer is shown the entire process of planning and executing the crime. But, like the director's other fine films, this one is also about the characters. Most of the detail is used to bring insight into these desperate men, especially the main protagonist. On several occasions, Melville has given us a nearly washed-up criminal as a main character and here we are given one of the hardest-boiled examples: Gustave "Gu" Minda (Lino Ventura). At the film's outset, Gu escapes from prison and turns violently on one of his fellow escapees. This sets the tone for the entire narrative of distrust and double-crossing. Gu is interesting to us, but not truly sympathetic. Desperate for his 'second wind', Gu plans to accumulate enough money to leave France, preferably with his mistress, and avoid re-capture. When a fellow crime-boss offers him a part in his latest robbery caper, Gu takes him up. The film alternates between Gu and Commissaire Blot (Paul Meurisse) the police chief who is as committed to capturing Gu as Gu is to escaping. We need not be too concerned with the final outcome: it's pretty clear what it will be. Gu is ultimately a pathetic man, a sort of 'tragic criminal' whose fall from power leaves him disillusioned and worthless. This is one of Melville's more violent tales. To achieve his ends, Gu does not shy away from cold-blooded murder in more than one scene. A latter-day Film Noir in which fate plays a major role, it's not Melville's best film, but it deserves to be seen by anyone interested in this director.

A Realistic Police Story

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 14 May 2013]

Three prisoners break from the prison and the notorious Gustave 'Gu' Minda (Lino Ventura) is the only one that survives. He heads to Paris where he meets his lover Manouche (Christine Fabrega) and his friend and Manouche's bodyguard Alban (Michel Constantin) that take him to a hideout. Meanwhile the smart Commissary Blot (Paul Meurisse) is investigating a shooting plotted by the mobster Jo Ricci (Marcel Bozzufi) and the gangster Jacques the Lawyer (Raymond Loyer) that is murdered.

Gu decides to travel to Italy but he is short of money; his friend Orloff (Pierre Zimmer) invites him to participate in the heist of an armored truck with his friend Paul Ricci (Raymond Pellegrin) and the gangsters Antoine (Denis Manuel) and Pascal (Pierre Grasset) in Marseille. The talkative Inspector Fardiano (Paul Frankeur) is responsible for the investigation, but the persistent Commissary Blot believes that Gu is behind the scheme.

"Le Deuxième Soufflé" is a realistic police story by Jean-Pierre Melville with great performances. It is impressive how I did not feel the 150 minutes running time, since the screenplay is very well written. The code of honor of Gu contrasts with the lack of ethics of the police detectives. The duel between Gu and Blot is another attraction of this great movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Os Profissionais do Crime" ("The Professionals of the Crime")

a classic film noir set in Paris and Marseilles

[dromasca · 9/10 · 31 March 2020]

Nowadays, films that last more than two hours or even two and a half hours are no longer a rarity, on the contrary, they have become almost the norm. This was not the case in 1966, when Jean-Pierre Melville directed 'Le Deuxième Souffle', a 'film noir' that assimilates and synthesizes the film experiments of the French New Wave, of which Melville was very close, but at the same time has a classic structure and narrative, starting from José Giovanni's documentary novel which it brings to screens (Giovanni also wrote the film's dialogues). More than five decades after its making, the film has a stylish look (perhaps due to the use, for the last time in Melville's career of black and white film) but also a modernity and a cursivity that make it easy and interesting to watch. I didn't get bored at any point and I never had feeling that the movie (which I saw in the full 150-minute version) is too long.

Jean-Pierre Melville addresses here a theme that he will continue in subsequent films and especially in 'Le Samouraï', which I consider to be his cinematographic masterpiece - the theme of the honor code of the mob. Solidarity among those in the dark side of the law requires mutual protection among criminals, including rivals, in the contacts with the law officers and imposes absolute silence even under the toughest investigations. The informers and those who collaborate with the police are, according to this 'moral' code, the lowest human species, and the fate that awaits them is death. The film begins with the escape of Gustave 'Gu' Minda, the main hero of the film, played by the wonderful Lino Ventura, from the prison where he was serving a life sentence. When the police inspector who follows him uses an illegal recording to compromise him, the recovery of his honor becomes more than an obsession for him, more important than love and even life.

This is one of the solid and generous roles in Lino Ventura's career, a role that suits him wonderfully. A few other excellent actors surround him: Michel Constantin, known from many other gangster films, Paul Meurisse whom I knew from the classic 'Diabolique' made a decade ago as a talkative and shrewd police inspector, and Christine Fabréga, whom I did not know until now, takes upon with aplomb the role of the hero's hopeless girlfriend. The cinematography cleverly applies the lessons learned by Melville during his Nouvelle Vague period, bringing to screen Paris and Marseille with their shadows, bars and nightclubs, with jazz music in the background in the style of the American films adored by the young French directors of the period. The arid and spectacular landscape of the southern roads of France is an excellent setting for spectacular pursuits and heists, and we also have the opportunity to see the old port of Marseille as it looked before the renovations that turned it into a tourist destination. 'Le Deuxième Souffle' is an excellent gangster movie, but also a psychological film, accurate and believable in character building, which deserves to be seen for much more reasons than nostalgia.

