Sous le nom de Melville

Sous le nom de Melville (2008 TV Movie) was written and directed by Olivier Bohler. It was shown in the U.S. with the title Code Name Melville.

Criterion Collection describes it as, "A seventy-six minute documentary on Melville's time in the French Resistance and his films about it." Well, not exactly.

What we get is a disjointed movie with talking heads. Not much about the Resistance, and not much about the films about the Resistance.

If you are going to talk about a director's style, don't just talk. Show us some examples. Instead, we learn the name of Melville's cat. (Not kidding.)

We learn something about his character. We learn about his relationship with the directors of the French New Wave. We learn what directors from Germany and Hong Kong think about his work. However, we don't see any of it.

Any talking head film--including this one--will work well on the small screen. (In this case, this movie was made for TV.) Code Name Melville has a strong 7.6 IMDb rating. I didn't think that it was even close to that, and rated it 6.

Who has been studying cinema must to see this doc about a man who was born in a rich family,let the school to living a dream, but when the shadows of world war 2 was about to begining he engagged in army, after the Germany invaded the France he was sent to England and later to Italy to free his beloved country, the doc has two subjects to share, your life in army and as filmmaker, both things mixing along of narrative from former friends and relatives, a thing to be surprised me is about how many codiname he used in the past in fact he his last name wasn't Melville, was Grumbach, a humanist person really which he says be ashame to fight against germans, whose he made many friendship with some them, this french American cowboy really deserves a look and a overview over his legacy to the cinema!!!

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First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5