Jean-Pierre Melville
Jean-Pierre Melville (1917–1973) was a French director and screenwriter who reshaped the gangster film into a spare, ritualistic European form and prefigured the New Wave by working independently of the French studio system. A veteran of the Resistance, he combined an obsessive love of American crime cinema with a deeply personal sense of code and betrayal. His blue-grey palette, laconic gangsters, and choreographed silences influenced directors from Jim Jarmusch to John Woo. His acclaimed films include Bob le Flambeur, Le Doulos, Le Samouraï, Army of Shadows, and Le Cercle Rouge.