One of Melville's best

[mim-8 · 10/10 · 30 January 2010]

Jean-Pierre Melville and his long standing infatuation with Hollywood "Film Noir",which he was the most devoted follower of, in entire history of French cinema, produced the whole line of best French crime pictures ever. In this one, he's in absolute top form on this neatly constructed, no nonsense caper film. Building a story of old school criminals with sense of criminal honesty and honor, around 800 million heist, Melville, tells many stories, from human relations, betrayals and greed, to love and friendship that will go all the way.

The dialogs are great. Witty police inspector Comissaire Blot, beautifully portrayed by Paul Meurisse and Lino Ventura's Gustave "Gu" Minda,play the game of cat and mouse with no unnecessary talk, and no unnecessary action. Melville devoted a lot of attention to detail, and this film deservedly looks like a crime-action documentary, with no plot holes or "how the hell this or that could have happened" types of questions for the viewer, which is very important for mature audiences that appreciate classic films. I think that this may be the best film Melville made in the 60's, even better than "Army of Shadows" or the "Samourai",and was the last he made in his own studio that burned up during the production of "Samourai" in 1967, which may explain the possibilities he had, to devote time and attention to details. If you appreciate a good crime picture, be sure not to miss it.

Melville doesn't run out of breath.

[Naoufel_Boucetta · 8/10 · 25 December 2020]

Melville's 'Le deuxième souffle' as many of his other works, reflects the same particular and distinctive style of Melville. The film proposes more or less all Melville's usual themes (relations and tensions between cops and thugs, violence, loyalty, forbidden love and friendship). Melville managed the film admirably with coherent storytelling, masterful directing, slow but infinitely good rhythm and especially his intriguing characters, portrayed by a fantastic cast. An excellent dramatic crime film that marks Jean-pierre Melville's iconic era.

A great watch.

A not very well known, but essential film in the oeuvre of Jean Pierre Mellvile

[frankde-jong · 8/10 · 31 March 2020]

Jean Pierre Melville was an "einzelganger" in French cinema. He did not belong to the Nouvelle vague (although his career took place during the heydays of this movement), but he certainly wasn't a part of the "cinema du papa" (as the nouvelle vague directors derogatory described their predecessors) either. "Le deuxieme souffle" is not the most well known picture from the oeuvre of Melville, but it is a connecting link between the pure film noir of "Bob le flambeur" (1956) and the more abstract (but still film noir) films such as "Le samourai" (1967) and "Le cercle rouge" (1970).

"Le deuxieme souffle" is not noticeable because of an innovative plot. The criminal who comes out of prison and wants to set some things straight and also wants to make one major robbery before he retires, we all have seen it a dozen times before. It is the way Melville tells this story.

One element you can't miss is the way each milieu has it's own code of honor. Gustave Minda (Lino Ventura) is a criminal who doesn't hesitate for a second when the job requires that he has to kill a couple of people ("Le deuxieme souffle" is a very raw film), but he is very anxious not to be known as a talebearer by his "colleagues". On the other hand commissaire Blot (Paul Meurisse) has to deal with very ruthless people, and in a way he understands them and sees through them. When however another commissair uses violent interrogation techniques, he takes measures to keep his profession clean.

Just like in "Le samourai" the opening scene is silent for a very long time. In this opening scene we see the escape of Gustave Minda and two other inmates. The way that Gustave has to struggle to keep pace with his fellow inmates tells us (without the use of a single word) that he is already an aging criminal.

Just like in "Du rififi chez les hommes" (1955, Jules Dassin) the preparations for the great robbery are shown in great detail. During this preparations Gustave has to hide, after all he is a prisoner on the run. Much of the movie is therefore situated in cramped claustrophobic rooms. To juxtapose all this, the execution of the crime is situated in the most open of landscapes imaginable.

A realistic quasi-noir crime drama

[larrywest42-610-618957 · 9/10 · 2 August 2018]

I don't speak French, but the acting and the subtitled dialog are outstanding throughout.

The plot and each situation, each conversation, is completely credible, and follows naturally, yet not predictably, from what came before.

A note to younger audiences: there are no highly choreographed fight scenes or stylized gun battles (though there are fights and shooting). No throw-away romantic interest. No noticeable special effects. No wisecracking. No mood music telling you what to feel.

So, if you're used to recent Hollywood fare, it may seem slow.

But, to this noir-lover, it feels fresh, yet as gritty as a run-down apartment in a hundred year-old building.

