Jean-Pierre Melville in his own film, Two Men in Manhattan“A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything”—Yukio MishimaA voracious cinephile in his early youth, Jean-Pierre Grumbach's daily intake of films was interrupted by the Second World War when he enlisted in the Ffl (Forces Français Libres) and adopted the nom de guerre by which he's still known to these days: Jean-Pierre Melville. A tribute to his literary hero, Hermann Melville, and his novel Pierre: or the Ambiguities, the director would have his name officially changed after the war. The latter was to shape and inform many of his films and arguably all of his world-view, characterized by a sort of ethical cynicism where anti-fascism is understood as a moral duty rather than an act of heroic courage. Profoundly anti-rhetoric and filled with a terse dignity, his films about the Resistance, Army of Shadows (1969) above all,...
- 5/1/2017
- MUBI
On the Return to Montauk set with Volker Schlöndorff, Nina Hoss (his Barefoot Contessa), and Bronagh Gallagher at Lincoln Center Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Konrad Wolf’s I Was Nineteen (Ich War Neunzehn) co-written with Wolfgang Kohlhaase; Marlen Khutsiev’s It Was In May (Byl Mesyats May) starring Pyotr Todorovskiy; Louis Malle's The Fire Within (Le Feu Follet) based on the novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle with Maurice Ronet, Jeanne Moreau and Alexandra Stewart; Joseph Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa starring Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart; Jean-Pierre Melville's Les Enfants Terribles, adapted from Jean Cocteau’s novel with Nicole Stéphane and Édouard Dermit; and Fritz Lang's Spies (Spione) featuring Rudolf Klein-Rogge and Gerda Maurus, are the six films selected by Volker Schlöndorff as Guest Director of the 43rd Telluride Film Festival.
Michael Curtiz's The Breaking Point was one of Alexander Payne's picks in 2009 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Alexander Payne,...
Konrad Wolf’s I Was Nineteen (Ich War Neunzehn) co-written with Wolfgang Kohlhaase; Marlen Khutsiev’s It Was In May (Byl Mesyats May) starring Pyotr Todorovskiy; Louis Malle's The Fire Within (Le Feu Follet) based on the novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle with Maurice Ronet, Jeanne Moreau and Alexandra Stewart; Joseph Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa starring Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart; Jean-Pierre Melville's Les Enfants Terribles, adapted from Jean Cocteau’s novel with Nicole Stéphane and Édouard Dermit; and Fritz Lang's Spies (Spione) featuring Rudolf Klein-Rogge and Gerda Maurus, are the six films selected by Volker Schlöndorff as Guest Director of the 43rd Telluride Film Festival.
Michael Curtiz's The Breaking Point was one of Alexander Payne's picks in 2009 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Alexander Payne,...
- 9/1/2016
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The already-incredible line-up for the 2016 New York Film Festival just got even more promising. Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk will hold its world premiere at the festival on October 14th, the NY Times confirmed today. The adaptation of Ben Fountain‘s Iraq War novel, with a script by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), follows a teenage soldier who survives a battle in Iraq and then is brought home for a victory lap before returning.
Lee has shot the film at 120 frames per second in 4K and native 3D, giving it unprecedented clarity for a feature film, which also means the screening will be held in a relatively small 300-seat theater at AMC Lincoln Square, one of the few with the technology to present it that way. While it’s expected that this Lincoln Square theater will play the film when it arrives in theaters, it may be...
Lee has shot the film at 120 frames per second in 4K and native 3D, giving it unprecedented clarity for a feature film, which also means the screening will be held in a relatively small 300-seat theater at AMC Lincoln Square, one of the few with the technology to present it that way. While it’s expected that this Lincoln Square theater will play the film when it arrives in theaters, it may be...
- 8/22/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Its time to take a look at where a master began and in this case its Jean Pierre Melville and his debut Le Silence de la mer. Enjoy!
From Masters of Cinema:
Le Silence de la mer – Jean-Pierre Melville’s debut film – is an adaptation of the novella of the same title by celebrated French Resistance author Vercors (the pen name of Jean Bruller). Clandestinely written in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France and furtively distributed, it captured the spirit of the moment, and quickly became a staple of the Resistance. Melville’s cinematic adaptation – partly shot in Vercors’ own house – tells the story of a German officer, Werner von Ebrennac (Howard Vernon), who is billeted to the house of an elderly man (Jean-Marie Robain) and his niece (Nicole Stéphane) in occupied France.
