447-448 Le doulos and Le deuxieme souffle

[Foulard]

I do have one question regarding the 1:66 transfer these are both supposed to have...on my 16x9 Viera display, both fill up the screen in the normal view setting of the tv, and I could not find any way to get an image with the smaller black bars along the edge that I should get were it a real 1.66:1 anamorphic transfer. I'm sure it's my player or tv, but I wondered if anyone else had this issue? I'm just curious if i was losing picture at the top and bottom or something.

I think your Viera might be overscanning. DVD Beaver says Le Doulos is 1.66 and Army is 1.85, so you should see bars on both of them (in different places). I would suggest googling 'Viera' and 'overscan' to look for solutions--I saw some discussion when I looked them up. I haven't had any overscan issues with Criterion discs since I switched from CRT to LCD.

[colinr0380]

Isn't Le Trou Becker in Bresson mode zedz?

[Matt]

Actually, given that it's something of a departure for Bresson, it seems more like A Man Escaped is Bresson in Becker mode avant la lettre.

[zedz]

I think of Le Trou as sort of midway between Bresson and Melville, but on the Man Escaped meets Army of Shadows axis rather than the very different meeting point you'd get on the Silence de la mer meets Diary of a Country Priest axis. But, as Matt says, this meeting point is probably closer to Becker's home neighbourhood than either Bresson's or Melville's. I'll leave the graphs and Venn diagrams to swo.

But in the end all this really means is that we're dealing with three very complex filmmakers.

[HistoryProf]

Touchez pas au grisbi is a stone cold masterpiece. It's got Melville's attention to detail, but it's very different in tone - it's almost incidental that it's a crime film. Casque d'Or is a completely different kettle of fish, with Becker in Renoir mode. But if you haven't seen Le Trou yet, make a beeline for it. You're in for a hell of a treat. The Criterion disc is bare bones, but the film is so great it's still one of their most essential releases.

My sister gave me Le Trou for xmas LAST year and it remains in my kevyip...i keep forgetting i own it because i didn't buy it! Enough said and i'll make it my next watch this weekend.

[Matt]

Le doulous is out of print, effective March 31, 2013.

[Mr Sausage]

DISCUSSION ENDS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9th AT 7:00 AM.


Members have a two week period in which to discuss the film before it's moved to its dedicated thread in The Criterion Colection subforum. Please read the Rules and Procedures.


RESOURCES:
Thread for the Criterion DVD.
Melville discussion.


DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

I encourage members to submit questions, either those designed to elicit discussion and point out interesting things to keep an eye on, or just something you want answered. This will be extremely helpful in getting discussion started. Starting is always the hardest part, all the more so if it's unguided. Questions can be submitted to me via PM.

- Discuss the ethics of the methods employed by the police in the film.
- To what extent does Melville glamorize his criminals?
- How does the staging of the big heist here compare to Melville's other films?
- Melville is mostly known for his crime films, but also made several delicately observed character studies. What moments in this film show his "softer" side?


***PM me if you have any suggestions for additions or just general concerns and questions.***

[Mr Sausage]

This is a narrative propelled by death. A death starts the plot going (the murder in the bar), but more than that, death follows Gu at every turn and prefigures his own end. In the opening scene a man leaps just a little too far and is killed. So, too, does Gu's companion leap to his death rather than give himself over to the police, a foreshadowing of Gu's own fate in which he chooses his code (and death) over less external values. Gu is just running in place as fast as he can. He is caught up in death from the very first scene and, far from running from it, allows it to engulf him. This movie isn't just about men who can't compromise, tho': it's also a movie designed not to allow them to compromise. Gu tries it twice, first by not killing Joe Ricci at the restaurant and then by assuring Paul, Joe's brother, that he won't touch Joe. But this compromise is intolerable; the movie is organized so that the choice gets put to Gu once again in the most forceful terms possible, assured that his nature will eventually cause his destruction.


