Jean-Pierre Melville

1917–1973 · French film director & screenwriter

Jean-Pierre Melville (born Jean-Pierre Grumbach) was a French filmmaker whose spare, fatalistic crime films — Le Samouïrai, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Doulos — deeply influenced later directors from Scorsese to John Woo. He had a habit of opening his films with grave-sounding epigraphs attributed to Eastern sages, several of which he simply invented himself to set a mood of destiny and doom.

Traced to source

1 quote we’ve traced

“When men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever the diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the red circle”

Disputed

Did they really say it?

Thought Jean-Pierre Melville said something else?

Type a quote you think Jean-Pierre Melville said — we’ll tell you what we know, or point you to the best sources.