Jean-Pierre Melville: Portrait in 9 Poses (1971)
Shot while he was preparing Un Flic, Melville carefully leads Labarthe through the trajectory of his career, from his daring debut The Silence of the Sea to his great successes of the 1960s, Le Samourai and Le cercle rouge. Labarthe also details the development of the Melville “myth: the dark glasses, the trenchcoats, the Ford Mustang, and his general tough-guy demeanor. This documentary first appeared as an episode on the French television series "Cinéastes de notres temps".
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In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Blistering performances.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Jean Pierre Grumbach alias Melville - a so called conservative and admirer of the pre war Amercon film - is now dead a long time. Before his last good bye he made in the time of 25 years just a few films, one French in the US, an unsuccessful one (he exactly knows why), all the rest except part of 'Fercheaux' in France, some in black and white, some later in color and scope. He cultivated a list of 63 American directors, was friend to many new wave directors and Volker Schlöndorf assisted him for Le Doulos. He owned a private Film Studio in the Rue Jenner in Paris an let it to other directors and television productions. That studio burned down totally and the documentary shows Melville in his office talking about the past, the presence and the future and the plan to rebuilt the Rue Jenner Studio he loved so much. The documentary doesn't give all aspects of Melville (how could you possibly manage in 53 minutes), but you watch a man of the 7 th art telling the camera (at nighttime I presume)what is important for him in the very moment the film is made. The man in his private writing laboratory, not the usual Stetson on his head, no police glasses, just the ordinary surrounding of a writer-director, who fights himself from one film to the other and is soon after the documentary was made dead. No more films of Jean Pierre Grumbach, formerly officer in the de Gaulle London army, producer, writer, director of films, when Delon and Belmondo were still young andErnie Sch. probably didn't even know what a film studio is at all. Nice to watch him: You can much easier recognize him as an extra for instance in A Bout de Souffle, or opposit of Jean Cocteau in Les Enfants Terrible. A film long before the talk shows came to France. The film should be kept as long as Le samourai, Le Doulos and Le deuxieme souffle are being shown on TV and sometimes on the big screen.