Here are a few somewhat disconnected thoughts on codes of behaviour:

In Melville's films (or at least this one), the code is impractical; it does not allow one easier navigation in the world, it forces impossible choices, often ones that demand a grand display of principle that come at the expense of life, love, or just simple ease. More personal or emotive values like family, friends, love, are secondary to external, abstract ones like honour or duty. This more ancient conception of value (external, absolute) makes an odd but successful import into a modern gangster movie, tho' it feels like it ought to be in a more abstract, less vulgar and gritty setting, like the western or an historically-set martial arts film where the characters and setting match the elevation of the values. In Melville's films, this elevated, impersonal sense of value adds a vague sort of intensity to what are otherwise quite particular and grounded films. (I think, tho' it needs more looking into, that this intensity derives from the sense that something exterior to the movie is driving the characters and the plot). This all fits more organically in a narrative like Le Samourai, however, where the lead character is himself an anachronism and a rather abstract young man who doesn't seem totally to mesh with the wider-world outside of his hermetic room. In something like Le Douxieme Souffle, the atavistic value system is all the more curious, with someone like Gu coming across as neurotic and compulsive. This would feel unsatisfactory if the plot weren't, as I've said, always forcing its characters into these impossible moral choices between values and survival, so one feels Gu would end up where he does even if he weren't so neurotic about it. So these generalized values add to the fatalistic atmosphere, an added external element driving the characters to doom.

So, as far as I can figure it, these gangster codes don't redeem the characters or the world nor even hold a nostalgic value, pointing to a golden age founded on a belief in certain virtues (eg. a John Woo film). They end up as part of the machinery of fate. They are one more screw, one more thing needling the characters into oblivion. As I said, these gangster codes (at least in Le Douxieme Souffle) are impractical: they don't give the characters any more options for living; quite the opposite, they reduce the options. You can contrast this to someone like Anton Chigurgh in No Country For Old Men, whose code amounts to controlling what he can, accepting what he can't, and punishing those foolish enough try to control the forces that dwarf them. This is what allows him to survive when everyone else is just running to their doom: he doesn't put himself against the grander forces in the world, and so he seems all the more an emissary of those forces. He can still be on the negative end of circumstance--a random tee-boning at an intersection--but his ability to accept the uncontrollable and move with it keeps him safe. He walks away from that crash and we have no doubt he will be fine in the end. Chigurgh's code is not the code of the characters in Melville's film. Gu's code does not allow him to navigate more easily a situation in which he is manipulated by circumstance. He just tosses himself against circumstance all the harder and gets himself killed, and killed over nothing more than a petty solution to a local problem (the death of the men in that room will change nothing and we can't be sure his gesture was more likely to clear his name than Orloff's alternative).

This film does not concern itself with how codes allow members of the underworld to survive; it's interested in how codes drive people to their death. This is a film of constriction. I liked it.

[Drucker]

(Full disclosure: I've only seen Bob Le Flambeur, Army of Shadows, Le Deuxieme Souffle, Le Samourai, and Leon Morin, so any generality I make about his films is based on seeing those).

With this and the Leon thread, there's been a lot of discussion about the inevitability of certain Melville films. But one of the moments that stuck out to me the most in the film is this line from Gu: "I gambled, and I lost." So while even the liner notes point to the "inevitability" of Gu's demise, this quote I think also makes clear that his fate isn't sealed. The last time he was in jail, there was a 50% chance that he could've made the opposite choice and not ended up incarcerated. Would Gu have joined in with the heist here were it not for Paul? The circumstances certainly nudge Melville's characters in the film into a certain direction, but there is still a lot of choice involved with their decisions.

A few other thoughts on the film:

I really enjoyed Gu and it reminded me so much of the way he plays in Army Of Shadows. There's a definite "cool"ness to so much of Meville's films (Bob, Jef, Leon, and I imagine there is more), but there is nothing cool about Gu. He's a truly brutal character. He wakes up and goes right for his gun. He makes sure his enemies know they are goners before disposing of them in the apartment early on. And I think this is an element of the film that helps paint Melville's two different "sides" almost: there's the French New Wave that he was a contemporary of and the American gangster films. The former seems, for me, to influence the air of cool throughout the film, and it's disrupted frequently by American crime-film-style violence, where nobody is acting "cool" at all.