Not the masterpiece we wanted

[bob998 · 6/10 · 16 October 2016]

I'll start with a quote from Alphonse Boudard, regarding the tendency to make crime films like Greek tragedy: Melville wants to remake the Atreidae among criminals. He means that these stories of desperate men settling scores between themselves in the bloodiest fashion possible (I lost count of the corpses in this picture) can't carry the weight of classical tragedy. The excessive length of the film (Le Samourai clocks in at 100 minutes, Un flic at 94--these stories are not much less complicated than Deuxieme souffle), means there must be scenes that drag on, until the dramatic effect is totally lost. The platinum heist seems to last forever, and it is meant to be the one big suspense moment.

The actors don't do well in general. Pierre Zimmer, playing Orloff, is given silly lines about what he has to do with Gu, if there's betrayal, but he comes off so stiff you want to fast-forward through his scenes. Lino Ventura acts well, has lots of charisma, but looks old--and his age is commented on by the younger thugs. Christine Fabrega is so terribly stiff and sculptural, you wonder how she was hired to play Manouche. It seems Simone Signoret was intended for the part, but dropped out--a great pity. Signoret would have delivered the vitality and strength that are so conspicuously lacking in Fabrega. There's only one stand-out performance: Paul Meurisse is so elegant and smart as Blot that the story takes off every time he comes into the frame. If you have seen Les Diaboliques, you'll know how good he is.

The camera work is mediocre; a washed-out b/w that looks more like television than Melville's great pictures of the 50's. Le deuxieme soufflé is one of the lower points in this man's output.

Very well written and played--this one is a thinking person's crime film

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 24 January 2009]

"Le Deuxième Soufflé" is an excellent crime film--mostly because it emphasizes realism as opposed to sensationalism. Now this isn't to say the film isn't exciting, but it certainly is one that has a much slower pace than usual and excessive attention is paid to the details--so much that you'd swear this is almost a crime documentary instead of fiction.

The film begins with a daring breakout from prison. Gustave 'Gu' Minda is lucky and makes it over the wall safely. It turns out he was #1 on France's most wanted list ten years earlier and so naturally it makes quite a sensation when he escapes. The first half of the movie have a lot to do with his escape and his life in hiding. However, despite hiding, he does have a few adventures along the way that I won't elaborate on because it would spoil the suspense.

A bit later, while waiting for a way out of the country, Gu is a bit bored and jumps at a chance to pull one last job--a very, very BIG job where 800,000,000 francs worth of platinum is on the line. Once the job has been completed, though, the film is far from over and the police naturally are combing the country for Gu and the money--though they really don't know if he had anything to do with it or who his accomplices are.

Now there is one minor detail about the film I didn't like. While Gu has changed his appearance and relocated from Paris to Marseilles, he sure seemed pretty out of character late in the film. Despite being such a brilliant and careful prisoner, he takes walks about the city! Why? Well, I have no idea and it's not surprising that he's finally caught. However, once again, there is much more to this 150 minute film--a lot of twists and turns that occur because Gu, though generally amoral, will do anything to convince his fellow criminals that he has a strong sense of honor and integrity. I liked this because it did give him some depth and the finale was indeed exciting.

The film is very much like a French version of Film Noir. In general, the French did their Noir a bit later than Hollywood and this continued through the 1960s--after Hollywood had gone on to other things. Making this film in black and white was a great choice, as it heightened the Noir look and it as well as "Bob le Flambeur" and "Le Samourai" are among the best in this French genre. Not to be missed.

Solid Gangster Flick - Le Deuxieme Souffle

[arthur_tafero · 6/10 · 19 February 2021]

This French film is quite long; an hour longer than most other gangster films. However, all the characters are well-developed, there is plenty of action, and the only problem of the film is that is gets a bit talky at times. The second problem of the film is that it has no real protagonist; we know the bad guys will come to a bad end and justice will be served. As heist films go, this one is pretty good, even though it is quite similar to Odds Against Tomorrow (even has similar music). But my favorite scene is the French dancing girls at Club Ricci. Isn't there always a club in a good gangster flick? Well worth your time.

Another of Melville's existential thugs struggling with the Code, and with 144 minutes to do it in

[Terrell-4 · 8/10 · 8 November 2008]

Nearly two-and-a-half hours is a long, long time in the movies, especially so when Jean- Pierre Melville is once more demonstrating his passion for hard boiled gangsters. With Le Deuxieme Soufflé (Second Breath), it seems to me that Melville has given us some extraordinary set pieces of heists, shoot-outs and chases...including one roll-along-the-floor while-shooting-a-gun-in-each-hand and-plugging-all-the-guys-who were-going-to-plug-you that now has become a pretty-boy-actor-as-tough-guy cliché. They are embedded, however, in an over-long story featuring yet one more of Melville's existential heroes that he came to obsess about. Melville underlines it all with his stoic gangster code of conduct, illustrated by the pretentious words that start this movie: "A man is given but one right at birth: To choose his own death. But if he chooses because he's weary of life, then his entire existence has been without meaning." Let me tell you something...nothing, nothing will go right as long as Gu Minda, cold-blooded murderer with a soft spot for Manouche, believes his buddies think he ratted them out. The Code won't permit it.

