Jules Dassin, one of the great directors of film noir, has died. He was blacklisted during the HUAC for associations with the Communist Party and had lived in exile since 1953. Rififi is one of my favorite movies – I actually thought about watching it this weekend, coincidentally. If you’re a fan of Quintin Tarantino, you’d love Dassin, who is one of Tarantino’s biggest influences. Seriously, just watch Rififi and you’ll find about a third of Tarantino’s themes. Plus Rififi has probably the most incredible scene in the crime/heist genre, as Dassin depicts a break-in at a jewelry store in real-time. The scene is over half an hour long, contains no dialogue, and gave such accurate detail of what it takes to avoid alarms and break into safes that the film was banned in some countries. Dassin was a great artist and I highly recommend his work.