Another brief point I'll make is that Melville's protagonists seem to have met the equivalent to a "match" early on, and their matches are formidable opponents, which adds to the tension. Blot is a good example, like Leon Morin of a character that will clearly be as cunning and intelligent as our protagonist. While Gu dies in the end, there is a sense that something has left Blot as well. He didn't see Gu as merely a "bad guy," but almost an opponent in some ongoing cat-and-mouse game. Melville's Blot seems just as sympathetic as Gu for the audience.

[Mr Sausage]

Anyone else find it amusing just how easy it is to abduct and murder a police chief in this movie? I don't know if this is because it was in a small town, but there was remarkably little fuss about the whole thing.

[matrixschmatrix]

In some ways, it seems as though Gu is pursuing death throughout the movie, and seems interested throughout more in achieving what within his code is an honorable death than in staying alive. We're told at one point that he decided he was more or less dead when first brought to prison, and despite his renewed burst of energy, he seems convinced that everything's still pointed in one direction; unlike the characters of, say, Le Cercle Rouge, he never really seems to expect to get away with it. And, of course, he's the architect of his own destruction- using the same gun for a robbery as he did to kill a couple of nobodies is a flagrant rookie mistake, perhaps the act of a man who doesn't expect to live to face the consequences.

As far as the glamorization of criminals- in one respect, that seems a ludicrous notion, as Gu's lifestyle is hardscrabble and mean, and pointed inevitably towards death; we see him riding the bus, sleeping in shithole hotel rooms, and isolating himself further and further throughout the narrative, but we never see anything like the material rewards of a big score. Yet it's not totally off base, as Gu's archaic sense of honor is itself alluring, and the reason that we as an audience can be brought to care for a cold blooded murderer- he's glamorous in the sense that he's a rather romantic figure, a man with a code more absolute than would be an adherence to the law or to conventional morality, glamorous the way Mike Ehrmantraut on Breaking Bad is. I don't think it's particularly problematic to give such qualities to a criminal- it's pretty obviously nothing to do with actual criminality, and it doesn't really make one want to go out and commit a crime. And at any rate, I think the ultimately most attractive figure is Orloff, who shares Gu's code but also refuses to kill the motorcycle policeman.

The morality of the police is somewhat trickier; to me, Blot's methods are mostly just intelligent policework, using his knowledge of the actual human beings behind the crimes rather than just storming in and trying to make things happen via brute force. His speech about how they will not catch Gu unless he slips up seems comparable to Sausage's take on Chigurh, showing him to be a man who has great control in part because he understands the limits of his power. His trick on Gu is, on the one hand, pretty unconscionable- I think in the American legal system, that taped evidence would be totally inadmissible for a couple of different reasons, as Gu is under duress, entrapped, and certainly not anything like Mirandized, but I think within the context of the movie, this is something Gu ought to be prepared for- he allows himself to speak instead of sitting and keeping his own counsel, which goes against his ethos, and it damns him. Blot is merely the agent, in that respect.

The far greater crime, on Blot's part, is turning a blind eye to the gestapo-esque interrogation methods employed by Fardino- though Blot may not directly participate, he is complicit in a way that recalls the French Occupation. It's not clear to me whether his participation in the posthumous exposure of Fardino's methods is meant to represent redemption for what Blot has done, or mere further opportunism, or simply respect for the departed Gu; at any rate, existence of a police force that employs torture puts the ethical-though-immoral gangsters into a sharp relief, and reminds one that gangsters are far from the only evil in the world.

[matrixschmatrix]

Anyone else find it amusing just how easy it is to abduct and murder a police chief in this movie? I don't know if this is because it was in a small town, but there was remarkably little fuss about the whole thing.