Is this to deny that Melville was a great director? Hardly, but it is to recognize that Melville was human: He didn't always make great movies; his preoccupation with gangsters and their fictitious code of conduct was limiting; his indulgence in what passes as "style" in the gangster milieu could appear, in my opinion, downright silly; and as a screenwriter he was capable of some corny gangster dialogue (or at least he was ill-served at times by the subtitle writers). With all this, the director who could give us Army of Shadows, with its terrible themes, its remorselessness and its humanity, is a great director. The director who could give us Bob le Flambeur, with its irony, its humanity and its tight, story-telling prowess, is a great director with a sense of humor. Watch Army of Shadows and Bob le Flambeur (and Le Cercle Rouge) first, then Le Deuxieme Soufflé and Le Samourai...and come to your own conclusions. The devil of it with Le Deuxieme Soufflé is that great stretches of the movie are gripping, Lino Ventura (with that hard, tired face) and Paul Meurisse are first- rate and Melville never lets us have less than a superbly presented series of scenes. But, in my opinion, his series of scenes, some lengthy, don't add up to a tightly realized movie, especially at over two-and-a-half hours.

Gu Minda (Lino Ventura) is a cop-killing gangster who has just broken out of prison. Gangsters he knows have been moving in on his turf. Two hoods threaten Manouche, his long-time girl friend (Christine Fabrega), in her apartment. Gu intervenes, and with a friend drives the hoods to the country. Gu guns them down in the car. Inspector Blot is after Gu. Blot is resourceful and relentless. Gu has no money. He's determined on one last heist with a big payday before he and Manouche flee France. Inspector Blot will not make things easy. When Gu realizes his honor has been compromised, he won't leave France until he sets things straight. Don't expect a happy ending. With Melville's code of the existential gangster, there never is.

While the plot is simple, Melville embellishes it with any number of twists and turns, sneaky actions, a coincidence or two and some satisfying betrayals, plus a long, extremely well-done set piece on how to hi-jack a van full of platinum. In this gangster movie there is no gangster arm candy, only Manouche. Fabrega was 35 when the movie was released. Lino Ventura was 47. Through the alchemy of genes and make-up, they make their characters about same age. Fabrega looks her years and is all the more believable because of this desirable maturity. She gives to Gu what little sympathy we have for him. It would be difficult to say -- between Ventura with Gu's grim, murderous honor and Meurisse with Blot's sardonic realism and intelligence -- who gives the film more interest. It might depend on your tolerance for thug killers who agonize about their reputations.

Dull with some good bits

[StevieGB · 6/10 · 24 July 2003]

I saw this at London's National Film Theatre last night and I must admit to being more than a little bit disappointed. This appears to mark the turning point where Melville lost all real interest in character (after the wonderful Le Doulos and the underrated L'Aine Des Ferchaux) and turned his attention to set piece robberies and shoot outs. The problem is, that this is still a long and wordy script, with an awful lot of very pointless talk, connecting up some visually excellent scenes. The highlight of the film, the hijack of an armoured car on a deserted mountain road, foreshadows the action techniques -shaky camerawork, fast cutting - used by Ridley Scott in Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and Hannibal; unfortunately it's over in seconds. There are other great scenes, but dramatically they lead nowhere. For example, one gangster scouts the site of an intended meeting, works out where he might be standing when there's trouble, and hides a gun nearby. When he leaves, an adversary comes into the room, goes through the same thought processes, and finds and removes the gun. But the scene never pays off, as the first gangster never ends up reaching for the missing weapon. Performance wise two people stand out - Paul Meurisse as the compassionate, intelligent and very, very funny Inspector Blot, and Pierre Zimmer as Orloff, the gangster who serves as the moral touchstone for his peers.

About three quarters of the way through the film turns from an escaped convict and heist movie into the story of a man trying to prove that he hasn't been a police informer/collaborator. As with a lot of Melville's gangster vs police movies (a big favourite with the French) you can't help feeling that he's really dealing with the issue of wartime resistance to the German occupation. To my mind, though, Melville seems more interested in shoring up the myth of resistance rather than dealing with the truth (as Louis Malle tried to in Lacombe, Lucien, resulting in his effective exile from France for the rest of his life).

The scene where Paul is interrogated by the police was apparently edited at the insistence of France's censors to remove the scenes of water being poured down his throat. What remains is a very obviously edited scene which doesn't work.

Anyway, not an awful movie, but a messy one. Can't help feeling that maybe Melville got interested in something else and couldn't be bothered to finish it properly.

Fell asleep twice.

Breath taking

[Ore-Sama · 8/10 · 2 August 2015]

What I find is that a great film of great length, whether slow paced or not, is life a sheep in wolf's clothing. However intimidating a run time may look, the greats go by quicker than many 90 minute efforts. Whether it's Solaris(1972) and Andrei Rubev(1966) in just short o9f 3 hours, or Seven Samurai(1954) and Godfather II(1974) in excess of 200 minutes, there films to me never feel their length and always justify it. While many have commented on "Second Wind" (using the English title for simplicity's sake) running time, rest assured, it too is deceptive.

