"Without the American cinema [of the 1930s]… I would not make films, and I would not have made Le Doulos", he told French magazine L'Avant-scène cinema in 1963. Melville's love of Americana was even present in his own name. Originally named Jean-Pierre Grumbach, the director changed his surname to Melville in honour of one of his American literary heroes, Herman Melville. ip of the iceberg for Melville's American obsessions.
