Elevator to the Gallows (1958; Ascenseur pour l’echafaud) is a French film noir directed by Louis Malle that doesn’t waste any time, introducing its adulterous lovers – Julien (Maurice Ronet) and Florence (Jeanne Moreau) – on the phone in gorgeous close ups plotting the murder of her husband, his boss. Getting straight into this carefully orchestrated killing in a city office, things take an unexpected turn when Julien finds himself stuck in an elevator shut down after office hours. The film then splinters it focus: a young couple (Yori Bertin and Georges Poujouly) goes on the lam stealing Julien’s car and winding up in trouble, and Moreau’s character wanders the streets all night looking for Julien. Amazing to think this was before the French New Wave and an influence on that movement, what with its interruption of the main plot and cutting across three narrative strands. It’s almost like it puts the crime movie we expect on pause to follow more esoteric whims. At the same time, the plot is all structurally tied up by the end in the fatalism of noir. Yet it also avoids nihilism with its sense of romanticism. The shots of Moreau in the night, neon light flickering shadows across her face, as she walks sadly looking for her lover in the night, is what cinema is all about to me at least. Evocative trumpet score infamously by Miles Davis. Based on a novel by Noel Calef. I watched this while it was on Mubi during a Louis Malle retrospective. Recommended.
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