FIAF fetes Lino Ventura and the gangster genre in January's Cinema Tuesdays series

Ah, that mug. It's unforgettable. Particularly once you've seen a few of the films of the guy who owned it: Lino Ventura, one of the supreme stars of the French (and occasionally Italian and American cinema). Born Angiolino Giuseppe Pascal Ventura (on Bastille Day!) in northern Italy's Parma, he moved with his family (appropriately enough) to Paris while still a child -- and lived there the remainder of his life (without ever, it is said, becoming a French citizen).

After moving from job to job (one of these was as mechanic's apprentice), he found a real career in wrestling (he's shown in his trunks, at left), rising as high as professional European champion in 1950. It was after a injury in the ring forced his retirement from sports that director Jacques Becker, on the lookout for "gangster" types, cast him in a role in the now-classic Touchez pas au grisbi, in which his lengthy Italian name became the shorter and more memorable Lino Ventura.

As an actor, while the fellow possessed a narrow range that seldom allowed for much outward display, his rich and memorable inner life created characters -- usually more proletariat than bourgeoisie -- that seemed equally comfortable as detectives or criminals and never had a moment on-screen that was not utterly truthful. Ventura -- who both starred and  became good friends with the likes of Jean Gabin, who helped him with his early acting career, and later in that career, Alain Delon.

The father of a developmentally disabled child, Ventura also co-founded the still-vital-and-growing organization Perce-Neige with his wife Odette in the early 1980s to support handicapped young adults. He earned a César nomination for his portrayal of Jean Valjean in Robert Hossein’s Les Misérables and would continue to perform practically until his death in 1987.

The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York's premiere French cultural center, is ringing the New Year in with a special Cinéma Tuesdays month devoted to the late (and still-missed: no one has begun to take his place) actor titled Lino Ventura: “Monsieur Gangster.” During this January, FIAF will present six French thriller and/or film noir classics -- curated by Marie Losier -- that explore different facets of Ventura’s gangster persona. The complete program, with my comments included, is below. To see the program at FIAF on-line and/or to order tickets, click here.

Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l’échafaud)
January 11 at 12:30 & 7:30pm
Directed by Louis Malle, 1957. B&W. 88 min.
With Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, and Lino Ventura
Never one of my favorite films (I found it too slow and obvious, with an insistenty "jazzy" score that rarely shuts up), it's still one of those "classics" that will help complete your genre (noir or thriller) and Louis Malle collections.  According to the FIAF description, it's about a woman and her lover who plan to kill her husband in a “perfect murder” plot that soon goes fantastically awry. Malle’s debut feature contains many blessings—including a landmark score by Miles Davis, atmospheric visuals that point to the coming New Wave, and a great turn by Ventura as an inspector.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Army of Shadows (L’Armée des ombres)
January 11 at 4pm
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville,1969. Color. 140 min.
With Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, and Jean-Pierre Cassel

Another "classic" that failed to ignite my delight, this one is -- whew, long -- and somewhat tiresome. While it should not have been ignored upon initial release (it was only first distributed here in America in 2007), still, TrustMovies has to say that he can somewhat understand the film's being overlooked. FIAF's view: Army of Shadows is now rightfully considered a masterpiece of war cinema. Ventura gives a career performance as the leader of an underground cell during the Resistance who escaped internment. Haunting and profound—an unmissable film.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The Big Risk (Classe tous risques)
January 18 at 12:30 & 7:30pm
Directed by Claude Sautet, 1960. B&W. 103 min.
With Lino Ventura, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sandra Milo, and Marcel Dalio

My favorite of all the films I've seen so far in this series, Classe tous risques is so very good that it makes one wonder why filmmaker Claude Sautet did not do more noir and gangster movies over his very interesting career. The movie, which tracks a highly "wanted" man as the law closes in on him, gives Ventura a career highlight role, and also gives one to a very young Jean-Paul Belmondo (the actor made Breathless this same year). For my money, Belmondo is much better in this film -- giving as warm and genuine a performance as he ever has -- with none of the smarm that soon, due to the success of the Godard movie, would soon overtake most else in his performing repertoire. He seemed to have decided, "Well, this is what audiences want, so I'll just give it to them." And he did. But in Classe tous risques -- a remarkably rich, surprising and humane movie, considering the criminal element with which it deals almost completely -- he, Ventura and a lovely Sandra Milo, bring to life some very memorable characters. While the movie has little of the much-vaunted French New Wave "flair," as we now realize decades down the line, flair does not always wear that well. I've seen this film twice already, and it wears very well.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Second Breath (Le deuxième souffle)
January 18 at 4pm
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966. B&W. 150 min.
With Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, and Raymond Pellegrin

