Apparently the filmmaker Melville didn't just make hard-boiled films, he kept saying hard-boiled things.

I suppose having been in the Resistance and then the Free French forces grants you a bit of leeway.

Since I read about Jean-Pierre Melville I've wanted to try the films. Watched Le Cercle Rouge today. It's good.

Sparse script. 160-minute film. Laconic.

Watched Army of Shadows this evening. Very good, just as @weakpettythief said. Will dwell in the memory.

Can't decide if this is the least heroic or the most heroic portrayal of the Resistance that I've encountered.

Army of Shadows is much less austere than Le Cercle. Almost baggy with little interstitial narrations. (This isn't a demerit.)

Since people are retweeting it, the quotes at the head of this thread are from this article (paywalled): https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n12/adam-shatz/who-does-that-for-anyone