The film opens abruptly into the finale of an escape sequence from prison, giving no breathing room as you are thrown into the action. One man dies but the other two make it out, as we go to an atmospheric opening credits sequence of the two running through the forest, with little to no music. Only one of the escapees is of concern to us, Gustave Minda (regularly called Gu), put behind bars for a train robbery gone wrong. He comes back to his old stomping grounds, rescuing his sister and loyal friend from a pair of thugs. Their murder further brings heat down on him in a case led by Blot, a wise cracking but crafty inspector. Many plot points are running intersect, including a battle over the cigarette business and the forming of a heist, the latter of which Gu is drawn into in order to have some money when he leaves the country. While there are a lot of characters and going ons to keep track of, as long as one is paying attention, following along is simple, as Melville masterfully brings these plot points together.

This is a dialogue and character heavy movie, making it more similar to "Bob the Gambler" (1955) than "Le Samurai(1967). While maybe not as snappy as Godard, or Tarantino for a more modern example, Melville's films were always strong in dialogue, and this is no exception. This movie is composed of a string of home running scenes. Whether it's humorous, like inspector Blot's sarcastic rant on the unwillingness of a restaurant's employees and customers to comment on the shooting that had occurred, or serious, such as a trio of gangsters confronting a man they believe set them up, there are no wasted scenes or dull moments, whether five minutes or twenty. There's nothing here story wise that is of particularly new ground: a noir style fatalism, a police force as corrupt as the criminals they pursue, political intrigue and betrayals, however it doesn't matter. Originality is welcome but not necessary in anything, and here we see these familiar threads executed with such enthusiasm, backed by strong performances all around, that it hardly matters whether one has seen these things before. If there is one possibly original aspect, it is in it's ending which I won't spoil here. It's a small, but important moment, and much like his follow up "Le Samurai"(1967), widely open to interpretation.

Melville is known for his awesome visuals and mood, and this is no exception. His love of noir is apparent in the perfectly dark lighting, combined with an often minimal soundtrack that aids in creating a mood of dread in many scenes. This is actually a much more subdued effort for Melville in that regard, but it works here as the focus is much more on story and characters.

Not to be missed for fans of crime films.

not bad at all, actually very good and meticulously structured heist movie, but not great

[Quinoa1984 · 8/10 · 12 November 2008]

I had seen nearly everything that is readily available from Jean-Pierre Melville in the United States by the time I got to Le Deuxieme soufflé, which may be part of why I didn't respond overwhelmingly to it. After such challenging, methodical and precisely existential crime masterpieces as Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, Bob le flambeur and the underrated Le Doulos, this one just seemed to not pack the same kind of punch that the others did. Again, this may be the fault on the viewer for seeing this last among his mostly thriller-oriented oeuvre, but perhaps it's also some of Melville's fault too; again and again, as the dedicated and ruthless auteur that he was (one of the great French directors I would argue), he kept coming back to men in trench-coats with grim expressions figuring out on both sides- criminal and detective- of how to plot the next move or, for the former, how to keep from the fatalism of the plot.

Which, for Melville, is something that comes second nature. The difference, perhaps, in this case is that the length (a whopping two and a half hours, longer than both The Red Circle and Army of Shadows) and the amount of details in the structure of the story (i.e. what happened on such and such a day made this happened could've been snipped, albeit I can't pinpoint to which) bog down some of the more successful aspects to the picture. Which is also to say that for all of its minor misgivings, Le Deuxieme soufflé (or, simply, The Second Breath) is near-classic Melville, with nail-bitingly tense suspense scenes like the opening escape from the prison and the latter heist sequence- somewhat more obvious and less coolly ambitious as Red Circle.

There's the amazing cinematography as well, a trademark of Melville and his crew to make things gritty but smooth in precision and style, and the performances from Paul Meurisse as the Detective (maybe my favorite performance of the picture just for the intelligence he imbues in the character), and Lino Ventura as one of the quintessential Melville anti-heroes, Gu, the convict who wants in on the big 200 million heist. And even as it could be Melville's most "talky" picture after Bob le flambeur (which is relative to how pleasantly light, or how seemingly sparse, his films are with dialog), when the characters speak it's to the point of with some quotable spunk to them.

