Le silence de la mer, Melville sort de l'ombre (2010 Video) was shown in the U.S. with the title Melville Steps Out of the Shadows. Pierre-Henri Gibert was the director.
The movie has many talking-head interviews. Denitza Bantcheva is a Melville scholar and she's the most fascinating talking head I've ever seen. She's dressed in a bright red gown, sitting in front of a red screen. If you're dozing off, you wake up when she appears. Another interviewee is the actor who played the young woman in Le Silence--Nicole Stéphane. This is a rare opportunity to learn what Melville expected of his actors.
Unlike the other Criterion special--Code Name Melville--this movie shows us clips from Le Silence de la Mer. We hear about how Melville produced Le Silence de la Mer. If there was ever a low-budget great movie, it was this one.
Melville filmed it on minute-long scraps of film left over from other movies. He based it on a novel despite the fact that the novel's author refused to give him permission. (The author came around after the film was made.)
Le Silence de la Mer is a movie that is worth seeing. If you view it using the Criterion Collection DVD, I believe that this movie is worth watching as well. Seven raters gave the movie a rating of 7.7. I thought that was about right, and rated it 8.