It seemed to fit with Gu's apparent omnipotence within the scope of his professional skills- throughout the movie, I get the impression that Gu could accomplish almost anything, were he not so convinced of his own inevitable doom. Since the confession is the one aspect of the narrative that breaks through Gu's apathy- the thing that could prevent him dying honorably, which I see as being his goal throughout- his full abilities are brought to bear on resolving, and he reverts to romantic doom only when he can be reasonably certain that it has been set right.

[Mr Sausage]

using the same gun for a robbery as he did to kill a couple of nobodies is a flagrant rookie mistake, perhaps the act of a man who doesn't expect to live to face the consequences.

Blot has a good point about this: when doing a dangerous, high-stakes robbery a criminal is instinctively going to use a tool he knows well and trusts. In which case I think circumstance more than anything was against Gu as he had no time to get familiar with any other weapon and that was not a job where one can afford to miss.

To me, what brings Gu down is, again, the idea of character-as-fate: he can't help reusing his old and easily identifiable criminal methods. That's the only reason the police even get on to him, the murders in the car.

Also, I have to wonder how much anyone's going to believe that "confession" since it's going to become obvious Gu killed Fardino, making it easy enough for people to dismiss it as a forced confession, having no truth value. I think it's a fine, somewhat subtle irony that despite the extremes to which Gu ascends in clearing his name, the solution probably won't amount to much.

In some ways, it seems as though Gu is pursuing death throughout the movie

I disagree. I don't think Gu is pursuing death, I think he's just ambivalent about it coming for him. Being there for Manouche is plainly important to him, important enough that he doesn't risk going after Joe immediately and dying in a shootout. But, eventually, his concern for Manouche pales next to his concern for honour and he heads out fully determined to meet death if it's indeed coming.

[matrixschmatrix]

I think, in a world in which everyone takes Gu's forced and obviously suspect confession seriously, it's reasonable that they would take Fardino's confession seriously as well.

I think Gu isn't actively suicidal, and is prepared to pursue an exit, but his heart's not really in it, and he's betraying himself to a certain degree; that's how I see his call with the gun (he did have his friend's old and reliable gun equally easily to hand), as something not consciously a move towards death, but a sign of a lessened will towards fighting against it, which in Melville's world amounts to suicide.

[Mr Sausage]

I think, in a world in which everyone takes Gu's forced and obviously suspect confession seriously, it's reasonable that they would take Fardino's confession seriously as well.

No one knows it was forced or suspect, but even so, criminals are paranoid and cynical and in their world even unfounded reputations stick. Criminals tend to be more willing to suspect someone than vindicate them. And as for the general public, Gu's a criminal, they're hardly willing to give him a fair shake. His plan requires a level of good will and fairness from the people in his world that there's no reason to expect..

I think Gu isn't actively suicidal, and is prepared to pursue an exit, but his heart's not really in it, and he's betraying himself to a certain degree; that's how I see his call with the gun (he did have his friend's old and reliable gun equally easily to hand), as something not consciously a move towards death, but a sign of a lessened will towards fighting against it, which in Melville's world amounts to suicide.

Good point. Maybe this is just the cherry-picking of retrospect, but doesn't it seem like Gu never really goes anywhere? He travels, but there's never any spacial connection when he does: the prison, the box-car, the boat, those are all unconnected scenes. We get no sense of where they lie relative to anything else. And Gu spends the rest of the movie in small locations with the same kind of people. For a man supposedly on the run, there's no sense of momentum to him.

[Drucker]

Good point. Maybe this is just the cherry-picking of retrospect, but doesn't it seem like Gu never really goes anywhere? He travels, but there's never any spacial connection when he does: the prison, the box-car, the boat, those are all unconnected scenes. We get no sense of where they lie relative to anything else. And Gu spends the rest of the movie in small locations with the same kind of people. For a man supposedly on the run, there's no sense of momentum to him.

