Age, Biography and Wiki

Jean-Pierre Melville (Jean-Pierre Grumbach) was born on 20 October, 1917 in Paris, France, is a writer,director,actor. Discover Jean-Pierre Melville's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is he in this year and how he spends money? Also learn how he earned most of networth at the age of 55 years old?

Popular As Jean-Pierre Grumbach
Occupation writer,director,actor
Age 55 years old
Zodiac Sign Libra
Born 20 October 1917
Birthday 20 October
Birthplace Paris, France
Date of death 2 August, 1973
Died Place Paris, France
Nationality France

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 20 October. He is a member of famous Writer with the age 55 years old group.

Jean-Pierre Melville Height, Weight & Measurements

At 55 years old, Jean-Pierre Melville height is 6' 0¾" (1.85 m) .

Physical Status
Height 6' 0¾" (1.85 m)
Weight Not Available
Body Measurements Not Available
Eye Color Not Available
Hair Color Not Available

Who Is Jean-Pierre Melville's Wife?

His wife is Florence Melville (1952 - 2 August 1973) ( his death)

Family
Parents Not Available
Wife Florence Melville (1952 - 2 August 1973) ( his death)
Sibling Not Available
Children Not Available

Jean-Pierre Melville Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Jean-Pierre Melville worth at the age of 55 years old? Jean-Pierre Melville’s income source is mostly from being a successful Writer. He is from France. We have estimated Jean-Pierre Melville's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
Salary in 2023 Under Review
House Not Available
Cars Not Available
Source of Income Writer

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Timeline

1917

The name "Melville" is not immediately associated with film. It conjures up images of white whales and crackbrained captains, of naysaying notaries and soup-spilling sailors. It is the countersign to a realm of men and their deeds, both heroic and villainous. It is the American novel, with its Ishmaels and its Claggarts a challenge to the European canon. It is Herman Melville. And yet, for over three decades, it was also worn by one of the French cinema's brightest lights, Jean-Pierre Melville, whose art was as revolutionary as that of the eponymous author. Jean-Pierre Grumbach was born on October 20, 1917, to a family of Alsatian Jews. In his youth he studied in Paris, where he was first exposed to great films, among them Robert J. Flaherty's and W. S.

1928

Van Dyke's silent documentary White Shadows in the South Seas (1928). It left so deep a mark upon the pubescent Grumbach that he became a regular at the cinema, an obsession that would benefit him in adulthood. His own earliest efforts, 16mm home movies, were made with a camera given to him by his father in this period.

1930

Thus, while he borrowed from the American noir's revolt against the dichotomous Hollywood creations of the 1930s, the artist was forging his own apocryphal brand of dark tragedy. In his paradigm, a criminal could be a kind of hero within his milieu, so long as he stuck by his word and his allegiances. It was his personal style and his adherence to the code of honor that defined a "good guy"; obversely, it was his faith in others that was his downfall. It is a universe without the possibility for salvation, in which love and friendship are brief interludes in the cat-and-mouse games that lead to certain destruction.

1937

In 1937, however, his career was forestalled when he began obligatory service in the French army.

" Where its roots may have been in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937), it was clearly something new. Over the following 12 years Melville continued to create films that would influence the auteurs of La Nouvelle Vague (i. e. , the French New Wave.

In that sense, Bob is a crucial link between Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko (1937) and Godard's Breathless (1960), in which Melville gave a brilliant cameo performance. Jean-Pierre Melville is often regarded as The Godfather of the Nouvelle Vague. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that had it not been for his aforementioned passion for American film, he might have shown us a very different "Bob le flambeur".

1940

He was still in uniform when the Nazis invaded in 1940; under the nom de guerre of Melville, he aided the Resistance and was eventually forced to flee to England. There he joined the Free French forces and took part in the Allies' liberation of continental Europe. After the war, despite a desire to revert to Grumbach, he found that pseudonym had stuck. Eager to earn his place in the movie industry, Melville applied to the French Technicians' Union but was denied membership.

1945

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 670-675. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

1946

Undaunted by what he regarded as party politics, he set up his own production company in 1946 and started releasing films outside the system.

The first, a low-budget short titled 24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (1946), was a success, inspired by his boyhood love for the circus.

1949

His feature-length debut, Le Silence de la Mer (1949), was highly innovative. An intimate piece on the horrors of World War II, it starred unknown actors and was filmed by a skeleton crew. Its schedule was unusual: It was shot over 27 days in the course of a year. Its production was unusual: it incorporated "on-location" scenes--rarities in that era--done without vital permits. Its provenance was unusual: it was adapted from a book before the author's consent was obtained. Above all, its style was unusual. Its dark, claustrophobic sets and bottom-lit close-ups signaled a departure from the highly cultured cinema of René Clair, Marcel Pagnol, Abel Gance and Jacques Feyder. It was neither comedietta nor costume drama nor avant-garde "cinéma pur.

