#385: MELVILLE, Jean-Pierre: Army Of Shadows (1969)

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MELVILLE, Jean-Pierre (France)
Army Of Shadows [1969]
Spine #385
Blu-Ray


Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece about the French Resistance went unreleased in the United States for thirty-seven years, until its triumphant theatrical debut in 2006. Atmospheric and gripping, Army of Shadows is Melville's most personal film, and features Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their own conception of honor in their battle against Hitler's regime.

145 minutes
Color
Monaural
in French
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2010
Director/Writers


Based on the novel by Joseph Kessel.

Resistance is never futile.

“I am going to die … and I’m not afraid … it is because I’m too limited, too much of an animal to believe it. But if I don’t believe it until the last possible moment, until the ultimate limit, I shall never die. What a discovery!” — Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura)

What can be expected from a Melville film is simple: the unexpected!

With nine of his thirteen films in the Collection, the Criterion collector/viewer can really dig into his oeuvre. This — the eleventh — is widely considered to be his masterpiece; in any case, it completes the trilogy of Resistance films which began with La Silence de la Mer and Léon Morin, Priest.

Using a very specific color scheme, Army is like a black and white film in subdued color. The camera never does anything too fancy, and the acting style is realistic to the extreme.

Ventura — who was not on speaking terms with Melville, and had sworn never to work with him again after he was tricked into running after a train in Le Deuxième Souffle — nevertheless signed on to this project, probably foreseeing its magnificence.

The other actors, Paul Meurisse (Luc Jardie), Jean-Pierre Cassel (Jean-François), Simone Signoret (Mathilde), Claude Mann (Le Masque), Paul Crauchet (Félix), Christian Barbier (Le Bison), and André Dewavrin (playing himself, code-named Colonel Passy) all give superb, understated performances.

The score by Éric Demarsan is perhaps the most subtle element of the film. It is completely unobtrusive, and when it is prominent (the famous execution scene), it simply compliments the action.

Speaking of action, there isn’t much — at least not the kind one might expect in a film about the Resistance. Instead, we observe the men (and one woman) at work with quiet certainty and dignity.

Melville directs with supreme confidence and (apparently) unequaled authoritarian methods, but the result is a film that ranks with the very best of all time.

Film Rating (0-60):

58

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-six page booklet featuring essays by Amy Taubin, Robert O. Paxton, and an interview with Melville by Rui Nogueira.

Taubin:

“Army of Shadows was the third and final film in which Melville dealt directly with the German occupation of France — Le Silence de la mer (1949) {Spine #755}, his first feature, and Léon Morin, prêtre (1961) {Spine #572} were also set during that time — and his only film devoted to the Resistance. But it was made in the middle of his stunning late run of gangster films, preceded by La deuxième souffle (1966) {Spine #448} and Le samouraï (1967) {Spine #306} and followed by Le cercle rouge (1970) {Spine #218} and Un flic (1972), and it has more in common with them, formally, narratively, and philosophically, than with the earlier war films. Even if you do not conclude, as so many now do, that Army of Shadows is Melville’s most significant film — his signature work — and certainly one of the greatest films of the sixties, it will at least change the ways in which you make meaning of his surrounding work.”

Paxton:

“Luc Jardie (Paul Meurisse), the apparently unworldly scholar who turns out to be the supreme Resistance leader, is modeled on Jean Cavaillès, a celebrated philosopher of mathematics and science at the Sorbonne. Jardie’s books in the film bear the titles of Cavaillès‘s philosophical works. Cavaillès went underground with the movement Libération-Nord, concentrating on sabotage and military preparation. He was shot by the Gestapo in 1944.”

Melville:

“Army of Shadows is the book about the Resistance: the greatest and the most comprehensive of all the documents about this tragic period in the history of mankind. Nevertheless, I had no intention of making a film about the Resistance. So I removed all realism, with one exception: the German occupation. Each time I saw Germans, I wondered, ‘but where are those Teutonic Aryan gods?’ They were not the blond, blue-eyed giants that legend would have you believe; they looked very much like Frenchmen. In my film, I ignored the legend.”


Commentary

Featuring film historian Ginette Vincendeau.

And what a historian! Here are the other non-Melville films she mentions:
Jean-Pierre Melville, Filmmaker

Short television news segment from 1968.

“I think art only exists if the artist is alone, if the creator is completely cut off from the world. That’s why cinema isn’t an art. Art is when you’re alone in your room at 3:00 a.m., writing a scene. Yes, that might be called art.” — Melville

Revisiting a masterpiece: Pierre Lhomme and Army of Shadow

From 2006, with DP Pierre Lhomme about the amazing restoration of this film.

“I rediscovered the film by restoring it. In restoring the film — which was a delicate and difficult job — I tried to recapture the film we’d made, but also the film we’d dreamed of making. I tried to remain faithful to how I remembered it, because there weren’t any usable copies left. Copies on VHS were video transfers; they were very old, and the quality was terrible. The aspect ratio wasn’t correct, or the color grading was off. — Lhomme

Restoration demonstration

Fascinating look at how the opening scene had to be recreated and restored.

Gallery

Stills with color palettes used for skin tones.

Françoise Bonnot

Her mother — Monique — was Melville’s first editor. Françoise took over during this late period.

L’Invité du Dimanche

From March 1969, French television program featuring interviews with Melville, actors Cassel, Crauchet, Meurisse, and Signoret, writer Kessel, and Dewavrin, as well as on-set footage from the production.

Melville et L’armée des Ombres

30-minute documentary featuring interviews with editor Bonnot, actor Cassel, composer Demarsan, writer and filmmaker Philippe Labro, DP Lhomme, and filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier.

The Resistance

The pièce de résistance of these extras, if you’ll forgive the pun.

A rare short documentary shot on the front lines in France during the final days of the German occupation, narrated by Noël Coward.

Trailers

Original and rerelease.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

58 + 37 =

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