There's an icy, unspoken angst in Melville's world of criminals, almost questioning but still true to the notion of the 'policier', where you'd want the criminals to get away with it if the detective wasn't so doggone determined all the time. It's another fine piece of film-making from the director, just not an all-time-top flick - more along the lines of Un flic. 8.5/10

One of the greatest french crime movies of all times

[searchanddestroy-1 · 10/10 · 18 May 2014]

I won't add much more to what have already said the other users. Yes, this is here a true masterpiece, directed by the greatest french directors ever. A director who was very influenced by the US crime films world. Keep in mind that Melville watched ODDS AGAINST TOMORROM more than eighty times in his life. And the sequence - in LE DEUXIEME Soufflé - where the four gangsters wait for the armored truck robbery, on the desert road, this very sequence is directly a homage to the nearly same scene, in the Robert Wises' film, where the three robbers - Ryan, Belafonte and Begley - wait before the heist.

Some scenes here are also some repetitions for further Melville's films. Such as this sequence where Denis Manuel, one of the four hoodlums, is waiting with his long range rifle to hit the police motor cyclist; note that he takes the rifle sighting lense off. You'll have the very same scene, later in LE CERCLE ROUGE, when Yves Montand makes the same thing during the jewelry store heist.

Or the other sequence, where Denis Manuel - Antoine's character - walks into the room where he knows he will probably have to fight against his enemy; Manuel hides a gun somewhere; and a couple of minutes later another character comes into the room, after Manuel's departure, searches and finds the famous gun, hidden just before. THAT'S THE REAL SUSPENSE. Because the audience wonders how the hell things are going to be after all this.

Well, you'll find the same kind of editing, in LE SAMOURAÏ. Cops enter Alain Delon's flat, hide some bugs in order to spy him...And also a couple of minutes later, when Delon comes back to his room...

Know what I am driving at?

That the Melville's touch. All his greatness, that no one, after his death, has ever brought to us again.

Yes, yes, yes, I am a great Melville's fan. There is not a day in my f...life where I don't suffer from his death, forty one years ago. We missed so many things.

Such a pain for all of us.

A Masterpiece of the Genre.

[rewolfsonlaw · 10/10 · 10 October 2020]

Stylistically captures the essence of crime, criminals, their presence among those who think they are neither; good cops; not so smart cops who think they are smart enough; and the meaning of loyalty. Don't die without having seen it.

is it OK to desacralize Melville! if it serves a purpose

[jjr-76474 · 7/10 · 13 August 2021]

Melville had the actors and the boredom to justify arthouse status.

Does it make it thrilling? No! Just interesting to watch as.an exercise in innovation. It mixes the clair obscur of a Fritz Lang with the nouvelle vague possibilities.it plays with the false realism and the true voyeurism of the times.

Without Melville, a probable slowing down of the new noir, with Melville an evident definition of the obvious anti-hero.

The remake has been shot down by critics, unjustified ans subservient, although it's all the same, in a more modern context, with less manicheiïst players. In the end they both suffer the same.

So without it, cinema would be much more boring than it is, with it, you've seen it a hundred times. The problem of creators.

An Exercise In Style That Transcends That Status

[jzappa · 8/10 · 19 February 2009]

Why do I always care about thieves in heist films, no matter how bad they are? As is common in Jean-Pierre Melville's later films, this meticulously crafted crime film opens with a title card that epigrammatically sets out a foreboding epigram that molds ostensible meaning into the action: "A man is given but one right at birth: to choose his own death. But if he chooses because he's weary of his own life, then his entire existence has been without meaning." It's invariably inhibiting to totally apply these fatalistic, existential aphorisms to the films that thus proceed, but they tend to cast a distinct outlook across the film. I'm not so sure that this slow, deliberate caper, or any of Melville's others for that matter, seeks all of the indications of this quote, but its pretext of fate, mortality and grim, solipsistic judgment corresponds with the essential themes of the film.

Like Le Cercle Rouge, Le Deuxième Soufflé is a nominal saga, an antithetical and composite film in which the life seems as if to impose and simultaneously exhale. Ventura's performance is both innate and disciplined by his claustrophobic settings. There are several instances set within moving cars, less to expand the atmosphere than to show the inhibition of the space they employ.

What frustrates and somewhat detaches me however is that Melville never seems to give his characters any involved cognitive measure. They're characterized and assessed by the black and white of their behavior. Gu is a ruthless, intractable and curtailed presence who gains recognition, even from Inspector Blot, another wonderfully named character, played by Paul Meurisse, who respects his deadly actions because he eventually complies with and doesn't veer from his dang "code."

Much of this 1966 cops-and-robbers film can be explained just in terms of its distilled preoccupation with the reference to the conventions regarding the treatment of Chandler, McBain, W.R. Burnett, Jim Thompson, stylish Hollywood crime dramas, and classic American gangster pictures. Melville's films in this mode have the element of photogenics, conformity to modern ideas and models nourished by a shadowy nonchalance and the characters' affectedly memorialized mannerisms. For instance when a dutiful thug prepares to meet the other gang members, casing the place first, but also anticipating the blanket preconditions of the scene. This dogmatic behavior underscores the salutary definitions of these characters, their movements having a textbook role. You can also see Melville's influence on Tarantino's Jackie Brown when the thug is dramatically pre-performing the differing poses of the impending standoff. Also, it's not until Gu changes into clothing more mindfully echoing that of a gangster that he is allowed to free himself from being so secretive and concealed.

