‘Le Cercle Rouge’: the greatest heist scene of all time
In the world of crime drama, few directors throughout cinematic history have mastered the genre quite like the legendary French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville. Known for the likes of Le Samourai and Un Flic, Melville perfectly captured the tension and intrigue of the crime film whilst dousing his works in an unbridled sense of neo-noir cool.
The inimitable and effortlessly beautiful Alain Delon had starred on several occasions for Melville, notably in the movies above, and in 1970, he featured in yet another heist movie masterpiece made by the French director: Le Cercle Rouge, also starring Bourvil, Gian Maria Volonte, Francois Perier and Yves Montand.
Delon played Corey in Le Cercle Rouge, a recently released convict who teams up with an escaped prisoner, Vogel, for a jewel heist of monolithic proportions. Joining the crew is an alcoholic ex-police officer by the name of Jansen, who is known for his deadly accuracy with a rifle, but the trio are all the while being hunted down by Commissaire Mattei, who is seeking to make amends for letting Vogel slip through his grasp when transporting the prisoner to Paris for interrogation.
The narrative and tense acting aside, Le Cercle Rouge is admired for what may well be the most incredible heist scene of all time, which runs for nearly half an hour and contains little dialogue, with Melville allowing the slow-paced action to build up to the breaking point as Corey, Vogel and Jansen set about stealing millions of francs worth of jewellery from a Parisian shop.
A ubiquitously French coolness runs through most of Melville’s work, but it really comes to the fore in Le Cercle Rouge’s heist scene. Delon’s character is a quiet and calculated thief who never loses his calm when faced with adversity, and it’s mainly for this reason that the heist goes so well and is performed with such care and precision.
Melville takes his sweet time in seeing the heist through until its conclusion, painstakingly detailing the unlocking of every door, the swiping of every jewel and the mesmerising moment Jansen lines up his rifle to shoot the security lock with an assisted frame, only to take the gun in his hands at the last moment and delivering the perfect shot anyway.
Perhaps what’s best is that the quiet of the heist scene shows the genuine possibilities of its occurrence. Corey, Vogel and Jansen are professionals; they do not need to discuss what ought to happen next idly, and they already know, communicating through a bond of criminal that exists beyond verbal conversation. Everything goes precisely as it should, and the results are truly stunning to witness.
The quiet of the whole ordeal, without even a note of soundtrack or score, still manages to ramp up the tension, as does the appearance of the jewellery shop’s late-night security guard and the crew’s subsequent dispatching of him. A long, uninterrupted take sees Melville at the height of his directorial powers, just as his actors can communicate with one another with a simple hand gesture or a knowing glance, with Delon et al. detailing everything that ought to be expected of a French noir.
At the root of the heist scene of Le Cercle Rouge, though, is the fact that each member of the crew has their reason for being there in the first place. For Corey and Vogel, it’s to make some cash and avoid returning to prison while Jansen is still battling the demons of his alcoholism, making his precise marksmanship all the more impressive.
With a technical mastery almost akin to a surgeon, a lack of reliance on flashy technology and a tension that persistently bubbles away threateningly, the heist scene of Le Cercle Rouge is easily one of, if not the best moment of its kind in the history of cinema, a genuine feat of filmmaking, dripping in the effortlessly cool traditions of French film and the noir genre.