I agree with this, but not the sense that there's no momentum. I got the sense that once he was tricked into the confession, he becomes a man possessed to clear his name, and at that point there is a tremendous sense of momentum. The amount of care and planning that had gone into all of his actions up to and including the heist seems gone. There's no more looking at the big picture (which there was for example, when he was planning on escaping). He lives moment for moment, getting into the hospital, killing the guard at the hospital, and his general being-on the run in the second half of the picture seems to come off as a man with a much more singular purpose: just to clear his name, and take out those who have wronged him.

[jindianajonz]

I have a lot I want to say, but my computer is buggy so I'm stuck typing on a phone for the time being.

Instead, I'll ask some questions that I am confused about: what is the significance of Blot stopping to smirk at the shirt as he leaves Jo Riccis? The commentary suggests that he is admiring the gangsters lifestyle, but this doesn't ring true for me. We see Gu packing a bad with a collared shirt before making a journey twice in the film, maybe Blot is smirking at his efforts to escape?

Second, why does Gu make a point about covering the bodies with a tarp? This never actually happened so it seems inconsequential to the plot, making it an odd comment to make.

[matrixschmatrix]

I feel as though Blot admiring the shirt isn't particularly a consequential moment, just a bit of time spent with him and failing to read his thoughts.

For the tarp, I think that's germane primarily as an insight into the degree to which Gu is a.) professional and b.) fully invested into the 'murdering innocents' aspect of the heist; without that, it could be assumed that he was torn up inside and pushing himself against his code in shooting the motorcycle cop. As is, we see that he doesn't like it, but that it's something he's pretty prepared for.

[jindianajonz]

I'll agree with you on the second, but enough time was spent on the shirt team that I can't help but feel there was some significance there. Without it, Melville could have ended the scene with Blot leaving Jo's office; instead, he took the time to bring the actor to a new location, and devote 10 to 15 seconds of film time to have him exit the door, turn and walk down the street, pause in front of the store front, and then walk out of the frame. It just seems too deliberate to me to write off as some time spent with Blot.

[zedz]

I spoke a little about fate in the Leon Morin thread. I feel like his characters tend to be placed in extremely constrained situations, where choices are limited, but I don't think they're stripped of volition, and that's where a lot of the emotional power of his films arises: he takes the characters' choices seriously and follows through on the consequences of those choices.

In this film, I think we see several times that Gu makes choices that are wrong / dangerous, but understandable in the circumstances. When he opts to take part in the heist, we and he know it's a big risk, and Manouche tries to convince him not to do it, but we're provided with both an economic (he has no money with which to start a new life) and psychological (he can't accept being subsidized by a woman) reason for the decision It's a choice his background has predisposed him to make, and he realizes it's a long shot. But he could equally have opted out and fled to Italy (Melville makes it clear that he doesn't need the money to pay for his escape - which is how most thrillers would force this to play out - only to give him a cushy life afterwards).

Rather than be doomed from the start, I have to believe that Gu really was serious about leaving France and starting a new life, but the way I see the film, as the plot progresses he slowly realizes that he's been outmanoeuvred by circumstance (as soon as he "has to" kill those thugs - but again, this is a choice, as is his indifference to covering the deed up - he knows he's compromised), and fatalism sets in. Towards the end of the film, he understands that the chances of getting out of this alive are pretty remote, so his Plan B becomes Dying a Good Death.

A couple of less plotty things to consider:

How great is that opening escape scene? A suspense sequence reduced to abstract grey shapes against an abstract grey sky, with fragments of human beings pressed into the corners.

How great is Lino Ventura? I really appreciate the lack of special pleading for the character of Gu. He's basically an unrepentant scumbag, and his vaunted 'code' is almost entirely self-serving (it's the kind of code that has no problem accommodating the murder of innocent people), but Ventura makes him utterly compelling and even sympathetic, all by doing very little. He's got one of those great movie star faces that conveys his thought processes with extreme economy.