Still, for a young man with Alsatian roots, the line separating good guys and bad guys had been breached, and one can see this disillusionment from Le Silence de la Mer (1949) onward.

1950

) In 1950 he collaborated with Jean Cocteau on an unsatisfying version of Les Enfants Terribles (1950), the tale of a strange, incestuous relationship between siblings.

Originally conceived as a hard-boiled gangster flick about the step-by-step plotting of a heist, Melville was forced to rethink its narrative after watching John Huston's remarkably similar The Asphalt Jungle (1950). It was only then that he had the idea to turn Bob into the comedy of manners that so delighted the cinephiles of the day.

1953

Quand tu liras cette lettre (1953), with French and Italian backing, was his first commercial project. While it was unprofitable, the fee he received allowed him to establish a studio outside of Paris.

1956

His next work, Bob le Flambeur (1956), featured Roger Duchesne, a popular leading man of the 1930s who had drifted into the underworld during the war. As such, he was a uniquely apt choice for the role of the fashionable, self-immolating Bob. His supporting cast included Daniel Cauchy as toadying sidekick Paolo and newcomer Isabelle Corey as the temptress Anne. Although the picture was not a hit, it was a favorite of the aficionados that frequented Henri Langlois' Cinémathèque Français.

1959

Among them were the young savants Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, the latter of whom used Guy Decomble of "Bob le flambeur" in his The 400 Blows (1959) that ushered in the "New Wave" era. They adored the hip, new rendering of a tired scenario, much of it shot in the streets with hidden cameras. They viewed it as fresh and daring, a "freeing up" through the rejection of high-minded literary adaptations and the embracing of pop culture. Simply put, Melville refused to play by the rules, and they followed suit. In retrospect, "Bob le flambeur" seems straightforward: A reformed mobster turned high-stakes gambler comes out of retirement to pull one last job. Its genius lies in its simplicity. Melville admired American culture, as his alias indicated. He drove around Paris in an enormous Cadillac, sporting a Stetson hat and aviator sunglasses. He drank Coca-Cola and listened to American radio. The works of American directors John Ford and Howard Hawks were appealing to him, as they were ageless sagas of heroes and villains. Melville strove to build his own pantheon by blending the American ethos with his postwar sensibilities. As he perceived it, it was America that had valiantly rescued France from German occupation.

For this and other debts of gratitude, his next picture, Deux hommes dans Manhattan (1959), was "a love letter to New York" and the America he revered. It was also his third straight box-office flop, however, and it caused Melville to break away from a New Wave movement that he felt catered to the cognoscenti. He later said, "If. . . I have consented to pass for their adopted father for a while, I do not wish it anymore, and I have put some distance in between us.

1961

"The first step in this split came with Léon Morin, Priest (1961), a wartime piece about a priest's endeavors to bring redemption to the inhabitants of a small town. Produced by Carlo Ponti, it was a big-budget affair with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Emmanuelle Riva, both household names by then.

1962

On the strength of its favorable reception, Melville released four consecutive cops-and-robbers movies, the most notable of which were Le Doulos (1962) and Le Samouraï (1967). Belmondo again headlined in "Le Doulous", not as a clergyman but as the fingerman Silien, whose loyalty to his old mob cronies entangles him in a web of intrigue and disaster. During the making of "Le Samouraï", a hauntingly minimalist film about a doomed assassin, Melville's studio burned to the ground and the project was completed in rented facilities. Regardless, it was a critical and commercial success. Presenting Alain Delon as ultra-cool assassin Jef Costello, it was considered one of the most meticulously-crafted pictures in the history of the cinema.

1963

Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival in 1963.

1969

Another memorable production was Army of Shadows (1969), an austere portrait of perfidy within the ranks of the French Resistance. It is trite to say that a particular artist is "not for everyone. " In Melville's case, this statement could not be more fitting. Despite a round belly and an unattractive face, he was a notorious womanizer, and his chauvinism is painfully obvious in his movies. They are cynical, male-driven works in which women are devoid of nobility, merely functioning as beautiful chess pieces. His men also lack spiritual depth, diligently playing out their roles toward the final showdown. A "profound moment" inevitably occurs before a mirror, a cliché for which many critics do not share the creator's enthusiasm. As a result of these peccadilloes, as well as its lack of back-stories and character motivations, Melville's later output has been accused of stiffness, with its wooden troupe of cops, crooks and general mauvais sujets. Further, well-structured plots notwithstanding, Melville films are methodically paced with tremendous attention paid to time and place. Hollywoodphiles often find them slow, with an overemphasis on tone and style. Some have gone as far as to claim that the réalizateur's genius was outstripped by his importance to the development of the medium. They look to him as a sort of Moses figure, helping to guide the Nouvelle Vague to the promised land without partaking in its fruits.

1970

Delon would later star in a second masterpiece, Le Cercle Rouge (1970), featuring the ultimate onscreen jewel heist. His Charles Bronson-cum-Jack Lord sang-froid toughness served as a counterpoint in Melville's oeuvre to the lighter and less predictable Belmondo.