Movies - Jean-Pierre Melville

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	Movies - Jean-Pierre Melville

Jean-Pierre Melville (born October 20, 1917 Paris, France–August 2, 1973) was a noted French director born Jean-Pierre Grumbach. He later adopted the pseudonym 'Melville' as a tribute to his favorite American author Herman Melville. Melville, who was Jewish, served in World War II and fought in Operation Dragoon. When he returned from the war he applied for a license to become an assistant director, but was refused. Without this support, he decided to direct his movies by his own means.

Becoming an independent film-maker, owning his own studios, he became famous for his tragic, minimalist films noirs, such as Le Samouraï or Le Cercle rouge, starring some major, charismatic actors like Alain Delon, probabably the definitive 'melvillian' actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo or Lino Ventura. His style was also heavily influenced by American cinema and fetishized accessories like weapons, clothes and especially hats.

His independence and his "reporting" style of film-making (he was one of the first French directors to use real locations) were a major influence on the French New Wave film movement, and he appears as a minor character in Jean-Luc Godard's seminal New Wave film À bout de souffle. To this day he remains an important influence for directors like John Woo, Ringo Lam, Kirk Wong or Quentin Tarantino.

Jean-Pierre Melville - An American in Paris (2003) by Ginette Vincendeau (ISBN 0851709494) is a detailed, sympathetic critical study.

Filmography

Director

1945 - Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d'un clown
1947 - Le Silence de la mer
1950 - Les Enfants terribles
1955 - Bob le flambeur
1959 - Deux hommes dans Manhattan
1961 - Léon Morin, prêtre
1963 - Le Doulos
1963 - L’Aîné des Ferchaux
1966 - Le Deuxième souffle
1967 - Le Samouraï
1969 - L’Armée des ombres
1970 - Le Cercle rouge
1972 - Un flic

Actor

1949 - Orphée
Gérant de l'hotel
1959 - Deux hommes dans Manhattan Moreau
1960 - À bout de souffle Parvulesco
1963 - Landru Georges Mandel

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