Description
Book Synopsis"Du rififi chez les hommes" (1955), directed by the exiled American film director Jules Dassin, recounts the nail-biting tale of a Parisian gangster heist gone wrong. Famed for its extended dialog free robbery sequence, it is both a classic French film noir and one of the greatest, most influential crime films. In this lively companion to the film, Alastair Phillips reveals Dassin's role as a director of socially conscious Hollywood film noir and argues that his seminal contribution to the regeneration of the thriller in post war France therefore uniquely complicated relations between French genre cinema and American mass culture. Phillips also examines the film's innovative narrative construction and use of sound, its performance style and mise-en-scene, and discusses the film's legacy, showing how even today, the term 'Rififi' remains a byword for both criminal glamor and the enduring virtues of French popular classical film making.
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Synopsis I: Introduction II: The Route to Rififi A Cosmopolitan Life Hollywood and Film Noir The Politics of Exile The Tradition of French Film Noir Auguste le Breton and the Série Noire Production History III: Reading Rififi Beginnings Du rififi chez les hommes and the Aesthetics of the Heist Thriller Space and Genre: the Nightclub Space and Genre: the City Men and Trouble A Transnational Film Noir? IV: Reviewing Rififi A Surprise Success ‘A Film Without Indulgence’ The Politics of Realism Audiences, Trade and Culture V: Reviving Rififi After Du rififi chez les hommes Influences The Rififi Brand Rififi Returns Appendix 1: Credits Appendix 2: Jules Dassin Filmography Appendix 3: Auguste le Breton Filmography Appendix 4: Films referred to in the book Appendix 5: ‘Rififi à travers le monde’ Bibliography Appendix 6: Select Bibliography