One of the most important French films to deal with World War II, and a landmark in Melville’s distinguished œuvre,...
From Masters of Cinema:
Le Silence de la mer – Jean-Pierre Melville’s debut film – is an adaptation of the novella of the same title by celebrated French Resistance author Vercors (the pen name of Jean Bruller). Clandestinely written in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France and furtively distributed, it captured the spirit of the moment, and quickly became a staple of the Resistance. Melville’s cinematic adaptation – partly shot in Vercors’ own house – tells the story of a German officer, Werner von Ebrennac (Howard Vernon), who is billeted to the house of an elderly man (Jean-Marie Robain) and his niece (Nicole Stéphane) in occupied France.
One of the most important French films to deal with World War II, and a landmark in Melville’s distinguished œuvre,...
- 7/15/2015
- by Tom Jennings
- CriterionCast
Available for the first time in the Us on Blu-ray and DVD is Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterful directorial debut, 1949’s Le Silence de la Mer (The Silence of the Sea). Based on a famous underground novel published secretly in 1942 by author Jean Bruller, written under the pseudonym Vercours, the exceptional debut precedes the brooding themes that would grace Melville’s later noir and gangster films, as well as the continuation of period pieces concerning Nazi occupied France. Understated and elegant, it’s an incredibly haunting first title from the self-made auteur, an actual member of the French resistance (he adopted his surname for his love of author Herman Melville and it remained his pseudonym after the war).
Opening with a statement that the film has ‘no pretensions’ as concerns the relationship with France and Germany (whose people were complicit with the Nazi’s rise to power), we hear the omniscient narration of an elder Frenchman,...
Opening with a statement that the film has ‘no pretensions’ as concerns the relationship with France and Germany (whose people were complicit with the Nazi’s rise to power), we hear the omniscient narration of an elder Frenchman,...
- 4/28/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Adieu au langage - Goodbye to Language
A Works Cited
Introduction
From its bluntly political opening (Alfredo Bandelli's 'La caccia alle streghe': "Always united we win, long live the revolution!") to its hilarious fecal humor and word play—with 3D staging that happily puts to shame James Cameron and every other hack who's tried their hand at it these past several years—Adieu au langage overwhelms us with a deluge of recited texts, music and images, hardly ever bothering to slow down to let us catch our breath. Exhilarating and certainly not surprising—this is the guy who made Puissance de la parole after all!
The release of a new Godard film or video means a new encounter with texts, films and music often familiar from the filmmaker's earlier work—reworked and re-contextualized—as well as new discoveries to be sorted through and identified. This life-long interest in quotation...
A Works Cited
Introduction
From its bluntly political opening (Alfredo Bandelli's 'La caccia alle streghe': "Always united we win, long live the revolution!") to its hilarious fecal humor and word play—with 3D staging that happily puts to shame James Cameron and every other hack who's tried their hand at it these past several years—Adieu au langage overwhelms us with a deluge of recited texts, music and images, hardly ever bothering to slow down to let us catch our breath. Exhilarating and certainly not surprising—this is the guy who made Puissance de la parole after all!
The release of a new Godard film or video means a new encounter with texts, films and music often familiar from the filmmaker's earlier work—reworked and re-contextualized—as well as new discoveries to be sorted through and identified. This life-long interest in quotation...
- 10/16/2014
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
Le Silence de la Mer
Written and Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring Howard Vernon, Nicole Stéphane, and Jean-Marie Robain
France, 88 min – 1949
“I have great respect for those who love their country.”
Based on the 1942 novel by Vercors, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Silence de la Mer (The Silence of the Sea) draws an intriguing picture of German-French relations during The Occupation. It follows six months in the repetitive life of an uncle, his niece, and Werner von Ebrennac, the Nazi soldier boarding with them. Forced to endure the presence of the enemy, the uncle and niece take a vow of silence. They continue living their lives, as if Werner isn’t there. Slowly, their view of Werner changes. He becomes more human in their eyes, but the question is whether such a view can last.
Much has been made of the symbolism of silence in this film. It stands for the...
Written and Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring Howard Vernon, Nicole Stéphane, and Jean-Marie Robain
France, 88 min – 1949
“I have great respect for those who love their country.”
