Le Silence de la Mer [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville Jean-Pierre Melville

Overview

Le Silence de la Mer was based upon a popular wartime "underground" novel by Vercours. Most of the film is confined to the living room of a bourgeois French family. Howard Vernon plays Von Ebrennae, a cultured Nazi officer who is billeted in this household. As the residents stare at him in mute contempt, Von Ebrennae eloquently articulates his philosophy of life, which turns out to be pretty odious at times. Director Jean-Pierre Melville assembled La Silence de la Mer outside the established French film industry, using a non-union cast and crew and adapting the Vercours novel without securing the movie rights. Though it was much too verbose and cerebral for American viewers, the film proved most influential in shaping the future works of such directors as Robert Bresson and Alain Resnais.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/28/2015
UPC:	0715515144919
Original Release:	1947
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:27:00
Sales rank:	2,043

Special Features

The short 24 Hours in the Life of Clown (1946), Director Jean-Pierre Melville's first film; New interview with film scholar Ginette Vincendeau; Code Name Melville (2008), a seventy-six-minute documentary on Melville's time in the French Resistance and his films about it; Melville Step Out of the Shadows (2010), a forty-two-minute documentary about Le Silence de la mer; Interview with Melville from 1959; Plus: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien and a selection from Rui Nogueira's 1971 book Melville on Melville

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Ami Aaröe	Actor
Georges Patrix	L'ordonnance
Howard Vernon	Werner von Ebrennac
Jean-Marie Robain	The Uncle
Nicole Stéphane	The Niece,The Niece

Technical Credits

Jean-Pierre Melville

Jean-Pierre Melville

Director,Producer,Screenwriter