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Brilliant Director - Jules Dassin - TOPKAPI - CANTERVILLE GHOST - BRUTE FORCE - RIFIFI - passes on...
Hey folks, Harry here... Man, the world is knocking off some of my favorite old school talent. Richard Widmark... and now, JULES DASSIN. Last year, when I threw Half-Ass-A-Thon I screened Dassin's classic trippy as hell film TOPKAPI, which is being remade as the sequel to the THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR - and will never ever touch the brilliance of that original film.
Jules Dassin was a towering and formidable directing talent, right from the get go... If you check out his first directing outing, his brilliant 20 minute version of Edgar Allan Poe's THE TELL-TALE HEART (it's on the THIN MAN series dvds) - you'll find that Jules was a born director. Then with REUNION IN FRANCE and THE CANTERVILLE GHOST his style was buried a bit by the studio system... it wasn't until the electrifying BRUTE FORCE that the promise from THE TELL-TALE HEART short was realized in feature form. BRUTE FORCE is one of the greatest Noirs ever made. Lancaster's performance, the sultry Yvonne De Carlo - and even Hume Cronyn's Captain... all fantastic. Jules followed this with the possibly even more brilliant film THE NAKED CITY - which has... hands down one of the best openings & closings (below) of any film ever made. Here he began his brilliant experimentation within the Noir form - bringing a documentarian style that made a very "real" sensation to the whole affair - I would also say this is one of the most brilliant NEW YORK films ever made. Brilliant. This was followed by the nearly as brilliant THIEVES' HIGHWAY with Richard Conte and the brilliant Lee J Cobb. Then he directed Richard Widmark in one of his greatest films with NIGHT AND THE CITY. At this point Dassin was amongst the kings of the Noir genre - but in the early fifties - he was named a Communist by Edward Dmytrk, a fellow brilliant Noir man, and he was blacklisted and forced to work in France... at the most exciting moment in the history of cinema... and Jules Dassin's talent exploded.
The explosion resulted in RIFIFI - a stunning perfect crime gone wrong film that is simply one of the greatest movies ever made. After the genius of RIFIFI - Jules experimented in other genres... dabbling with straight Drama and even Sexploitation with HE WHO MUST DIE and THE LAW - and then Romantic Comedy with NEVER ON SUNDAY where he met his gorgeous wife, Melina Mercouri (who was nominated for an Oscar for her dazzling performance). Then with PHAEDRA, he reworked a Greek myth and got an amazing performance out of his wife and Anthony Perkins. After that was... my favorite Dassin film... TOPKAPI - a dazzling dream of a heist film. A nearly half-dreamt descent into psychedelic brilliance.
Jules Dassin lived an astonishing life and was a brilliant director. He spent 96 full years with us - and for 40 years he was incredibly productive and creative and flat out brilliant. He might not have produced a film in the final 28 years of his life, but his influence is felt in the works of Verhoeven, the Coens, Tarantino, Linklater, the Wachowskis and so many others. It was his time to move on - but if you haven't discovered his work... you should - here's some trailers, some openings and some closings for his brilliant films - and even a word or two from Jules himself...
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Rest in peace you will be missed..
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First Mr. Widmark and then the great Dassin. Very sad news. His career is absolutely marvelous. We will miss you... I love Rififi, Night and the city, Topkapi... Rest in peace.
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Someone had to do it!
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Dassin's efforts towered over others from both his time and those that came after him.
To this day I consider the 30min "stealth" sequence in Rififi with ABSOLUTELY NO DIALOGUE and white-knuckle tension to be one of the greatest pieces of cinema EVER - in it's entire history!
The world is truly worse off today than it was yesterday... -
Is essential noir and my favorite heist movie of all time. A masterpiece of shadow play and pathos, it seems so ahead of its time as to anticipate and inform films like Godard's Breathless, Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, or Melville's Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge.
Kind of eerie he and Widmark passing so close together.
RIP Jules Dassin -
RIP to Jules Dassin, he sounds inspiring. and harry, it really is amazing how much you know about film.
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watching Night and the City or Thieves' Highway for the first time, you realize modern cinema isn't very compelling, original, or even modern. The cinematography in The Naked City, shot in 1947, is grittier and more transporting than films made 60 years later. 30 silent minutes at the heart of Rififi beats the hell out of the fastest loudest go-for-broke popcorn sequence from last summer or the one before. If you haven't seen his films this sounds like hyperbolic bullshit, but it's true: his seedy location-shooting and bleak storylines have a timeless vitality that very few directors, alive or dead, could match. And they were lean motherfuckers too. Unlike today's sadly (or hysterically) bloated death-porn, Dassin understood chew up, spit out, coming back for more. His films (especially during that untouchable late 40's-mid 50's period) wring every visceral drop of pressure out of a story. Dude was a precious rare gem, and generous enough to pour so much worth into his movies. He's the kind of director who gets people like me to spout off obnoxious and obsequious praise for being forgotten next to Welles, Peckinpah, Hitchcock et al. At least Criterion remembered. Watch Topkapi, then note that the real tragedy here is the <50 posts in this talkback compared to 4000 for an episode of journeyman.
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like under 40 posts compared to 4000 for an episode of Journeyman
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I was just at the theater watching "The Bank Job" no less than 5 hours ago and sitting there thinking "Well, this certainly isn't 'Rififi'" (to be fair, the film wasn't trying to be). Dassin is a master. Inarguable. R.I.P.
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Rest in peace, Jules.
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Apr 01, 2008 8:44:55 AM CDT
went clicky happy there with the youtube vids, didn't ya?
by gungan slayer
He will be missed though. He made a ton of awesome stuff.
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Apr 01, 2008 9:32:11 AM CDT
worth remembering why he made no american films after _night and
by duanejones
...the blacklist and dassin's placement on it as he shot _night_ in london. even with such classics under his belt, he still could never mount another film with european finances. sad. true. farewell.
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No question
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Completely ignored by AICN. Bastards.
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"Brute Force" is on the old TiVo right now, waiting to be watched. RIP, Mr. Dassin. And thanks for the respectful write up Harry. Although I don't think you used the word "brilliant" enough.
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