The Thinking Machine #96

In their series The Thinking Machine, critics Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin create a new video essay for Filmkrant every month.

Jean-Pierre Melville’s Léon Morin, Priest (1961) is an underrated (and highly perverse) drama that focuses on the regular, tense conversations between a Communist woman (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Catholic priest (Jean-Paul Belmondo, cast against type).

A recurring motif structures the film from start to end: the stairs that this French woman Barny ascends in order to arrive at Léon’s door. It is a true lesson in mise en scène: the striking variations in speed, rhythm, lighting, costume, gesture and situation from one ascent to the next are expressive of the tortuous path of this vexing, seemingly platonic relationship.