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Poll

Your favorite Melville films are?

24 heures de la vie d'un clown
0 (0%)
Le Silence de la Mer
0 (0%)
Les Enfants terribles
1 (1.4%)
When You Read This Letter
0 (0%)
Bob le flambeur
9 (12.2%)
Two Men in Manhattan
0 (0%)
Léon Morin, Priest
1 (1.4%)
Le Doulos
8 (10.8%)
Magnet of Doom
0 (0%)
Le Deuxième souffle
2 (2.7%)
Le Samouraï
21 (28.4%)
Army of Shadows
13 (17.6%)
Le Cercle rouge
17 (23%)
Un flic
2 (2.7%)
haven't seen any
0 (0%)
don't like any
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 44

Author Topic: Melville, Jean-Pierre  (Read 11095 times)

Melvil

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #30 on: January 21, 2015, 03:28:11 PM »
Hmm, it's been a long time since I've seen it but I remember it being a lot more humanistic than that. I thought the German soldier went a long ways towards establishing a level of mutual respect and showing the difference between an "enemy" in an abstract sense and on an individual level. Am I remembering that wrong or did you just find it ineffective?

verbALs

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #31 on: January 21, 2015, 03:38:48 PM »
Yeah much of it was about how France and Germany were two sides of the same coin. The officer was shown clearly differentiated from the Nazi goons; particularly in a scene where he shows disgust for their behaviour. As a film about rapprochement and common feeling, and so close to the war, it is a very brave piece. Beautiful literary intelligence. Amazing tone to it. Quite unique and really interesting when put beside Leon Morin pretre and Army of Shadows.
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1SO

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #32 on: January 22, 2015, 12:29:30 AM »
The German soldier is a Nazi, but I actually put him on the "France is Great" side. His stories were all about the reasons why he wanted to come to Paris and how he fell in love with French culture. One of the more shocking scenes is when he's among fellow Nazi's and has to listen to their plans to erase French culture from the planet. He was the voice of the French since the French remain silent out of fear. (In this scene, we see he is disgusted, but he doesn't vocalize it.) This doesn't humanize the German soldier because we never see any of his life as a Nazi. What does he do? How did he fall under this ideology that he's actually against. (You never see him try to stop or slow down the Nazi plans. He's just a good little soldier.)

What's most memorable is learning when and how the source book was written. That's what verbALs is talking about regarding it being a very brave piece. And I completely agree it has a unique tone because of the way dialogue is handled.

Melvil

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #33 on: January 22, 2015, 12:43:15 AM »
Ah, that makes more sense, can't really dispute that. The movie does feel like it's more about the idea than the actual characters, but that approach worked for me.

Corndog

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre
« Reply #34 on: March 30, 2016, 08:21:33 AM »
1. Army of Shadows (2.5)
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

Teproc

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre
« Reply #35 on: February 28, 2017, 02:40:17 PM »
L'armée des ombres
Le cercle rouge
Le samouraï
Léon Morin, prêtre
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pixote

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre
« Reply #36 on: August 07, 2017, 02:38:23 PM »
1SO, how do you rank the Melville you've seen?

pixote
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1SO

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre
« Reply #37 on: August 07, 2017, 08:02:20 PM »
I never did a ranking because I could never figure out why none of his films engrossed me. I look back on what I've seen -

Bob le Flambeur
Le Samouraï
Le Doulos
Le Silence de la Mer
Le Cercle Rouge
Army of Shadows

 - and I think, "yeah I remember them being okay" but I don't feel like revisiting and none of them are what I'd call Great, which is strange because you'd think Melville would be right up my alley.

p.s. That would be my ranking based on memory and all would be the same color.

pixote

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre
« Reply #38 on: August 07, 2017, 08:21:38 PM »
... which is strange because you'd think Melville would be right up my alley.

Yeah, that's what prompted the question, actually. I was revisiting Le samourai the other day (review later in the week, when my schedule clears up) and thinking through my impending response to your Way to the Stars review ... and I thought that I'd maybe suggest The Sicilian Clan as an alternate film I could recommend to you (should the idea of It All Starts Today being like a Ken Loach film fail to be convincing). The Sicilian Clan isn't a Top 100 film for me but it is one of my discoveries from last year. (We still need to do a Discoveries month sometime soon. September?) Anyway, then I thought, "You know, I don't remember 1SO ever raving about Melville. Maybe 60s/70s French crime dramas aren't the thing to recommend.")

pixote
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Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: Melville, Jean-Pierre
« Reply #39 on: September 04, 2017, 04:02:28 AM »
Army Of Shadows, 65°
Les enfants terribles, 60°
Le samouraï, 50°
Le doulos, 45°
Extraordinary (81-100˚) | Very good (61-80˚) | Good (41-60˚) | Fair (21-40˚) | Poor (0-20˚)