Melville on Melville Quotes

“I believe you must be madly in love with cinema to create films. You also need a huge cinematic baggage.”
― Jean-Pierre Melville, Melville on Melville

“All my films hinge on the fantastic. I'm not a documentarian; a film is first and foremost a dream, and it's absurd to copy life in an attempt to produce an exact recreation of it. Transposition is more or less a reflex with me.”
― Jean-Pierre Melville, Melville on Melville

“I move from realism to fantasy without the spectator ever noticing.”
― Jean-Pierre Melville, Melville on Melville

“It was difficult, but I managed. When I had money, I'd buy film and we'd shoot. I think your first film should be made with your own blood.

[On producing his first full length film, Le Silence de la Mer (1949) himself]”
― Jean-Pierre Melville, Melville on Melville

“I like to take risks. My films never follow the current trend.”
― Jean-Pierre Melville, Melville on Melville

“My love for cinema began with the talkies, around 1929 or '30. The first time I heard a word coming from a screen was White Shadows in the South Seas by Van Dyke and Flaherty, when Monte Blue suddenly said, "Civilization, civilization." It was the first time I'd heard talking cinema. At that moment I fell madly in love.”
― Jean-Pierre Melville, Melville on Melville

“It's the honest point of view of an artist: You have to please.

I'd like viewers to come away from my films unsure whether they've understood them. I want to leave them wondering.”
― Jean-Pierre Melville, Melville on Melville