Poet of the Underworld

Jean-Pierre Melville (director of the police thriller, Le Cercle Rouge, to be screened Friday) said it himself: "I have a bloody awful character." In 1972, towards the end of his career, glowering at the world through smoked glasses under a Texan ten-gallon hat, the man whom some consider to be the "father of the nouvelle vague" listed the collaborators for whom he still felt gratitude after 25 years in the business. None of his stars stars got a mention.... This is as good a clue as any to the character of this provocative, morose, secretive, private and perverse man, whose life was a running battle with collaborators, former admirers and critics. He once said he was "a solitary to the power of five - myself, my wife and three cats."

So writes Peter Lennon in a 2003 article in The Guardian.

Audience members will be interested to know that Melville's cats are supporting actors in Le Cercle Rouge as the pets of cat-loving Police Inspector Mattei, who himself plays a kind of cat in the film's game of cat-and-mouse.