“This is the end, my only friend, the end!” Yes, I know. It doesn't really mean anything but I wanted to say it!

Bye!

We can't finish a cycle about great scenes in film noir and gangsters movies without a french director. The Serie Noire (book collection of Gallimard) was french and inspire the word "film noir" to Americans. Jean Pierre Melville, a great french director, in love with American movies, is a good example for analyze and above all, they're is so much American in this blog that a French director will be benefit for us.

The Red Circle is a great gangsters movie with Alain Delon, Gian Maria Volonte, Bourvil and Yves Montand. Corey (Alain Delon) cames out of jail and robbed an old friend. Then, he cames to the billiard.

Delon changes his hat from Le Samourai (one another great film from 1967) with a mustache. But he keeps his trench coat. He also keeps his way of playing, with few words and efficient movements.

Melville underlines every sounds : the sound of the shoes on the floor or the puckering of a note. The ambiance is cold, the setting is sober, the music is sweet and simple.

Delon, gracefully, starts a game of billiard, with two white balls and one red. His playing is slow, he's not afraid of anything. A man shots the red ball : two men are in front of him. He is the red ball (like the red circle which is, in the proverb, the place where Delon die at the end). The two guys are the white balls.

Always with playing style of Melville films, with moderation and elegantly, the two guys asking him for the money. But Delon puts them in the “holes” of the billiard.

Delon keeps a character nearby the Samourai, cold and calm, powerful and confident. His gestures are precise, filmed with close-up and precise mise en scene. Nothing to take away, it's pure choreography.

You can enjoy Delon in the Samourai by viewing the trailer below. It's an old-fashioned trailer, pleasant to see.

Goodfellas is one of the most famous American gangsters movie. Released in 1990 and directed by Martin Scorsese, the film tells the story of Henry Hill, an Irish-Italian-American young man who always want to be gangster. By meeting some other tough guys and making some dirty works for a powerful man, he becomes a wise guy, a man who have everything he wants and despise the law and the people.

This Henry Hill meets a new girl and, as usual, he wants to impress her. In order to show the power of Hill, Scorsese makes a three minutes continuous shot from the street to the best place in the club.

Henry, in this scene, is “the man”, the man that everybody knows and loves. He is generous, pleasant, knows everyone and makes jokes. His girlfriend can't have any doubt about his work, she can't guess that he's a bank robber, a big drug-dealer, a killer, etc. She asks him at the end and he answers that he's in construction. She notices that he doesn't have hands of man in construction. The power and the respect we can feel about him, also hide the blood on his hands.

Moving on a steadicam, the camera makes a diving into the club, trough corridors and kitchens. Underline with a jazzy music as usual in Scorsese's films, the sequence is a pure moment of success and pleasure : Henry shakes many hands with the “Hey! How are you?”, they pass over the other people. Both are like stars! The show begins with them.

One of the greatest movement is the “come on!” with the hand from the club manager, follow by the arrival of a table, with the flying tablecloth. Barely the table goes down, a waiter is already being set the table. Henry even knows the people near his table.

Every movement of the camera brings a new sign of the power of Henry with for example men who offer drinks to him.

Finally, when we see this sequence, we can also say : “As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster”

After those several great pieces of cinema (as an art), let me show you a master piece of technic and stunts. This scene is moment of pleasure, a break before other great directors sequences'. It's not really a film noir but a martial art film.

The Protector (Tom-Yum-Goong ) is movie by Prachya Pinkaew, from Thailand. The hero is playing by Tony Jaa, who became famous with Ong-Bak, a movie which defined new limits for martial art film and stunts. Tony Jaa was rightly considered as the new Bruce Lee.

In this take, we can enjoy a four minutes continuous tracking shot, made by a steadicam, which is follow the hero through four floors.Those four floors are like a stage of a videogame where the hero has to fight every ennemies until the final fight against the boss.

Tony Jaa arrive in a building and fights all the angry men he meets. The camera often follow him at the third person, like a video game. The character goes through the room and corridors and came back in the front of the camera, always with a stunt.

It's an amazing performance for all the stunt men. Arm break or guardrail break,  falling in the stairs or breaking with the head a wall, Tony Jaa fights his enemies and makes them loose in wonderful stunts.

Everything which he can break is destruct : vases, chairs, tables, guardrail, doors, walls, washbowl, etc. We can admire how the stunt cinema, without special effects with computers can be also powerful and impressive. In this take, a man make a falling of two floors directly in a frame house, without editing or special effects. That's very impressive!

The scene can also be funny because objects of the set is going to be destruct. We can appreciate the choreography which is leading to the destruction of a table, by one of this terrific stunt men.

Altman was famous for make genre destructive movies. All of his film make a deconstruction and the end of a genre : MASH for war movie, The Long Goodbye for the film noir, or The Wild Bunch for the western.

Altman also makes, in this sequence, a critic of Hollywood : Japaneses from Sony who are going to buy Hollywood companies or screenwriters who have crazy ideas of movies, like those who want to make a mix between Out of Africa and Pretty Woman or a sequel of The Graduate.

By making a reflexion about the cinema and Hollywood, Altman also creates a great scene, which is aware of its status and his construction.