The sullen, inflamed and exceedingly conventionalized quality of this typified film conveys Melville's immersion in the downbeat deliberation of the play of loyalty and destined disloyalty. With this transcendent crime film, as per Melville's usual, complete with another great title, Second Wind, Melville pushes the tonal qualities and gray scale of the image to new levels. The movie's preoccupation with issues of fellowship, abnormally all-consuming professionalism, silence, and duplicity reverberates with Melville's own distinction as an egocentric, tight-lipped, fringe-dwelling figure in French cinema, who despite his success never truly declared participation or involvement in any founded generation or evolution of filmmakers.

Entertainingly bloated

[davidmvining · 7/10 · 29 April 2022]

I don't often say this, but this movie needed to be shorter. A fair bit shorter. I enjoyed it, and it's easy to see its influence especially over Quentin Tarantino, but I don't think it does quite enough with its time, especially in the first half. The story of an escaped convict who joins in on a heist outside of Marseille in order to help fund his life on the lam outside of France is full of the right characters, motivations, and twisting plot to entertain, but when every scene feels like something Robert Bresson would have edited, it kind of drags the whole experience down a bit. I really think I would have gotten more out of it if the film were simply paced a bit faster, cutting maybe ten minutes off of the running time.

Gu (Lino Ventura) escapes from prison in the middle of an extended sentence for a botched gold heist along with two other prisoners and makes his way to Paris. Meanwhile in Marseille Paul Ricci (Raymond Pellegrin) is organizing the heist of over a billion francs worth of platinum. He has three men backing him up, including Jeannot (Albert Dagnant). Everything is ready for the heist at the end of the following month, and Jeannot decides to go to Paris to take care of a rival, killing him and getting mortally wounded by Alban (Michel Constantin) in the shootout. Alban functions as the bodyguard to Manouche (Christine Fabrega), Gu's sister, who learns of Gu's escape and knows that she has to hide him and figure out a way to get him out of the country safely. Into all of this steps Inspector Blot (Paul Meurisse), a Parisian policeman who knows all of the players and is out to get Gu back into prison.

The main driver through all of this is supposed to be Gu's criminal code, a common idea of ethics in the underworld in Melville's work. However, my problem is that Gu is sitting alone in a room for quite a long time from when he gets to Paris, kills a couple of low-level hoods trying to threaten Manouche, and then starts his way to Marseille. The attention to detail of Gu's life in his glorified prison cell doesn't really contribute much. There's something there about the meagerness of his existence, his reliance on other people just for survival, and his limited movement that's supposed to feed his later desire to take part in the dangerous platinum heist, but he has dialogue later that simplifies the matter as just he needs money if he's going to live any kind of life on the lam. In short, I feel like Melville takes a very long time to say very little in the film's first half.

The film picks up with the heist, though. Through Orloff (Pierre Zimmer), a criminal who works along most of the time and Paul offered the fourth spot to after the death of Jeannot, Gu learns of the heist and gets invited to take part since Orloff won't, feeling like the risk isn't worth any money. The heist is paced like the rest of the film, but with clear stakes, goals, and action, the slower pace actually ends up working in the film's favor here. It creates tension. I never felt like Gu sitting in his little apartment was tense, but four men waiting in the hills of Southern France for two cops escorting a van full of platinum is tense.

The heist goes largely according to plan, and they get away with their money. The second half of the film is the noose tightening around Gu by both Jo (Marcel Bozzuffi), Paul's brother. Things feel like they are going to continue to go well as Gu waits for the heat to die down in his little cottage outside of Marseille when he's identified, despite his new mustache, by one of the guards from his prison who is on vacation. Blot swoops in and tricks Gu into naming Paul as a coconspirator in the heist which has taken the front pages of France's newspapers by storm. This recorded bit of testimony won't be admissible in court, but it's enough to get Blot to convince the local police chief Fardiano (Paul Frankeur) to pick up Paul and pretty much torture him. Word gets out that Gu gave up Paul, and that's how Jo gets involved, roping in the other two members of the heist crew out of fear that Gu will also give them up.

The focus moves curiously from Gu to Orloff, though. I was really on board with the film after the heist, but the lack of attention to Gu in favor of Orloff feels off to me. Orloff, out of prison and able to speak with people like Manouche and Jo, he ends up the driver for the final meeting instead of Gu.

Gu escapes from the hospital after he injures himself in police custody, kidnaps Fardiano and forces him to write a confession about the underhanded and illegal nature of his methods before he goes to meet with Jo and the two other crew members. This faceoff is pure Tarantino and obviously a huge influence on him. It's Gu protesting his innocence (in very cool, masculine tones, mind you) while holding a room of three hoods up with a pair of guns. It's quality stuff.

