L'armée des ombres (1969)

Director:

Jean-Pierre Melville

Writers:

Jean-Pierre Melville (adaptation) and
Joseph Kessel (novel)

Release Date:

12 September 1969 (France)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

France, 1942, during the occupation. Philippe Gerbier, a civil engineer, is one of the French Resistance's chiefs...

Plot Keywords:

French | Camp | Civil Engineer | Resistance | French Resistance

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Lino Ventura	...	Philippe Gerbier
Paul Meurisse	...	Luc Jardie
Jean-Pierre Cassel	...	Jean François Jardie
Simone Signoret	...	Mathilde
Claude Mann	...	Claude Ullmann dit 'Le Masque'
Paul Crauchet	...	Felix Lepercq
Christian Barbier	...	Guillaume Vermersch dit 'Le Bison'
Serge Reggiani	...	The hairdresser
André Dewavrin	...	Colonel Passy
Alain Dekok	...	Legrain
Alain Mottet	...	Commander of the camp
Alain Libolt	...	Paul Dounat
Jean-Marie Robain	...	Baron de Ferte Talloire
Albert Michel	...	Gendarm
Denis Sadier	...	Gestapo's doctor

Also Known As:

Army in the Shadows
Army of Shadows (USA)
L'armata degli eroi (Italy)
The Shadow Army

Runtime:

Spain:140 min | UK:145 min | USA:145 min | Argentina:145 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French | German | English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Dolby Digital (2006 restoration)

Certification:

Iceland:L | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:AA (original rating) | UK:AA (1978) | UK:12A (re-rating) (2005)

Filming Locations:

Avenue Hoche, Paris 8, Paris, France

Company:

Les Films Corona

Trivia:

For the shot depicting German soldiers marching down the Champs Elysees, Jean-Pierre Melville thought that it would be impossible to get regular Frenchmen to provide the proper marching movements. He ended up casting dancers to correctly provide the march steps he wanted from the soldiers. This shot was originally the last in the film and prints were sent to theaters with it in that place. After the first showings, Melville decided the scene was better placed at the start of the film and it was physically spliced into the new position. This apparently resulted in several missing frames in the negative. These frames were restored from another source when the 2005 digital restoration was accomplished.

Goofs:

Factual errors: In the end, it says "dimanche 23 février 1943" (Sunday, 23rd February, 1943) even though it was a Tuesday.

Quotes:

Jean François Jardie: She said five minutes, but she'll wait a lifetime.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Broken English (2007)

Soundtrack:

Symphony No. 41 (Jupiter)

aside from his later crime films, this is Melville at his best, and usual challenging self

Jean Pierre Melville, writer/director of Army of Shadows, has said in interviews that the book of which he based his movie from is considered THE book on the French resistance in the second world war. While I can only speculate as to this film being THE film of its category, as I've yet to see other films on the resistance, it sets quite a high standard for painting a very calculated, perfectly cool (or cold on your POV) piece of film-making on the subject. It's basically as if Melville, having lived through the period- this being perhaps an even more personal film than his other crime films- still takes on some of the true knacks of what he does in the rest of his oeuvre. Taking characters who go by codes of loyalty, professional as can be, and in a true underground in society. However this time their opponent being the Germans instead of the police the stakes are raised. Even as a couple of parts in the middle seem to shake with the deliberate pace Melville sets a couple of times, the main core of the story and the characters is remarkable, and honest in a dark, bleak way.

Lino Ventura is at his best as Gerbier, a main man in the French resistance movement, who gets more involved in the proceedings following a brief prison-camp stint (the escape from which is one of the most daring in any film). The film is fairly episodic, however encompassing a group of the resistance people, including Mathilde (Simon Signet, very good as always), Le Masque (Claude Mann), and Jean-Francois (Jean-Pierre Cassel, at a peak as well in his own way). Some of their operations are simple, like retrieving weapons or finding more support through certain channels. Though here and there some payback is in due to the traitors. This becomes a higher issue as the film rolls into its final act, as alliances come into question, and the real ties of humanity together are tested in the midst of the German occupation.

As usual with Melville all of this is told, in its own way, fairly simply- almost clinically- by Melville's camera. There are some zooms here and there, some very intense camera positions (though not awkwardly), and exciting when need be. At the same time, there are some scenes like a short scene on a beach (all blue) or a few others at night or in different lighting modes that are the best Melville's done in the midst of a color scheme used perfectly to correspond with the mood; it works just as well if not better than how he uses it for his crime films. But one of the pleasures of seeing a film like this by a real kind of maverick of European cinema is seeing how much room he gives for his actors. These are not performances that become over-sensational in the slightest. On the contrary, what adds sometimes to the tension in some of the scenes, or the outright tragedy, is how the actors just play as they do professional-wise, sometimes with what's not said meaning more (and how the Melville gets these quiet moments is fantastic). Featuring a superlative musical accompaniment by Eric De Marsan, this is one of the best directed anti-war films ever made.