Based on the 1942 novel by Vercors, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Silence de la Mer (The Silence of the Sea) draws an intriguing picture of German-French relations during The Occupation. It follows six months in the repetitive life of an uncle, his niece, and Werner von Ebrennac, the Nazi soldier boarding with them. Forced to endure the presence of the enemy, the uncle and niece take a vow of silence. They continue living their lives, as if Werner isn’t there. Slowly, their view of Werner changes. He becomes more human in their eyes, but the question is whether such a view can last.
Much has been made of the symbolism of silence in this film. It stands for the...
- 6/2/2014
- by Karen Bacellar
- SoundOnSight
These Final Hours, an Apocalyptic thriller from first-time writer-director Zak Hilditch, will screen at the Cannes Film Festival in the Directors. Fortnight section in May.
Its selection enhances the Australian profile at the festival with David Michôd.s The Rover getting a midnight screening out of competition and Rolf de Heer.s Charlie.s Country showing in the Un Certain Regard sidebar.
.I think it.s every director.s dream to have their work screen in Cannes. This is a huge achievement for everyone who worked on the film,. Hilditch told If on Tuesday night.
In a joint statement with his producer Liz Kearney, he continued, .We are feeling so excited and proud to have our debut feature film selected for Directors' Fortnight. We are really looking forward to sharing These Final Hours with an international audience for the first time and could not ask for a better platform to premiere the film internationally in.
Its selection enhances the Australian profile at the festival with David Michôd.s The Rover getting a midnight screening out of competition and Rolf de Heer.s Charlie.s Country showing in the Un Certain Regard sidebar.
.I think it.s every director.s dream to have their work screen in Cannes. This is a huge achievement for everyone who worked on the film,. Hilditch told If on Tuesday night.
In a joint statement with his producer Liz Kearney, he continued, .We are feeling so excited and proud to have our debut feature film selected for Directors' Fortnight. We are really looking forward to sharing These Final Hours with an international audience for the first time and could not ask for a better platform to premiere the film internationally in.
- 4/22/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
This morning the 2014 Cannes Film Festival lineup was announced and while at least one Out of Competition title is still to be announced, along with the Critics' Week and Directors' Fortnight lineups, we have a look at what films make up the competition and it's largely a lot of the titles that were rumored heading into today's announcement. Among the competition titles you have Atom Egoyan's Captives, which we'll have to hope is better than Devil's Knot, Bennett Miller's highly anticipated Foxcatcher, Jean-Luc Godard's 3D feature Goodbye To Language, The Homesman from Tommy Lee Jones, Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall and David Cronengberg's Maps to the Stars. I'm jealous I won't be there to see Xavier Dolan's first time in competition with Mommy, Mike Leigh is again at Cannes with Mr. Turner and Michel Hazanavicius returns to Cannes after The Artist took the fest by storm with The Search.
- 4/17/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
It's 100 years since the first volume of À La Recherche du Temps Perdu was published, but a definitive cinematisation of Proust's epic novel has so far proved elusive
This year has been punctuated by a rash of anniversary-themed books and articles anticipating the first world war centenary, and indeed attempting snapshots of how Europe looked and felt in 1913, eerily poised on the precipice. The other centenary is similar in many ways: on 8 November 1913, Marcel Proust published the first volume of À La Recherche du Temps Perdu, his monumental novel about memory, mortality and art, the belle époque, and the leisured and aristocratic classes of Paris, a city crammed in Proust's pages with the most vivid and extraordinary personalities, destined to be swept away by the Great War.
Fourteen years ago, at Cannes, I saw Raúl Ruiz's superlative screen adaptation of the final volume: Time Regained, in which the narrator,...
This year has been punctuated by a rash of anniversary-themed books and articles anticipating the first world war centenary, and indeed attempting snapshots of how Europe looked and felt in 1913, eerily poised on the precipice. The other centenary is similar in many ways: on 8 November 1913, Marcel Proust published the first volume of À La Recherche du Temps Perdu, his monumental novel about memory, mortality and art, the belle époque, and the leisured and aristocratic classes of Paris, a city crammed in Proust's pages with the most vivid and extraordinary personalities, destined to be swept away by the Great War.
Fourteen years ago, at Cannes, I saw Raúl Ruiz's superlative screen adaptation of the final volume: Time Regained, in which the narrator,...
