Melville's Bob Le Flambeur

What is most striking about Melville's Bob Le Flambeur are the games of chance upon which the theme and the very plot of the film rests. Life is not presented to us as determined by cause and effect, but instead by the invisible whims of "madame de chance" or lady luck. Bob, the main character, lives his life by a faith in the whims of chance; he lives with a kind of 'blind faith' in the return of good fortune. Though he may have lost nearly everything in his nightly escapades there is a certain optimism in his character that reveals his 'charm' and the charming effect he has on friends, acquaintances and the audience. The 'rebounding' nature of Bob is detailed for us in the opening scenes of the film which catches Bob at a low point in his luck, having lost nearly everything at every game he has played. Yet, miraculously during his early morning wanderings he, by chance, sees a beautiful girl, too young to be out on the street, buying some French fries before she is wisked away by a horny American sailor. It is this chance observation and the meeting between the two later in the film that will bring him good fortune at the price of more bad fortune. It is in this way that the entire film of Bob Le Flambeur is balanced with downs and ups so to speak where a loser's luck changes without any rational cause into a winner- all one has to do, according to Bob's actions, is never take youself out of the game. We see the whims of chance demonstrated for us emphatically by the breathtaking finale of the film. Here, Bob has spent great effort in assembling a crew and borrowing set up money to rob a casino of 800 million francs, but while waiting in the casino for the scheduled time of the heist, he starts winning- and winning big. Fortune has cast its light upon him in such a way that he nearly forgets his own plan (which would have been foiled anyway by various snitches). The film presents us with a curious success- not by man's willful labor (the planning and execution of the heist) but instead it is a success given to the character by chance. Of even greater interest is the way the film ends, not with the unfornature death of Bob's protege, Paulo, but instead with a humorous exchange among Bob, his friend Roger and the Police detective that reveals that Bob will get off from the charges of criminal intent and be allowed to enjoy his fortune. What one comes away from after having seen Melville's BOB LE FLAMBEUR and knowing that he shot this film with the great cinematographer, Henri Decae, intermittantly with sporatic funding- what one comes away with after having seen the film is the consistancy of mood, the sustained measure of the film's pacing, actions, and its tightly composed images. For a film produced under such chaotic circumstances, it is Melville's vision, or rather, the consistancy and the sustaining of his vision that holds this atmospheric essay on chance and fate together. Melville was perhaps the first to show us that criminals can be gentlemen also and that there is a difference between the gangster and the nihilist that was to soon be blurred with Godard's BREATHLESS only a few years later.