Overall, though, I find the film entertaining but drawn out. I really don't think you need to cut the film in half or anything, but this is definitely Jean-Pierre Melville being self-indulgent. Still, self-indulgent Melville is still pretty good stuff. Gu's journey from escaped criminal to crew member to desperately clearing his own name is a strong narrative throughline. The intertwining of Gu and Jo, that actually begins near the start of the film, is a nicely complicated thread that ties a whole lot of the film together. I just feel like long stretches of this film are kind of dull. There's really good stuff throughout, including the central heist, but this is a rare example where I feel like a film really could have used some trimming. As a character piece, not enough gets done with Gu for all the focus we get on him early. For a thriller, not enough happens in the face of the quiet moments. It's kind of in between the two genres instead of finding a way to bring them together as a single cohesive work.

Still, it is pretty good.

enormously confident and self-assured movie about French gangsters

[myriamlenys · 9/10 · 28 November 2017]

A middle-aged gangster with the deceptively nice and normal name of Gustave (or "Gu") escapes from prison and returns to his habitual environment, to wit the environment of heavy-duty professional crime. He arrives bang in the middle of a gang war involving a number of old friends, enemies and frenemies. Gu is about to become both actor and pawn in a series of elaborate cat-and-mouse games pitting gangsters against police and gangsters against gangsters.

An excellent movie, both elegant and incisive, with a prize cast and prize performances. I don't know if it's realistic - kind Fate has kept me far, far from the world of French gangsterdom - but it certainly feels and sounds realistic : one gets a genuine sense of watching people for whom serious violence is not only a career, an heritage and a belief system, but also an automatic mindset. The atmosphere hangs as heavy as cigarette smoke and the dialogues are so sharp that you could use them to cut your hair. The sets and locations have been chosen with enormous care, conjuring up visions of prosperous yet tacky nightclubs, near-convincing imitations of "bourgeois" respectability or once happy family homes turned into hiding places for criminals on the run, like women of a good background fallen upon hard times and forced into street-walking.

Riveting, addictive viewing.

"La belle époque" - gangster and police speaking

[johnpierrepatrick · 9/10 · 5 April 2020]

Melville depicts the dreamed universe of gangster and police. Gangster follow a moral code - between them. Police is witty, and plays its cards to stop them. Violence is in the background and if there are murders, they are almost noble ones, like commissaire Blot describes it.

"Le deuxième souffle" uses the story of an escapee, previous public enemy n°1, and its epic adventures in the process of going away to show us this background and the characters belonging to it. The duration of the movie allows splendid character development and the dialogs are worthy of Audiard (way above Le samouraï in my opinion in that aspect).

With Melville care about style - of its characters with the mandatory trenchcoats and hats, and of the movie itself, we get a wonderful odyssey, showing his utopia of a world that fascinated him (and many others).

Better in French

[RickManhattan · 8/10 · 10 March 2012]

It may not be true as Bertrand Tavernier asserts in the add-on DVD special that "Second Wind" (the correct idiomatic translation) made further crime movies superfluous, but this is a brilliant example of the genre. The subtitles do not do justice to the dialog that is typically French- wordy but still clever and provocative. Inspector Blot, the Joe Friday/Jack Web emulator, has the most good lines, but they are throughout. The casting is as good as you could get. Shooting in black and white was essential to focus viewers on the story, the characters and the script. Even the Arch of Triumph looks appropriately raw and menacing: at no point do you think how pretty France is, only how dreary and monotonous are the streets, and how rugged the rocks, the perfect backdrop to this depiction of remorseless selfishness and cruelty that illustrates that stories do not have to be compact and tidy to be compelling.

Slow Going But Rewarding Heist Film Needs Another Look

[museumofdave · 8/10 · 23 March 2013]

While in many ways a quintessential heist film, and in other ways a gangster film, this brooding black and white masterpiece also deals with certain codes of honor, and much that is important in the film is left unsaid; the viewer may expect reactions that don't occur, may often question the motives of characters that don't speak, and it is only to viewing the film a second time that much of it comes clear; with the excellent Criterion transfers, it's fascinating to follow the second time with the included commentary; this is not an action-packed film at 2 1/2 hours, but a good deal does happen: lives are lost, a massive robbery takes place, and one is never too sure where the lines between law and disorder cross. Do not expect Instant Involvement with Le Deuxieme Soufflé--but it has it's rewards!

Melville's Great Police Film

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 9 November 2022]

Jean Pierre Melville does a masterful job of capturing the mind of the gangster. We have a cruel executioner who escapes prison with his compadres. In the process of a visit, he finds that his actions, even though innocent at times, lead to violence and death. The natural result is a policeman who gets on his case, aware of the evil the guy has done. He is like a bulldog as he pursues Gu. Gu is a frightening person and if one made a mistake it would cost you dearly. Eventually, we have the obligatory shootout. The strength of this film, which could have been ordinary, is the camera and what it does to push the action. There are numerous settings that squeeze action as well. I have really enjoyed Melville, coming upon him later in my life.