The Films of José Giovanni

Previously, I knew José Giovanni as the writer of Jacques Becker’s stellar prison break film, Le Trou, which I first saw more than two decades ago. The detailed aspects of the day-to-day prison life shown in Le Trou were unlike anything I had seen in a film. At the time, I wasn’t aware that the film was based on Giovanni’s novel of his real-life experience in prison. The realistic scenes portrayed in the film made sense.

Recently, I found out that that José Giovanni directed many films, some of which have gotten a proper re-release. This spotlight is based on these 5 viewed films:

Birds of Prey (1968)

Last Known Address (1970)

Hit Man (La Scoumoune, 1972)

Two Men in Town (1973)

Boomerang (1976)

The films hold up nicely across 5-6 decades and are superior to majority of contemporary films. A few common elements emerge across the films:

• Gritty Realistic storytelling: the films have a lived in experience and come from a place of experience and not scripted fiction. There is more emphasis on day-to-day details, procedures, routines over dramatic action sequences.
• Codes of honour: characters, on either side of the law, follow a code of honour and respect those that do even if they are an opponent. Friendships are often tested by betrayal, violence, and passage of time.
• Confinement and escape: Le Trou was about an actual prison escape and Giovanni has used that aspect to depict other characters in prisons, wanting to escape or adjusting to life after prison. Giovanni’s films also highlight that once a character leaves a physical prison, they struggle for freedom psychologically.
• Fatalism and moral ambiguity: there is an inevitability to events that unfold around characters and that is due to how society perceives people, especially those who have served time. The films show characters who strive for dignity in society that refuses to give them a second chance.

Birds of Prey – Latin American coup

Coups are long associated with Latin American history and covered amply in books, films. While each coup is different based on the Latin American country, a few commonalities emerge. Someone within the country is tired of the existing ruler (or dictator) and wants to be in power and they hire outsiders to mount an assassination. Then there are the shadow groups in the background who are really running the country, fund the assassination and decide who they want in power. All of these aspects are covered nicely in José Giovanni’s Birds of Prey, with the variation that the assassin is a lone wolf (played by Lino Ventura) which gives the film a spaghetti western feel: outsider vs locals. Birds of Prey is an engrossing film that mixes elements of political thriller, spaghetti western action with some romance thrown in the mix. Like all of José Giovanni’s films, this one feels like it is coming from a place of personal experience.

Last Known Address – in search for justice

Giovanni’s films depict society with unflinching brutal honest reality. That is true in Last Known Address which shows the price one has to pay for honesty and justice. The film is a thriller where two police officers try to find a witness to bring down a criminal. The searching, moving from one location to another, highlights the difficult job of piecing together clues to find someone. The film also shows the brutal truth about the price for justice and the role of law in protecting innocent people. Such honest depictions are rarely found in Hollywood films which often romanticize similar themes to often arrive a tidy conclusion. Giovanni’s film only offers up cold brutal truth.

Hit Man – friendship, rival gangs, war time efforts

With a title like Hit Man, one expects an assassin for hire film. Yet, José Giovanni’s film is much more than that. It covers an entire world of rival gangs, prison rules, war time efforts and enduring friendship over the decades. In terms of scope, the closest are the films of Kinji Fukasaku which often depicted how gangs, war and society mixed together. Giovanni’s film is further enriched by the presence of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Michel Constantin.

Two Men in Town – two heavyweight French actors, redemption and Newton’s third law

Two Men in Town is a brilliant story about morality, redemption, rehabilitation, reintegration in society and consequences. The film stars Jean Gabin as a social worker (Germain) who ensures that prisoners and criminals get a second chance in society. Germain puts his word on the line for Gino (Alain Delon) and is convinced that Gino will never go back to jail. Yet, what Germain doesn’t count on is the arrival of a police officer who is convinced that criminals never change. There isn’t a film like Two Men in Town out there and it showcases the unique perspective that Giovanni brought to his films in covering topics that other writers, directors never touched.

Boomerang – continues dialogue with Two Men in Town

Boomerang continues with themes of justice and morality that Two Men in Town ended with. In the case of this film, Alain Delon players a father whose teenage son is accused of murdering a cop. The film, in conjunction with Two Men in Town, shows that killing a cop carries grave consequence vs killing another person in society and explores how the law is treated differently for police vs others. Giovanni again covers topics and perspective that other directors don’t highlight.

Conclusion

When it comes to French cinema, José Giovanni’s isn’t as well known as that of Jacques Becker or other action/noir directors. The 1993 revelation that Giovanni had links with Nazi occupiers of France during WWII likely also played a part in his works being distanced. However, the recent re-release of his films by Kino Lorber ensures that at least his films will get another chance to be viewed and not be lost. The themes of guilt, moral ambiguity and redemption in his films hint at aspects that preoccupied him and his depiction of such themes have implications in our contemporary world.