Directing
Jean-Pierre Melville
Jean-Pierre Grumbach (20 October 1917 – 2 August 1973), known professionally as Jean-Pierre Melville (French: [mɛlvil]), was a French filmmaker. Considered a spiritual father of the French New Wave, he was one of the first fully-independent French filmmakers to achieve commercial and critical success. His works include the crime dramas Bob le flambeur (1956), Le Doulos (1962), Le Samouraï (1967), and Le Cercle Rouge (1970), and the war films Le Silence de la mer (1949) and Army of Shadows (1969).
Melville's subject matter and approach to filmmaking was heavily influenced by his service in the French Resistance during World War II, during which he adopted the pseudonym 'Melville' as a tribute to his favorite American author Herman Melville. He kept it as his stage name once the war was over.
His sparse, existentialist but stylish approach to film noir and later neo-noir films, many of them in the crime dramas, have been highly influential to future generations of filmmakers. Roger Ebert appraised him as "one of the greatest directors."
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jean-Pierre Melville, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography
Browse movies and TV shows featuring Jean-Pierre Melville
Cinépanorama
Breathless
A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he a...
Orpheus
A famous poet in postwar Paris, scorned by the Left Bank youth, is in love with both his wife Eurydice and a my...
Bluebeard
Paris, France, during the First World War. While thousands of soldiers die every day on the battlefields, Henri...
Bob le Flambeur
In Paris, Bob Montagne is practically synonymous with gambling -- and winning. He is kind, classy and well-like...
Code Name: Melville
Mixing interviews, rare archival footage and film extracts, the film shows how Melville's works were impacted b...
Sign of the Lion
An American in Paris lives by sponging off his working friends, and throws a party using borrowed money when hi...
A Girl in a Pocket
A professor experimenting in suspended animation accidentally shrinks his dog and later, his female lab assista...
Urgent ou à quoi bon exécuter des projets puisque le projet est en lui-même une jouissance suffisante
Gérard Courant applies the Lettrist editing techniques of Isidore Isou to footage of late 70's pop culture. Cou...
Le Combat dans l'île
The charismatic, surly son of a wealthy industrialist, Clément, leads a double life as a member of a right-wing...
Alain Delon, l'ombre au tableau
A childhood in boarding school, volunteered at 17 for the war and dismissed for indiscipline, thug in Marseille...
Melville-Delon: Honor and Night
Documentary exploring the friendship between French director Jean-Pierre Melville and actor Alain Delon, and th...
Two Men in Manhattan
Two French journalists become embroiled in a criminal plot in New York City involving a disappeared United Nati...
Lino Ventura, la part intime
The fall of 2017 marked the 30th anniversary of Lino Ventura's death. Whether in the role of tough cops or toug...
Melville, le dernier samouraï
Like nobody else Jean-Pierre Melville influenced modern filmmaking. This documentary follows his creative proce...
Belmondo, le magnifique
With more than 70 films and 160 million cumulative tickets in France, Jean-Paul Belmondo is one of the essentia...
Delon-Melville, la solitude de deux samouraïs
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
Charismatic and resourceful, seducer and daredevil, Jean-Paul Belmondo has always played his roles as he lived,...
24 Hours in the Life of a Clown
The movie follows the clock round as music hall clown Beby takes off his make up, goes home for a meal, looks a...
Les Rois de la comédie
At the end of the 1950s, four humor specialists simultaneously experienced recognition. Fernandel with “The Cow...
Jean-Pierre Melville on the Set of Le Deuxième Souffle
Director Jean-Pierre Melville and actor Lino Ventura are interviewed about their 1966 film.
Jean-Pierre Melville: Portrait in 9 Poses
Shot while he was preparing Un Flic, Melville carefully leads Labarthe through the trajectory of his career, fr...