Jean-Pierre Melville
| Jean-Pierre Melville | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Jean-Pierre Grumbach 20 October 1917 Paris, France |
| Died | 2 August 1973 (aged 55) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Film director |
Jean-Pierre Melville (French: [mɛlvil]; born Jean-Pierre Grumbach; 20 October 1917 – 2 August 1973) was a French filmmaker.
While with the French Resistance during World War II, he adopted the nom de guerre Melville as a tribute to his favorite American author, Herman Melville. He kept it as his stage name once the war was over.
Jean-Pierre Grumbach was born in 1917 in Paris, France, the son of Berthe and Jules Grumbach. His family were Alsatian Jews.
After the fall of France in 1940 during World War II, Grumbach entered the French Resistance to oppose the German Nazis who occupied the country. He adopted the nom de guerre Melville, after the American author Herman Melville, a favorite of his. Melville 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 films by his own means, and continued to use Melville as his stage name. He became an independent film-maker and owned his own studio.
He became well known for his tragic, minimalist film noir crime dramas, such as Le Doulos (1962), Le Samouraï (1967) and Le Cercle rouge (1970), starring major actors such as Alain Delon (probably the definitive "Melvillian" actor), Jean-Paul Belmondo and Lino Ventura. Influenced by American cinema, especially gangster films of the 1930s and 1940s, he used accessories such as weapons, clothes (trench coats), and fedora hats, to shape a characteristic look in his movies.
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