Army of Shadows - Criterion Collection
by Jean-Pierre Melville
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Actor: Claude Mann, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Simone SignoretDirector: Jean-Pierre Melville
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Pierre Lhomme
Cinematographer: Walter Wottitz
Writer: Jean-Pierre Melville
Editor: Fran?oise Bonnot
Producer: Jacques Dorfmann
Writer: Joseph Kessel
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 145 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-15
Studio: Criterion Collection
DVD Reviews of Army of Shadows - Criterion Collection
DVD Review: hate to be the party pooper . . .
Summary: 2 Stars
. . . but this movie is way over my head. I just didn't think it was so great. Can somebody explain to me what this movie is supposed to be such a classic?
To be certain that I wasn't missing something, I watched it twice. This is because a popular movie-review collating website I like (which Amazon is loath for me to name) ranked it the THIRD greatest movie of all time. I humbly admit that the merit of certain artsy European films can be lost on me, but I think I have enough of a handle on this film to declare it overrated.
I grant it's interesting, but for me the core problem is that Kessel, in the book on which the film was mostly based ("L'Armee des ombres," in which Kessel, who participated in the Resistance, merges his experiences with those of various fictionalized others) was evidently unable to distance himself sufficiently from events enough to craft an artistic something out of them. And Melville, using this rich material, fails to do much with the material either.
For example: think of the scene where Gerbier is parachuting back from London. That sequence goes on for like twenty minutes! Why did we need to see him preparing his parachute, waiting in the plane, parachuting down, meeting the guy on the beach, etc. when there was so much else of substance that went unexplored? Yeah, we get it: it was by turns dangerous and tedious. Couldn't a quick shot have accomplished all that? Stuff like this -- and a lot else in the movie -- was not particularly interesting, and needed obvious cutting.
At the same time, other scenes were anemic and want more development: the scene where Jardie is interrogated, for example. That's all we get? Just the door closing? And think of when Gerbier is arrested in a mass culling at a cafe: over an hour in that stupid plane, yet we don't get to see what happens during his arrest and how they identified him? It's like Melville kept making a point of cheating the audience -- or, more likely -- that Kessel lacked the imagination to extrapolate beyond what he himself had seen.
Of course, I'm not questioning the Resistance or the certain valor of these Frenchmen: just this treatment of their exploits, which I found uneven, elliptical, and confusing.
Admittedly, it had a couple of fantastic scenes (e.g., the phony ambulance pick-up, the death of Mathilde), but the THIRD GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME?! I don't get it.
There appeared recently in the New York Review of Books a meta-critique of a raft of recent books about the Resistance: "Occupied Paris: The Sweet and the Cruel," by Ian Buruma. You'll learn a lot more out of spending a half an hour with that than you will slogging through this 3-hour movie.
DVD Review: Great film about the French Resistance
Summary: 5 Stars
The Bottom Line:
Melville's 1969 masterpiece tells the story of how in the early days after the fall of France in 1940--well before armed bands of maquis roamed the countryside--a small group of resistance fighters waged a losing battle against the Nazis; incredibly involving, wonderfully told, with great performances by Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret and great pacing that makes its 140 minute running length fly by, Army of Shadows is an unequivocably great film.
4/4
DVD Review: Get this, now!
Summary: 5 Stars
It matters not where your interests lay. This is an exemplary piece of art. What makes this excellent movie worthy of more praise than I'll write here is that no one tells you who's thinking what or why this happened that certain way. The realism of what is 'shown' rather than told to the audience is amazing in it's common sense yet is made fresh by the rarity of which cinema so infrequently makes movies of this caliber.
Why it took 40 years for this masterpiece to reach American audiences is beyond me.
DVD Review: J.P. Melville's Piece de Resistance
Summary: 5 Stars
A truly great movie, ARMY OF SHADOWS had one of the most inauspicious debuts in the history of world cinema. Coming out in 1969, a year after massive student protests and labor strikes against policies of de Gaulle's government, and in the wake of Marcel's Ophuls' THE SORROW AND THE PITY, a sober and at times damning documentary concerning resistance and collaboration under the Vichy regime, it is understandable that the French populace and critical establishment must have had little stomach for another sobering portrait of German occupied France. ARMY OF SHADOWS did not receive a warm welcome, and died a quick death at the box office. It would take almost 2 decades before it received it's proper recognition as the finest fictionalized account of the French Resistance ever filmed.
The French Resistance had been a topic of movies before, such as PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES and THE TRAIN, but in ARMY OF SHADOWS Melville eschewed derring-do and romanticism for realism, moral ambiguity and an unsettling starkness that revealed the inner workings of the movement, from the nuts and bolts plotting of strategies, to their not always successful execution. It highlights the fact that the Free French were a diverse group of citizens, not heroic paragons of virtue, but people with human foibles and weaknesses, who frequently had to compromise personal ethics for an overriding, patriotic ideal. ARMY OF SHADOWS was fashioned with cool precision, and an overarching sense of impending doom. It is a riveting film, and a very personal statement for it's director who was able to inspire beautifully understated, but effective performances from the entire cast, most notably Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, and Jean-Pierre Cassel. ARMY OF SHADOWS is still relatively unknown outside of France, and for a film of this magnitude, it's a sad commentary on the public's taste and appetite for serious cinematic art.
