https://filmforum.org/series/the-complete-melville

Thirteen of Melville's fourteen films will screen at Film Forum starting Friday July 26, with ARMY OF SHADOWS beginning a two-week engagement in a restored print beginning on August 2.

Of the 27 screenings that will cover the thirteen films, sixteen of them will feature four films (BOB LE FLAMBEUR, LE DOULOS, LE SAMOURAI, and LE CERCLE ROUGE). The early, more "Bressonian" works (CETTE TU LIRAS CETTE LETTRE, LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES, and LE SILENCE DE LA MER--the only Melville film we included in THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT...) will each get screened just once, as will also be the case for L'AINE DE FERCHAUX (Melville makes an imitation-Antonioni "buddy movie" that comes to a "dead stop" in New Orleans, proving again that despite being dubbed "an American in Paris" he was much better off when he avoided America as a setting).

DEUX HOMMES DANS MANHATTAN, the other dubious "American-French noir" in Melville's oeuvre, will get two screenings (perhaps out of Houston Street chauvinism). Oddly and sadly, LE DEUXIEME SOUFFLE, to my mind the best of Melville's sixties output, will receive just one screening.

Fortunately, LEON MORIN, PRIEST (a fascinating change of pace for Melville) will get three screenings.

Melville's first effort, the short 24 HOURS IN THE LIFE OF A CLOWN, will screen with LE SILENCE DE LA MER.

I think I would have given the "Bressonian" side a bigger push with an extra screening as part of a double feature: they deserve more chances at exposure. But the FF folk probably figure that their bottom line is best served by sticking with single features.

If I were in NYC this weekend, I'd be spending all of my time at Lincoln Center for the spectacular "Spectacle Everyday" series, and getting back to FF the next week when ARMY OF SHADOWS is screening: absolutely, positively Melville's best...