"What kind of man are you?" So asks one of the people who interact with Jef Costello, existential assassin in Jean Pierre-Melville's Le Samurai (1967). Mike and Dan try to answer this question by comparing Jef to Richard Stark's serial thief Parker (and subject of John Boorman's Point Blank) and a few other figures. Melville's masterpiece uses what Dan calls a "symphony of silence" to generate real tension until the final moments, in which Jef finds himself as another performer in the nightclub where the plot began. So feed that bird, snap that hat brim, and give it a listen!
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