Further to Gu's character, you have to acknowledge the brazen hypocrisy of holding a gun to somebody's head to force them to write a confession that they use violence to force confessions out of people. Even more revealing, I think, is the fact that he really did rat on his associate. Sure, he was tricked into giving the game away, but nevertheless he 'unprofessionally' blurted out Paul's name and fingered him for the crime - which lends a new cast to all his self-righteous fury after the fact.

[Drucker]

How great is Lino Ventura? I really appreciate the lack of special pleading for the character of Gu. He's basically an unrepentant scumbag, and his vaunted 'code' is almost entirely self-serving (it's the kind of code that has no problem accommodating the murder of innocent people), but Ventura makes him utterly compelling and even sympathetic, all by doing very little. He's got one of those great movie star faces that conveys his thought processes with extreme economy.

While I enjoyed Army Of Shadows, this film and Lino's performance in it blew me away even more. As I've somewhat alluded to in this thread so far, there's a definite cool factor to Melville's films. But Lino in this and Army seems so decidedly un-cool, always on the run, and while he's a master of his craft, he is so susceptible to regular human foibles that it makes his character incredibly relatable.

[Mr Sausage]

How great is Lino Ventura? I really appreciate the lack of special pleading for the character of Gu. He's basically an unrepentant scumbag, and his vaunted 'code' is almost entirely self-serving (it's the kind of code that has no problem accommodating the murder of innocent people), but Ventura makes him utterly compelling and even sympathetic, all by doing very little. He's got one of those great movie star faces that conveys his thought processes with extreme economy.

Further to Gu's character, you have to acknowledge the brazen hypocrisy of holding a gun to somebody's head to force them to write a confession that they use violence to force confessions out of people. Even more revealing, I think, is the fact that he really did rat on his associate. Sure, he was tricked into giving the game away, but nevertheless he 'unprofessionally' blurted out Paul's name and fingered him for the crime - which lends a new cast to all his self-righteous fury after the fact.

Part of the reason we, as a viewer, feel well-disposed to this (as you say) scumbag is that he's surrounded by such decent, loyal, self-sacrificing people (Manouche, Alban, Orloff), to the point where you believe there has to be a good reason they're all so kind to him. Their own virtues rub off on him. It's hard not to feel how selfish he is, tho', considering he never does a single thing for any of them in turn and even throws away all of their careful concern when he runs to his death (Manouche may've been the last thing from his lips but she was also the last thing on his mind). The turn of the screw in this movie is that Melville surrounds Gu with such wonderful, caring people who take such good care of him and make every effort to guarantee his safety and then puts Gu into a situation that can't but trigger his worst instincts as a person. I think if he were simply doomed from the outset the movie indeed wouldn't have bothered to give Gu this warm circle of people. That he can give all that up is the tragic part of this movie.

[Emak-Bakia]

How great is that opening escape scene? A suspense sequence reduced to abstract grey shapes against an abstract grey sky, with fragments of human beings pressed into the corners.

I was waiting for someone to bring this up. The opening blew me away with its avant-garde compositions and unique use of sound. And the following credit sequence with the tracking shot of Gu and the other escapee running through the woods accompanied by the muffled sounds of their footsteps is all just so damn stylish. Unfortunately, I found the rest of the film to be a bit too heavy on plot for my liking (with the notable exception of the perfectly executed heist sequence.) Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film and would definitely watch it again in hopes of picking up on other things that really capture my interest (if my copy weren't already overdue at the library), but the rest of the film never aroused my enthusiasm in the same way the first few minutes did. Sorry I haven't got a whole lot more of value to add to this discussion at the moment, but I just had to sing the praises of that opening.

[colinr0380]

The opening is really great with those three heads right in the bottom corner of the screen, framed against blocks of grey (although if I have to nitpick, that prison wall wobbles a bit as the prisoners jump onto it!) Almost as if it is taking the ending of A Man Escaped then morphs itself into a Warner Bros. gangster film for the intrigue in back rooms punctuated by nightclub dancers early section of the film. Then we get the archetypal sympathetic due to familiarity yet doggedly determined cop and eventually the heist being set up in beautiful houses and taking place on a winding country road which reminds me a lot of the Don Siegel 60s remake of The Killers.

