review by Jacob Olsen Patron
Pépé le Moko 1937
Watched Aug 11, 2012
Jacob Olsen’s review:
Although there were many things here, that combined should make this into a great cinematic experience, it didn't catch on with me.
There was something wrong with the transfer that stole my attention completely during many scenes. What seemed like an extreme use of shallow focus made both foreground and background blurry, and I doubt that this was intentional. Unfortunately this was a major factor of my negative experience.
I'm only left with a great performance by Jean Gabin, arguably the most charismatic European actor of his time.
Pépé le Moko is one of my favourite films, perhaps the film that really got me going along the path of film obsession! I didn't then know what Michael Atkinson had to say about it at www.criterion.com/current/posts/242-pepe-le-moko, I wonder if what he says makes you feel any differently about it?
@anne I understand where you're coming from in having it among your favorites, no problem there. Without having read that article, I already knew about the influences it supposedly had on later film-making, but I very seldom love films solely based on such matters. Atkinson is obviously a fan when he boldly writes:
«Without its iconic precedent there would have been no Humphrey Bogart, no John Garfield, no Robert Mitchum, no Randolph Scott, no Jean-Paul Belmondo (or Breathless or Pierrot le fou), no Jean-Pierre Melville or Alain Delon, no Steve McQueen, no Chinatown, no Bruce Willis, no movie-star heritage of weathered cool, vulnerable nihilism, bruised masculinity-as-cultural syndrome.»
A rough statement, don't you think?
Anyway, I think it lost me a bit in the pathos and sentimentality as well, but like I said the worst were the technical issues. Perhaps a future blu-ray?
Ah well I'm just biased (and I have no HD TVs so lack of blu-ray visual excellence makes no difference to me!)