DVD Review: Melville's masterpeice
Summary: 5 Stars
it really is, the suspense is carried throughout the film without a second to catch your breath. by far the best Melville film i've seen yet! and yes i've seen Le Samourai
Description of Army of Shadows - Criterion Collection
JEAN-PIERRE MELVILLE'S MASTERPIECE ABOUT THE FRENCH RESISTANCE WENT UNRELEASED IN THE UNITED STATES FOR THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS, BEFORE ITS TRIUMPHANT THEATRICAL DEBUT IN 2006. ATMOSPHERIC AND GRIPPING, ARMY OF SHADOWS IS MELVILLE'S MOST PERSONAL FILM, FEATURING LINO VENTURA, PAUL MEURISSE, JEAN-PIERRE CASSEL, AND THE INCOMPARABLE SIMONE SIGNORET AS INTREPID UNDERGROUND FIGHTERS WHO MUST GRAPPLE WITH THEIR OWN BRAND OF HONOR IN THEIR FIGHT AGAINST EVIL.Who would've guessed that the best film of 2006 would be a 37-year-old thriller about the French Resistance during World War II? Hailed as a masterpiece by an overwhelming majority of reputable critics, Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows wasn't officially released in America until 2006 (hence its appearance on many of that year's top-ten lists), but its reputation as a French classic was already well-established throughout Europe. Fully restored in 2004 and released in the U.S. by Rialto Pictures, it represents the gold standard of films about the French Resistance, based upon Joseph Kessel's 1943 novel and imbued with personal touches by Melville, an Alsatian Jew whose own involvement in the Resistance qualifies Army of Shadows as a semi-autobiographical exercise in somber nostalgia, as indicated by an opening quote echoing Melville's ironic belief that memories of Nazi occupation needn't always be traumatic.
Having lived through this history, Melville doesn't treat it lightly; in Army of Shadows, the threat of death hangs over every scene like a shroud. Unfolding with flawless precision, the plot begins in 1942 and focuses on a small, secretive band of Resistance fighters led by Gerbier (Lino Ventura), whose intuitive sense of danger lends additional suspense to the film's dark, atmospheric study of grace under pressure. While working in the classical tradition of the Hollywood films he admired, Melville breaks from convention with lengthy, deliberately paced scenes in which tension builds to a subtle yet almost unbearable intensity. With the possible exception of a brief and wryly humorous scene involving Resistance leader (and future Prime Minister) Gen. Charles de Gaulle, every scene in Army of Shadows supports Melville's predominant themes of solitude and futility. Melville's visually and thematically bleak outlook may prove challenging for some, but Army of Shadows is remarkably beautiful in its own way, and it gains power with each additional viewing through flawless development of memorable characters played by a first-rate cast. Especially memorable is Simone Signoret as Gerbier's boldly pragmatic ally Mathilde, a woman in a war of men, with a tragic vulnerability that ultimately decides her fate. As intellectually stimulating as it is thrilling to experience, Army of Shadows represents the triumphant zenith of Melville's posthumous recognition as a world-class auteur. Thanks to the Criterion Collection, this masterpiece can now be widely appreciated, along with Criterion's previous DVD releases of Melville's earlier classics Bob Le Flambeur, Le Samourai, and Le Cercle Rouge. --Jeff Shannon
On the DVDs
On disc 1 in this superior two-disc set, the meticulous 2004 restoration of Army of Shadows is presented in a new high-definition digital transfer supervised by cinematographer Pierre Lhomme. The audio commentary by French film historian Ginette Vincendeau is one of Criterion's finest to date; Vincendeau's scholarship is impeccable, her thematic observations are eloquently expressed, and her knowledge of French cinema is impressively thorough, placing Army of Shadows in a rich context of other films about the French Resistance. The supplements on disc 2 maintain Criterion's highest standards of archival research, beginning with "Jean-Pierre Melville: Filmmaker," a four-minute French TV news segment from 1968, in which Melville discusses the production of Army of Shadows. A new 2006 interview with cinematographer Pierre Lhomme (14:00) is accompanied by a restoration demonstration (7:10) and color-tone reference photos used during the restoration process. Also included is an 11-minute interview (also from 2006) with editor Fran?oise Bonnot.
A half-hour segment of the French TV show L'invite du dimanche, from March 1969, features behind-the scenes production footage and fascinating interviews with Melville, the primary cast of Army of Shadows, novelist Joseph Kessell, and French Resistance fighter Andr? Dewavrin (whom Melville recruited to play Colonel Passy in Army of Shadows). "Melville et 'L'Arm?e Des Ombres'" ("Melville and Army of Shadows) is an excellent half-hour documentary featuring interviews of many of Melville's contemporaries (including director Bertrand Tavernier) sharing insights and anecdotes in an in-depth appreciation of Melville and Army of Shadows. A superb section devoted to the French Resistance includes "Le Journal de la Resistance," a riveting 33-minute documentary filmed in Paris in August 1944 (and narrated by Noel Coward), just as the final French insurrection and pending arrival of U.S. liberation troops were leading to Nazi surrender and massive celebration in the streets of Paris. A five-minute TV interview segment, from 1984, features Simone Signoret paying tribute to Lucie Aubrac, a Resistance fighter (also interviewed) who was a key inspiration for Signoret's character in Army of Shadows. Finally, disc 2 closes with a 23-minute excerpt from a 1973 episode of the French TV show Ouvrez les guillemets, in which several former members of the French Resistance discuss their clandestine activities during the Nazi occupation of France from 1940 to 1944. --Jeff Shannon
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