Then we get back to the great Cagney gangster films for the finale, where Gu cannot escape his fate but since his hand has been forced by the accidental confession cannot keep from taking everyone involved in the heist down with him after a final confrontation in order to help try and restore his shattered criminal reputation (talking of Django Unchained earlier, this is a perfect example of showing the options for the lead character inexorably narrowing down until he decides to make the first move to end it all on his terms).

The aspect I would like to bring to this discussion is the character of Manouche. She feels kind of like an apologia for the awful character of Anne in Bob Le Flambeur - the woman who blabs about the heist and contributes to the tragic ending through nothing more than from a kind of bored ennui. Here Manouche, even after seeing Jacques gunned down in her club at the beginning of the film, is more than capable and willing to help Gu with anything, setting him up with safehouses and plans to get him out of the country.

She is not remotely responsible for Gu's downfall as he is the person who accepts the part in the heist, which he does perhaps too soon after his jailbreak to try and pull something like that off (ironically in light of the title, he doesn't seem to be in a mood to catch his breath and think for a moment!) Perhaps he should have let the heat cool down for a while, even if he had to rely on Manouche for money in the meantime. I think Gu rebuffing Manouche in small ways, but ones which lead to his tragic end, is perhaps apparently as early as in the scene where Manouche sends word that she is going to visit and cook for Gu in the safehouse, only to find on her arrival that he has already cooked. A touching moment, but one which suggests that Gu doesn't really want to allow Manouche to be making the decisions for him.

That perhaps leads to that strange but beautifully tragic moment after the final shootout where Blot lets Manouche through the police cordon to tell her of Gu's death, from where she almost immediately returns back behind the cordon to wait expectantly (for what, anymore?) with the crowd of bystanders.

That almost impossible relationship between men and women is key to Melville, along with (Anne excepted) the men in his films being responsible for their own downfalls. Here Gu definitely is due to inadvisedly letting some details slip out about the heist which provides the key to bring Paul in for brutal questioning, even if the police break rules by secret recordings and steering the conversation to get the confessions they want.

[jindianajonz]

As I said, these gangster codes (at least in Le Douxieme Souffle) are impractical: they don't give the characters any more options for living; quite the opposite, they reduce the options.

While I don't necessarily disagree with this, I think in this film the gangster codes are essential to their way of life. Throughout the film, when Gu follow's the code, things go relatively well for him- He is able to escape prison with dignity and have his reputation intact because he didn't squeal while he was on the inside. Presumably, the fact that he was considered trustworthy is what allowed him to escape in the first place, since it is unlikely his plot would have been successful if there was some element of mistrust between the escapees (see Le Trou). Once on the outside, it is this adherence to the code that gets Gu a part in the heist, and I think the entire heist scene is a testament to how the code works- the trust, honor, and discipline allows these men to work so closely together as limbs of a single body that they no longer need words to communicate while the heist is going on. This is emphasized by the scene where Paul Ricci watches ants crawling along the ground; immediately following the scene we see the heist, which contains a number of long shots of the black-suited men working together against the same pale backdrop as the ants, implying that as the ants work for the greater good of their colony, these men work for the greater good of their team. It is their code that allows this level of collaboration to occur without doubt, questioning, or conflict mucking things up. As a result, the heist goes flawlessly, and had the movie ended here, Gu would have been a happy man.

Contrasting with this, most of the problems in the film occur due to a violation of the code. Jo Ricci becomes the primary antagonist because he betrays the code and sends goons after Manouche. Later, all of Gu's problems begin because he (inadvertently) betrays the code by implicating himself and Paul, and he is finally killed only because he betrays his promise to let Jo go. He justifies his actions by accusing Jo of plotting to steal Paul's share of the loot, but there is no evidence of this in the film- it is merely his suspicions, his lack of trust, getting the better of him. Additionally, it is Antoine's unwillingness to trust Gu's word over Jo that results in both of them dying.