- 11/7/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
As part of the war movie genre, the heroic exploits of the Resistance have been a popular form of cinematic entertainment since the end of World War Two. The bane of the invading German forces, the Resistance always represented the ordinary man picking up arms against the dreaded Hun to defend their country. Whether it was booby-trapping panzers or smuggling escaped POWs and Jewish refugees to safety, many films emphasized their heroism to great effect. Exploits of the Greek, Norwegian and French Resistance have been put to good use in The Guns of Navarone (1961), 633 Squadron (1964) and The Night of the Generals (1967).
As great as these films were, the exploits of the Resistance has been pretty much romanticized and even parodied (for those who remember ‘Allo ‘Allo!). The reality was very different. They were ruthless killers who took no prisoners and treated those who had in any way collaborated with the enemy with cold-blooded hostility.
As great as these films were, the exploits of the Resistance has been pretty much romanticized and even parodied (for those who remember ‘Allo ‘Allo!). The reality was very different. They were ruthless killers who took no prisoners and treated those who had in any way collaborated with the enemy with cold-blooded hostility.
- 12/13/2011
- Shadowlocked
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 8 November 1952
From Our London Film Critic
Jean Cocteau has said – perhaps with a parent's defiance in protecting an unpopular offspring – that of all his films, "Les Enfants Terribles" (at the Continentale, renamed "The Strange Ones") is his favourite.
Whatever his own preferences it is not his best film; it does not equal "Orphée". On the other hand, it is by no means the weakling in M. Cocteau's brood of film-children; it is, indeed, a highly typical film – perhaps the most Cocteau-esque of all he has made – and shares not only the weaknesses which belong to most of his films but also many of the excellent qualities which made "Orphée" so distinguished.
M. Cocteau here has adapted (and Jean-Pierre Melville has directed the film adaptation) his extremely fanciful and morbid novel about a sister and brother who live in what amounts to a human vacuum,...
From Our London Film Critic
Jean Cocteau has said – perhaps with a parent's defiance in protecting an unpopular offspring – that of all his films, "Les Enfants Terribles" (at the Continentale, renamed "The Strange Ones") is his favourite.
Whatever his own preferences it is not his best film; it does not equal "Orphée". On the other hand, it is by no means the weakling in M. Cocteau's brood of film-children; it is, indeed, a highly typical film – perhaps the most Cocteau-esque of all he has made – and shares not only the weaknesses which belong to most of his films but also many of the excellent qualities which made "Orphée" so distinguished.
M. Cocteau here has adapted (and Jean-Pierre Melville has directed the film adaptation) his extremely fanciful and morbid novel about a sister and brother who live in what amounts to a human vacuum,...
- 11/8/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
The new wave 40 years early. The soft side of Jean-Pierre Melville. Nicole Kidman makes the unmakeable. Somewhere out there is an alternative history of film – David Thomson unearths 10 lost works of genius
Erotikon (1920)
Forget 1920, this is an absolutely modern comedy about romance and sex, directed in Sweden by Mauritz Stiller. We should remember that when MGM brought Greta Garbo from Sweden in the mid-20s, she was almost baggage in the deal that hired Stiller, one of the sharpest and most sophisticated of silent directors, but a man who would be crushed by Hollywood. Stiller needs to be recovered (like his contemporary, Victor Sjöström), and Erotikon has an instinct for attraction and infidelity that simply couldn't be permitted in American films of the same period. It's also marvellous to see that, nearly 100 years ago, Swedish cinema was in love with its country's cool light and with actresses as warm but ambiguous as Tora Teje,...
Erotikon (1920)
Forget 1920, this is an absolutely modern comedy about romance and sex, directed in Sweden by Mauritz Stiller. We should remember that when MGM brought Greta Garbo from Sweden in the mid-20s, she was almost baggage in the deal that hired Stiller, one of the sharpest and most sophisticated of silent directors, but a man who would be crushed by Hollywood. Stiller needs to be recovered (like his contemporary, Victor Sjöström), and Erotikon has an instinct for attraction and infidelity that simply couldn't be permitted in American films of the same period. It's also marvellous to see that, nearly 100 years ago, Swedish cinema was in love with its country's cool light and with actresses as warm but ambiguous as Tora Teje,...
- 8/19/2010
- by David Thomson
- The Guardian - Film News
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