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Review: ‘Bob le Flambeur’ — Highly Influential, Enticing Heist Classic
Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1956 crime film likely led to your heist favourites
My fellow French cinema enthusiasts will already be very familiar with the large shadow of influence which director Jean-Pierre Melville left over not just the cinema culture of his country but of the crime genre in general. While he is certainly more readily recognised for genre-defining classics such as Le Samourai (1967), Le Cercle Rouge (1971) and his ambitious, unbearably intense World War II thriller Army of Shadows (1969), Melville is responsible for a number of other films which carry a heft of their own. While his earliest films such as The Silence of the Sea and Les Enfants Terribles (while showing potential) are quite flawed, it is Melville’s 1956 heist thriller Bob le Flambeur which captured the size of his potential as an artist. The film is massively influential upon a vast number of directors, from Steven Soderbergh’s work on the Oceans trilogy to Neil Jordan’s decision to make a (surprisingly, very good!) remake of Melville’s classic titled The Good Thief starring Nick Nolte in 2002 complete with an odd, glitchy editing style that I have to admit did make me think my DVD player was broken at first.
