''Code Name Melville'' (original French title: ''Sous le nom de Melville'') is a

feature length A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

about

Jean-Pierre Melville Jean-Pierre Melville (; born Jean-Pierre Grumbach; 20 October 1917 – 2 August 1973) was a French filmmaker and actor. Among his films are ''Le Silence de la mer'' (1949), '' Bob le flambeur'' (1956), ''Le Doulos'' (1962), '' Le Samouraï'' (19 ...

, directed by Olivier Bohler and produced by

Raphaël Millet Raphaël Millet is a French writer, critic, producer and director of cinema and television, as well as an organiser and programmer of photographic and cultural events. Studies Having completed his secondary education at lycée Henri-IV in Par ...

for Nocturnes Productions in 2008. Its world premiere took place in November 2008 at the

Golden Horse Film Festival The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards () is a film festival and awards ceremony held annually in Taiwan. It was founded in 1962 by the Government Information Office of the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. The awards ceremony is us ...

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

. It has been shown on French channel CinéCinéma Classic in March–April 2010, and on Belgian channel La Deux ( RTBF) in May 2010. It is the first feature documentary about Jean-Pierre Melville since he died in 1973.

Synopsis

Jean-Pierre Melville, born Jean-Pierre Grumbach, was of Alsatian Jewish descent. Having to flee Nazi-occupied France during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he joined the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

and took the pseudonym Melville, in tribute to American novelist

Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a rom ...

. He subsequently retained his war name as his stage name, once the war was over. This personal experience of the war and in particular of resistance fighting impacted Melville's formative year and has an influence which can be seen in his films.

Production

''Code Name Melville'' is a co-production between Nocturnes Productions and the

Institut national de l'audiovisuel The (abbrev. INA), () is a repository of all French radio and television audiovisual archives. Additionally it provides free access to archives of countries such as Afghanistan and Cambodia. It has its headquarters in Bry-sur-Marne. Since 20 ...

(INA, the French National Institute for Audiovisual). It has been funded by the

National Center of Cinematography and the moving image National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

, the Regional Fund of Franche-Comté and the Regional Fund of

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (; or , ; commonly shortened to PACA; en, Provence-Alps-French Riviera, italic=yes; also branded as Région Sud) is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France, the far southeastern on the mainland. Its pref ...

, with the support of the French Ministry of Defence, Ciné Cinéma, RTBF and

StudioCanal StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., Canal+ Production, and Canal+ Image and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film production and distribution company that owns ...

Cast

* Michel Dreyfus-Schmidt * Leo Fortel * Pierre Grasset * Laurent Grousset * Rémy Grumbach * Masahiro Kobayashi * André S. Labarthe *

Philippe Labro Philippe Labro (born 27 August 1936) is a French author, journalist and film director. He has worked for RTL, ''Paris Match'', TF1 and Antenne 2. He is a laureate of the Prix Interallié, a French literary distinction founded in 1930, which ...

(archival footage) * Jean-Jacques Nataf * Rui Nogueira *

Volker Schlöndorff Volker Schlöndorff (; born 31 March 1939 Friday) is a German film director, screenwriter and producer who has worked in Germany, France and the United States. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s ...

Bertrand Tavernier Bertrand Tavernier (25 April 1941 – 25 March 2021) was a French director, screenwriter, actor and producer. Life and career Tavernier was born in Lyon, France, the son of Geneviève (née Dumond) and René Tavernier, a publicist and writer, s ...

* Johnnie To

Festival screenings

, Taipei, November 2008. *

Torino Film Festival The Torino Film Festival (also called the Turin Film Festival, TFF) is an international film festival held annually in Turin, Italy. Held every November, it is the second largest film festival in Italy, following the Venice Film Festival. It was f ...

, November 2008. *

Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels The ''International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes'' or ''International Documentary Festival FIPADOC'' ( (FIPA)), founded in 1987 by Michel Mitrani (1930-1996), was first held in Cannes in October 1987., In 2019, the FIPA became FIPADOC,,, an ...

(FIPA), Biarritz, 24 January 2009 (in competition for the Mitrani Award). * Festival international du film policier de Beaune, 9 April 2009. * Sotto le Stelle del Cinema, Bologne, 27 July 2009. * Cambridge Film Festival, 19 & 25 September 2009. * CineCity - Brighton Film Festival, 24 November 2009. * Documentary Month in Franche-Comté, 2009. * Amiens International Film Festival, 19 novembre 2009. * Tokyo's Franco-Japanese Institute, in conjunction with Tokyo FilmEx, 12 December 2009. * French Cultural Center in Beijing, 21 December 2009. * Angers Premiers Plans Festival, January 2010. * Screenings as part of the Melville retrospective of the 26th French Film Festival in Singapore on 04 & 9 October 2010. * Screening at

LASALLE College of the Arts LASALLE College of the Arts (informally LASALLE) is a publicly-funded post-secondary arts institution, planned to be a constituent college of the University of the Arts Singapore (UAS) by 2024 along with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Sing ...

, Singapore, 8 October 2010. * Screening at TischAsia ( New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Asia), Singapore, 8 October 2010. * Screening at the

Cinémathèque Française The Cinémathèque Française (), founded in 1936, is a French non-profit film organization that holds one of the largest archives of film documents and film-related objects in the world. Based in Paris's 12th arrondissement, the archive offers ...

(French Cinematheque), Paris, 10 November 2010.Programme officiel de la Cinémathèque française
/ref> * Screening at the Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey, on 25-26–27 February 2011.

References

External links

*
Extract of the original French version of ''Sous le nom de Melville'' on the official website of Centre régional de documentation pédagogique de Franche-Comté

{{DEFAULTSORT:Code Name Melville 2008 films 2008 documentary films Documentary films about film directors and producers Documentary films about World War II French documentary films Films about the French Resistance 2000s French films