Jean-Pierre Melville

About

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...

Known for

BreathlessMovie • 1960Ghost Dog: The Way of the SamuraiMovie • 1999Le Cercle RougeMovie • 1970Army of ShadowsMovie • 1969Le SamouraïMovie • 1967OrpheusMovie • 1950Un FlicMovie • 1972BluebeardMovie • 1963Léon Morin, PriestMovie • 1961The Good ThiefMovie • 2003Le DoulosMovie • 1962The Silence of the SeaMovie • 1949Le Deuxième SouffleMovie • 1966Sign of the LionMovie • 1962Two Men in ManhattanMovie • 1959Bob le FlambeurMovie • 1956Le Combat dans l'îleMovie • 1962Magnet of DoomMovie • 1963The Strange OnesMovie • 195024 Hours in the Life of a ClownMovie • 1946When You Read This LetterMovie • 1953