I haven't seen this one in many years, but upon a first viewing, it did not strike me as anywhere near the level of Melville's Le samourai or Le cercle rouge. As I write this I am having trouble remembering even the plot, so I'll let the FIAF decription spell things out: Upon escaping from prison, Gustave (Ventura) discovers his sister’s safety threatened. Willing to perform one last heist, he finds himself dogged by a detective—and worse, much of the criminal underground. Melville once again proves himself a master of ratcheting suspense and Ventura perfectly balances terror and disillusioned weariness.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
The following two films I have not seen and hope to catch during this month-long Ventura fest, the first of which I don't believe was ever released in the USA:

Monsieur Gangster (Les tontons Flingueurs)
January 25 at 12:30 & 7:30pm
Directed by Georges Lautner, 1963. B&W. 105 min.
With Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, Francis Blanche, and Jean Lefebvre

Notes FIAF: A fascinating film, mostly because of its integration of comedy into the grisly landscape of noir. Ventura brings gravitas to the role of an ex-gangster who is roped into guardianship of a dying mob boss’ daughter, but the tension and violence that follows is offset by some marvelously comic turns.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Not only was this one released in the U.S., a bad U.S. remake was even made:

The Grilling (Garde à vue)
January 25 at 4pm
Directed by Claude Miller, 1981. Color. 86 min.
With Lino Ventura, Michel Serrault, Romy Schneider, and Guy Marchand

The stark setting of a police interrogation room is used to maximum effect in this tense, twisting standoff of a film. When only one suspect turns up in a double murder case, the Inspectors (Ventura and Marchand) grill him mercilessly. Matters only get further complicated when his estranged wife appears...

********************

About FIAF

FIAF's mission is to create and offer New Yorkers innovative and unique programs in education and the arts that explore the evolving diversity and richness of French Cultures. FIAF seeks to generate new ideas and promote cross cultural dialogue through partnerships and new platforms of expression.

CinémaTuesdays is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency, and by the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. Special thanks to The Cultural Services of the French Embassy and The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

FIAF - Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street
(between Park and Madison Avenues)

Admission:
$10; $7 students; Free for FIAF Members

Tickets:
fiaf.org | 800 982 2787

Information:
fiaf.org | 212 355 6160

Transportation:
Subway - 4, 5, 6, N, R and W to 59th Street & Lexington Avenue;
F to 63rd Street & Lexington Avenue; E to 53rd Street & 5th Avenue
Bus - M1, M2, M3, M4, Q31 to 59th Street; M5 to 58th Street

MESRINE, the Richet-Cassel, two-part, two-ticket, César winner opens at last

When TrustMovies first saw the film under consider here, the month was March of 2009, the event was the FSLC's annual Rendez-vous With French Cinema, and MESRINE (Parts One and Two) had just won César awards for both its star Vincent Cassel (below, center) and director Jean-François Richet (who co-wrote the films with Abdel Raouf Dafri).  TM wasn't bowled over by the movie (or movies) at that time -- it/they seemed alternately entertaining and overlong, interesting and cliched  -- but with 18 months between now and then, he's disposed to give the film(s) a little more of what we call "the benefit of the doubt."

Comparisons to our own Godfather series have been made, and while I was never overly enamored of those three films, either -- as usual when American filmmakers tackle the Mafia, they glamorize it, though The Godfather, Part Two rises above even that caveat -- other than the movies all being about criminals, Richet's film is not particularly comparable in any important way to Coppola's trio, except perhaps in its French/French-Canadian box-office take. In any case, here below is my slightly edited original assessment of Mesrine: Killer Instinct (part one) and Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (part two) -- viewing theatrically the whole of which will set you back around $25. And don't expect, even at that price, 3-D.

MESRINE begins with a series of split-screen views of a couple of chary characters apparently on the run. These are accompanied by Marcus Trumpp's music, composed to ratchet up suspense. Ratchet it does. And then pushes, and pumps, and ratchets some more. By the time the sequence ends (see above, with what looks suspiciously like the climax of this entire four-hour movie), you may have realized, as did I, that instead of actually being suspenseful, this few minutes has succeeded only in working very hard to appear so. If you buy into the "suspense," however, then you'll probably buy the remainder of this super-violent, bloody, action-packed but sometimes tedious film. TrustMovies didn't buy, but he managed to rent (or maybe sublet) off and on, over the movie's very long running time.