Finally, there is the role of the Police in all of this. Blot realizes that adherence to the code is where the gangsters get their strength, and that conventional methods will not work against them. This is evidenced both in the scene where he is able to predict everybody's alibi after Jacques is murdered, and again later on when he shoots down every suggestion by a lower ranking officer on ways to build a case against Gu, saying the only thing that will work is getting a "lead" (though ironically, this last exchange occurs immediately following the success of the one bit of "real policework" that we see in the film- Blot tying the bullets in the policemen's murder to the bullets in the gun used on the two thugs at the beginning of the film). Instead, Blot dedicates his time to trying to turn the gangsters against eachother- he visits Manouche in a feeble attempt to get information on Gu from her, and he passes on information to Jo and Alban in an attempt to build up a grudge between them. There are two ironies to this- First, the gangster represent trust and honor while the policemen busy themselves with sowing seeds of dissent, and secondly, Blot is finally able to get somebody to betray the code only when he pushes them to defend the code. This the only time that adherence to the code inadvertently results in a negative outcome rather than a positive one.

One of the ironies about Gu's character is that while his success depends on working with others, he is most happy while he is alone. As the commentary track points out, the only time he seems to be content in the entire movie is when he is reclining in his chair reading the paper following the robbery, while when he is with others he seems at unease. This is punctuated by the two scenes where he is woken up by knocks at the door- when he is alone, he can sleep, but when he is aware that others are around, he jumps for his gun.

In some ways, it seems as though Gu is pursuing death throughout the movie, and seems interested throughout more in achieving what within his code is an honorable death than in staying alive.

I wouldn't say that he is pursuing death as much as he grows wearier and wearier of running away from it. One thing I noticed is how he slowly lets his guard down throughout the movie- When Alban first takes him to a hideout, he dashes inside the house as quickly as possible. After returning from his aborted assassination attempt on Jo, however, he pauses and looks around for ducking inside the house, and the when he leaves for the heist, a a quick glance to either side is all that is needed to assuage his fears. As time goes on, he takes fewer and fewer precautions, going as far to leisurely venture out in public (which leads to his identification by his former jailer) and even shaving his mustache for his last outing, saying he doesn't need it anymore. This last part especially is indicative of a man who has simply given up. Though I think that it is also ironic that this period where he finally gives into his weariness and accepts that he is going to die is also the scene in the movie where he is most driven, by the desire to clear his name.

The far greater crime, on Blot's part, is turning a blind eye to the gestapo-esque interrogation methods employed by Fardino- though Blot may not directly participate, he is complicit in a way that recalls the French Occupation

The commentary states that this scene was meant to recall instances of torture under the Gualleists(?) in the years prior to the movie. Originally, the scenes of Paul being "interrogated" were much more graphic, but because of the political significance they were forced to be cut. The exact torture was kind of like waterboarding without a cloth- the victim was held down and water was poured directly down his throat.

One last thing: I also get a sense that Antoine, Orlaff, and Gu are three stages in the life of the same archetypal person. Antoine is the youthful, with more physical prowess (he is able to kill a cop with three bullets while Gu took four, and at a longer range too) but less experience and instinct, which leads to him being swayed by Jo. Orlaff is the peak- he has more developed instincts than Antoine (as seen when he is able to outsmart him with his hidden gun trick) and isn't physically burdened by age in the same way Gu is (we see Gu almost missing the jump when escaping from the prison, was struggling to keep up with the train, and had to use 8 shots to kill the two thugs who tried to rob Manouche). It is because of this that Orlaff is the only person who manages to escape these events unscathed. I admit there isn't much evidence to this hypothesis, but I figured I'd throw it out there if anybody wants to help support it or shoot it down.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that a contrast between Orlaff and Gu is also displayed by the fact that both of them try to get a drop on Jo Ricci, but only Orlaff is able to walk out of the room afterwards.