Thank You for Wearing Trenchcoats

The single best film capture of a cigarette drag that I have seen is from a Jean-Pierre Melville movie. My mind is telling me that the film is Le Cicle Rouge although the moment in the plot that I remember would seem to fit to Le Samourai or Le Doulos better. At any rate, the hard-boiled trench-coat sportin' main character is sitting in a Paris club, across the table from a police inspector. The conversation has just turned so that our anti-hero knows that he is fucked, it is only a matter of time, and he will probably end up dead. Of course, he has been resigned to this since his birth. He stares straight ahead, takes a casual yet purposeful drag from his cigarette as if summoning the nicotine jag is calling a poker hand. He holds the smoke, and as he lets the cigarette return from his mouth to resting position, a single loop of smoke drifts off from the end of the cigarette and is illuminated in the black and white of the film. It slowly curls to a circle and floats off to his left. He continues to stare ahead, releases the drag, puts out the cigarette, picks up his hat from the table, and walks out into the Paris night.

Lessons Learned:

-Up Melville; Goddard, who cares
-Hats are cool
-Crime is cool
-Smoking is cool