Jacques Mesrine (according to this film, he pronounced his name May-reen, with a silent "s") was, by the end of his nearly 43-year life, Public Enemy Number One (the French subtitle of Part Two of the film) in both France and Canada, a feat he achieved after being a very nasty nuisance in Part One (subtitled, in the original French, The Instinct for Death). Richet's film catalogs his rise and rise in ways that, kindly put, are rather clichéd by now -- unless Mesrine is among the first gangster epics you will have seen. Do we really need to hear Edith Piaf regretting nothing inserted into the soundtrack toward the finale? Would we not groan aloud were Sinatra's My Way to find its way into, say, the concluson of The Godfather trilogy?

By the end of Part One, my biggest question was "Who the hell is this guy Mesrine?" He manages to "off" (in a particularly brutal sequence, below) a nasty thug/pimp who has beaten and disfigured Mesrine's ladyfriend/whore, whom our hero, in any case, has already dumped. Later, after proclaiming his ardent love, he beats and threatens his own wife with something similar. Is he perhaps bi-polar? His actions and words toward his father indicate a similar diagnosis.

For explanation, the movie nods toward Mesrine's service in the art of torture/murder as part of the French military during the Algerian War. Well, many Frenchmen were implicated in this without their becoming gang lords. Unfortunately the most interesting aspect of Mesrine's character lies either on the cutting room floor or in the blank space between Parts One and Part Two, the latter of which introduces us to a whole new guy -- a kind of Bonnie-and-Clyde-like folk hero, who still does a few too many very bad things. (In its way, the entire four-hour movie seems as bi-polar as its lead character.)

For all Cassel's manic negative energy on display, this is nothing we've not seen before -- and often: from Hate through Brotherhood of the Wolf, Birthday Girl, The Reckoning, Eastern Promises and particularly Sheitan (now there's a film in which this guy is really scary!). By the end of the movie, while we're left with another instance of Cassel doing his thing, we're barely a step or two closer to understanding M. Mesrine. So it goes with most of the other characters on display. Take Cécile De France, shown above, for instance. If you recall her from films such as A Secret, The Singer, Avenue Montaigne or Russian Dolls, you may have trouble even recognizing her here. She gives a great one-or-two-note performance without providing us with much character detail at all. First she's hard as nails, then -- boom -- she's soft and sad. It's mostly the same with the other characters: Given only a few scenes or moments, the actors make the most of them but can't begin to probe or bring much subtlety to the goings-on.

And so events typical of the film biography march, as if in lockstep, before our eyes: entry into the criminal life, adoption by the big boss, a killing here, a killing there, imprisonment (complete with nasty guards and cruel warden), the prison break (there's one in Part I and Part II, each handled well), troubles on the home front with the little woman, a later reconciliation with a child, and on and on. It's not that this is so poorly done (it's serviceable and sometimes more than that) but we've seen it all rather often over the years. And nothing here, save the violence, is given much weight. Pasting a real-life character onto these events (along with a starry cast including Mathieu Amalric (shown below, left, with Cassel), Gérard Depardieu, Canada's Roy Dupuis (above), Elena Anaya, Michel Duchaussoy, Ludivine Sagnier and others) makes the film a bit more interesting, perhaps (Mesrine's foray into the Front de libération du Québec is particularly so) but it does little for the overall arc of the story -- or its meaning and importance. I would guess that France found the film fascinating, since all but its younger generation or two lived through this and should remember it well. For some of us, however, it's mostly the usual blood-and-guts.

Note for completists: An earlier Mesrine film appeared 25 years ago, written and directed by André Génovès, and a French TV movie and documentary have popped up along the way. Though originally set to be released by a company called Senator Entertainment, for which I could at the time find no proper link and has since ceased doing business here in the States (its film division, at least), the two Mesrine movies have now been picked up for release by the smart Music Box Films, a company that has so far exhibited a canny regard for movies (the "Girl" trio) that may make some money in the art film/foreign film market.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (Part One) opens this Friday, August 27, in a large-considering-it's-limited nationwide release.  Click here -- then scroll down for playdates, cities and theaters. Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (Part Two) will open in similar fashion the following Friday, September 3.  Click here -- then scroll down for playdates, cities and theaters.  In the weeks following, Music Box promises that more locations will be announced. (That's the film's director,  Jean-François Richet, shown at left.)