From: wildman@athena.mit.edu (Timothy Worsley)
Subject: Jean-Pierre Melville (was Re: A Better Tommorrow)
Keywords: melville tarantino woo besson
Reply-To: eprice@sybase.com
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 12:43:35 GMT

[Apologies if my previous attempt to post this succeeded.  But I
don't think it did.]

In article <1992Nov06.143225.23470@bmerh85.bnr.ca>
shiv@bnr.ca (Shiv Naimpally) writes:

>I'm also curious about the French director (Jean Pierre Malle ?)
>who Woo cites as his influences. Does anyone have a list and
>reccomendations of his movies ? Are they readily available in
>North America ?

Jean-Pierre Melville:

1946 24 HEURES DE LA VIE D'UN CLOWN [short film]
1947 LE SILENCE DE LA MER [from short story by Vencors]
1949 LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES [from play by Jean Cocteau]
1953 QUAND TU LIRAS CETTE LETTRE
1955 BOB LE FLAMBEUR [written by JPM & Auguste le Breton]
1958 DEUX HOMMES DANS MANHATTAN
1961 LEON MORIN, PRETRE [from book by Beatrix Beck]
1962 LE DOULOS
1962 L'AINE DES FERCHAUX [from book by Georges Simenon]
1966 DEUXIEME SOUFFLE
1967 LE SAMOURAI [from _The Ronin_ by Joan McLoad]
1969 L'ARMEE DES OMBRES [from book by Joseph Kessel]
1970 LE CERCLE ROUGE
1972 UN FLIC

He appeared in:

1948 LES DRAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE (Jacques Loew)
1949 ORPHEE (Jean Cocteau)
1957 UN AMOUR DE POCHE (Pierre Kast) [as police commissioner]
1958 DEUX HOMMES DANS MANHATTAN (J-P Melville)
1959 A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (J-L Godard) [as the celebrity who says he wants to
 become immortal and then die or something like that]
1962 LANDRU (Claude Chabrol)

Now, I am *far* from an expert on Melville, because DUE TO THE PATHETIC
FILM AND VIDEO INDUSTRY (in the US anyway) I CAN'T SEE ANY OF HIS FUCKING
MOVIES!!!!

Well, hardly any...  My video store had BOB LE FLAMBEUR [Bob the Gambler]
and LE DOULOS [The Stoolie].  If you've seen THE KILLER you will recognize
certain elements of it come from LE DOULOS (for example, the scene where
Chow Yun Fat has the bullets taken out of his back was undoubtedly
referring to a similar scene in Melville's film; and there are more general
things too).  I think LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES must be available on video in
the US but I haven't seen that one yet.  I really want to find LE SAMOURAI;
it sounds very "Woo-esque" (it's about a doomed, cold-hearted hitman or
something).  Many of these are apparently stylish gangster flicks (LE
DEUXIEME SOUFFLE, L'ARMEE DES OMBRES).

From the limited knowldge I have, I belive it is quite appropriate to
compare John Woo with Melville.

BTW, Auguste le Breton (co-writer of BOB LE FLAMBEUR) wrote RIFIFI, a
famous crime drama.  It inspired the creators of "Mission Impossible",
which was originally to be about the exploits of a group of criminals
called "Brigg's Squad" -- remember "Good morning Mr. Briggs... Your
mission, should you decide to accept it...", from before Peter Graves was
on the show?  This made me wonder if perhaps Luc Besson's NIKITA was *not*
influenced by "Mission Impossible" (it sure seemed like it to me) but
rather was drawing on the French tradition that would be a more direct
source.  But my brother (something of an expert on MI) tells me that there
is a specific episode of MI that NIKITA draws from, so maybe that
speculation is well-founded after all.  The ambassador played by the same
actor who plays the guy who's going to impersonate him (I never checked the
credits but I believe I'm right about this) -- that is *classic* Mission
Impossible/Martin Landau...

Hopefully someone can give a better response about Melville's films.  And
I'd be curious about the video availability in the US as well.  Thanks in
advance for any information!

Ciao,

-Ed (not Tim), eprice@sybase.com (not wildman@...)

"I need to go wherever the rats can go."  (identify this quote anyone?)