Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Although he escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseille and exacts his revenge on the informant, Philippe must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis.Read More »
One of the frequent themes in the films of Melville is loyalty between men, so it should come as no surprise to Melville fans that Michel and Ferchaux develop an usual, and even unhealthy bond–you could apply the term ‘co-dependency’ here, but while Melville’s film is ultimately positive when it comes to analyzing the relationship between the aging millionaire and Michel, the Simenon novel on which the film is based is far darker. If there’s any truth to the idea that a relationship can be judged by the way it alters the people involved with each other, then the relationship between Simenon’s characters Ferchaux and Michel Maudet is toxic.Read More »
Juliette Greco plays Therese, a nun-in-training who returns to “civilian” life to care for her young sister Denise (Irene Gatter). When Denise is compromised by love-’em-and-leave-’em stud Max (Philippe LeMaire), Therese forces Max at gunpoint to propose marriage to the hapless girl. Fascinated by this extreme behavior, Max falls madly in love with Therese…Read More »
Jean-Paul Belmondo delivers a subtly sensual performance in the hot-under-the-collar Léon Morin, Priest (Léon Morin, prêtre), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. The French superstar plays a devoted man of the cloth who is desired by all the women of a small village in Nazi-occupied France. He finds himself most drawn to a sexually frustrated widow—played by Emmanuelle Riva—a religious skeptic whose relationship with her confessor turns into a confrontation with both God and her own repressed desire. A triumph of mood, setting, and innuendo, Léon Morin, Priest is an irreverent pleasure from one of French cinema’s towering virtuosos.Read More »
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In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays a contract killer with samurai instincts. A razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology—maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece Le samouraï defines cool.Read More »
The dangerously obsessive relationship between a psychologically manipulative brother and sister who isolate themselves and draw others into their mind games.Read More »
Synopsis:
A French UN delegate has disappeared into thin air, sending reporter Moreau (Jean-Pierre Melville) and hard drinking photographer Delmas (Pierre Grasset) on an assignment to find him. Their only lead is a picture of three women.Read More »
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Edouard Coleman (Alain Delon) spends his days and nights chasing criminals, but doesn’t see the crook right under his nose. Simon (Richard Crenna), a smooth nightclub owner, works with a small crew to execute daring heists with big payoffs, while the beautiful Cathy (Catherine Deneuve) is torn between them. As cop and criminal do what they do best, paths converge and old scores must be settled. The 13th and final film from Gallic great Melville (Bob Le Flambeur, Army of Shadows) doubles-down the ice-blue look that had been the director’s signature in Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge, both starring the equally cool Delon.Read More »
Jean-Pierre Melville’s independent and original approach to film-making on titles such as Bob Le Flambeur, Le Doulos, and Le Samourai earned him the reputation of the father, or at least the precursor, of the French New Wave. However, what is less known is that Melville spent eight years of his life between 1937 and 1945 as a soldier in the French army and then the Free French Forces, which he joined after the French defeat the Germans. Having escaped through the South of France to Spain, he became a member of the Resistance and took on the code name of Melville (after Herman Melville, the writer he most admired). Read More »