A COMPLETE RETROSPECTIVE OF THE FILMS OF JEAN-PIERRE MELVILLE OPENS AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
All of the Influential Director's Thirteen Feature Films, with a Special
In-Person Appearance by Actress Nicole Stéphane
Melville: The French Connection
November 1–19, 1996
Greatly revered by several generations of filmmakers, including Truffaut,
Godard, Scorsese, and Tarantino, Jean-Pierre Melville remains one of the most
influential postwar French film directors. Beginning November 1, The Museum of
Modern Art presents a complete retrospective of Melville's thirteen feature
films and single short work.
Melville: The French Connection includes a rare screening of Melville's first
feature Le Silence de la mer (1947), starring Nicole Stéphane,
who also appeared in the director's renowned secondfilm, Les Enfants
terribles (1949). Ms. Stéphane will speak before both films on
Saturday, November 2. She will be introduced by writer Susan Sontag, with whom
she has worked on recent film and video projects.
The series, which also includes a new 35 mm print of Le Samourai (1967),
starring Alain Delon, and Jean-Pierre Melville: Portrait in 9Poses
(1970), a French television documentary, concludes on November 19,following
screenings of three American films that Melville adored: OddsAgainst
Tomorrow (Robert Wise, 1959), The Best Years of Our Lives (William
Wyler, 1946), and The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950).
A maverick writer, director, and producer, Melville was fascinated bythose who
lived on the edge, in the urban criminal demimonde. Looking himself like a
French gangster, with his fondness for trenchcoats, sunglasses, and American
cars, Melville created now-iconic underworld figures by brilliantly casting
Alain Delon (Le Samourai; Le Cerclerouge, 1970; Un Flic, 1972),
Jean-Paul Belmondo (Le Doulos,1962; L'Ainé des ferchaux,
1962), and the less well known Lino Ventura (Le Deuxième souffle,
1966; L'Armée des ombres, 1969) as insolent, amoral killers and
hoods.
An ardent admirer of American movies who evinced little interest in the French
cinema of his time, Melville was a consummate outsider who lived in a cinematic
world entirely of his own making. He built, and lived above, his own film
studios (which twice burned to the ground), where he forged, in the words of
critic David Thomson, "a Hustonian dream of tough, self-sufficient men in
trench coats, fickle girls, and a maelstrom of treachery and heroic
gestures."
Melville was a laconic romantic who created haunting tragedies of love and
loyalty, betrayal and deceit. Though he is admired for his gangster films, he
also made three striking literary adaptations from provocative novels of the
time: Le Silence de la mer, an austere and powerful story of the
Occupation; Les Enfants terribles, about which Truffautsaid, "Cocteau's
best novel has become Melville's best film;"and Léon Morin,
Prêtre (1961), starring Belmondo and Emmanuele Riva, an ambiguous
tale of spiritual redemption, again set against thebackdrop of the
Occupation.
Born Jean-Pierre Grumbach in Paris in 1917, Melville changed his name out of
admiration for his favorite author, Herman Melville; a member of the French
Resistance during World War II, he was decorated under his adoptedname. His
independence, breadth of cinema knowledge, and taut, economical style greatly
inspired the young directors of the French New Wave—in homage, Godard cast
Melville in Breathless (1959), which will also screen in the series—and
a generation of American filmmakers, notably Martin Scorsese and, more recently,
Quentin Tarantino, who share a love for Le Doulos, in particular.
Born in 1928, Nicole Stéphane fought with the French Liberation Army
from 1943 to 1946. After the war she enrolled in acting classes and made her
film debut in Melville's first feature. Her role in Les Enfants
terribles gave her cult status but, several films later, a car accident
put an end to her acting career. Stéphane has since been avery
successful producer of short films, including Susan Sontag's Promised
Lands (1973). She also produced and directed Sontag's 1993 video En
Attendant Godot a Sarajevo.
The Department of Film and Video is grateful to Cappa Productions for its
support of Melville: The French Connection, which is presented in
association with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris, and the
Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Los Angeles andNew York. The new
print of Le Samourai is courtesy of Artificial Eye, which will
re-release the film in early February.
Melville: The French Connection was organized by Dennis Bartok, Programmer, the
American Cinematheque, Los Angeles, and coordinated for the Museum of Modern Art
by Adrienne Mancia, Curator, Department of Film and Video.
