army of shadows
rui nogueira, “melville on melville: army of shadows”, army of shadows, the criterion collection, pp. 30 - 40 .
army of shadows (the crit... has been added to your cart
roger ebert, “army of shadows”, urltoken, (21 may 2006) .
an overview of the career of great french director of
le samouraï
and
army of shadows .
an analysis of joseph kessel' s book
army of shadows
which melville adapted to make his movie .
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for anyone interested in the impact of war on ordinary men, army of shadows proves a sobering and invaluable experience .
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) in
army of shadows
to london, where members of the british government are expecting him. the two board a submarine that takes them away .
jean - pierre melville, director, army of shadows (1969), 140 min. les films corona, fono roma, france / italy .
the restricted photographic palette of army of shadows, with its muted and desaturated blue, green and grey conveys an ominous, even ghostly, mood of menace, ambuguity and confinement .
expect your units to be a lot more vocal in shadows of valentia with tons of voice acting .
back on the streets of paris, gestapo and the vichy police begin tracking down philippe' s men. some panic and leave, but new men join
army of shadows
.
amy taubin, “out of the shadows”, the criterion collection, (11 january 2011) .
from the first sight of german soldiers goose - stepping past the arc de triomphe to a postscript that spells out the fate of characters whose moral confusion is all too real, army of shadows is a movie of its time - - and ours .
jean - pierre melville’s film army of shadows (1969) gives a dramatic account of the extreme dangers faced by the french who resisted the german occupation of 1940–1944. the time of the story is unspecified, but it is probably 1943, late enough …
trailers - 1. original - the original french trailer for army of shadows. in french, with optional english subtitles. (3 min, 1080i). 2. u. s. premiere - army of shadows was screened theatrically in the united states for the first time in 2006. this is the trailer for the film distributor rialto pictures created. music only. (2 min, 1080i) .
the glacial pacing can be an irritant as the film unfolds - - i repeatedly wanted to speed things up - - but army of shadows won' t leave you alone after you' ve seen it .
when
army of shadows
was originally released, a french critic wrote that
this resistance epic was, in the end, a sublime thriller .
melville rejected the comparison, even if it is also entirely possible to see his sublime thrillers as epics of resistance. the great man died in 1973 at the unfair age of 55, collapsing into the arms of a male friend. he left behind one short film and 13 features, a few of which, including
army of shadows ,
are worthy of that overused superlative masterpiece .
beware, major spoilers ahead. elegant, brutal, anxiety - provoking, and overwhelmingly sad, jean - pierre melville’s 1969 army of shadows was released theatrically for the first time in the united states in 2006, to nearly universal critical accla…
army of shadows was the third and final film melville made that directly involved the german occupation of france, but it was also made during the middle of his gangster pictures as well and if looking closely army of shadows blends a little of both of those themes. the film was adapted by joseph kessel' s book army of shadows which was an account of the author' s experience in the french resistance which was published in london in 1943. at age 20 melville was drafted in the army in 1937, and changed his name from grumbach to that of his favorite american writer and kept the name after the war. melville was involved in the resistance between 1941 and 1943, was jailed in spain and his brother was killed trying to reach him. he then joined the free french in north africa in 1943 and took part in the italian and french liberation campaigns in 1944. even though service with the free french has never been disputed some have been skeptical on melville' s connection to the resistance .
jean - pierre melville' s
army of shadows
is about members of the french resistance who persist in the face of despair. rarely has a film shown so truly that place in the heart where hope lives with fatalism. it is not a film about daring raids and exploding trains, but about cold, hungry, desperate men and women who move invisibly through the nazi occupation of france. their army is indeed made of shadows: they use false names, they have no addresses, they can be betrayed in an instant by a traitor or an accident. they know they will probably die .
and his memories of those times were clearly draped in the dark noirish shadows of those desperate circumstances. in any case melville had the right idea about movies [ 8 ] :
for more on melville' s career, see: diane christian and bruce jackson (eds .), “conversations about great films: army of shadows / l’armée des ombres”, goldenrod handouts, buffalo film seminars, xv: 6, the center for studies in american culture, state university of new york .
), a civil engineer and one of the leaders of
army of shadows
( the french resistance), is sent to a concentration camp where he meets a young communist who offers to help him escape. he accepts the offer. shortly after, philippe is arrested and transported to hotel majestic, the gestapo headquarters in paris .
melville' s film army of shadows was very faithful to the novel and melville realized that many of the resistance fighters who he based his characters on in the film have died probably not knowing their actions contributed to their side winning the war. gerbier is the main character in army of shadows and even though you hear other character' s first person voice over during the story it usually is from gerbier. the actor lino ventura who plays gerbier creates a remarkable and subtle character who is intelligent, mysterious, calm, and full of intensity. melville once said that no one taught ventura how to say lines, but he said them more convincingly than anyone else .
by then he had already directed two other films about the war, along with some of the thrillers for which he is justly renowned, like
bob le flambeur .
but he clearly wasn' t finished with the fight of his life and not long after making
army of shadows
he exclaimed ,
the war period was awful, horrible marvelous .
made four decades after the release of melville' s movie, robert guediguian' s the army of crime makes for a fascinating comparison with army of shadows. guediguian' s movie employs a much more colorful palette than shadow' s monochromatic hue, and is considerably more blood - thirsty, featuring an escalating range of violent range of set - pieces depicting resistance attacks on german occupation forces. both movies depict the resistance as weakened by internal tensions and betrayal from within. in fact, guediguian is much more explicit in his portrayal of the pervasiveness and effectiveness of collaboration during the war. both movies are concerned with the corrosive effects of danger and violence on their protagonists .
after a quiet december, criterion will kick off the new year with renewed energy, as five very varied titles have been announced for blu - ray release in january. on january 11, the army of shadows (l' armée des ombres; jean - pierre melville, 1969) and robinson crusoe ...
it' s certainly true - as has been often pointed out - that army of the shadows owes much to melville' s gangster films, in the particular attention it pays to the same stately codes of loyalty, sacrifice and honour that the director put to such brilliant effect in le samourai and le cercle rouge, the two films he made either side of this. melville makes no concession whatever to the tide of nouvelle vague - inspired realism that was sweeping world cinema in the late 60s, and in some ways army in the shadows is as stiffly arranged as any of the old black - and - white films that melville himself idolised. but in its devotion to, and forging of, the mythology surrounding the french resistance, it remains a work of moving ideological commitment as well as beautifully detailed orchestration .
in a welcome surprise criterion releases jean - pierre melvilles army of shadows on blu - ray after many feared it would be the next dvd in the collection to fall victim to oop status after the last couple of waves of studio canal titles criterion lost. criterion again presents the film in its original aspect ratio of 1. 85: 1 on this dual - layer disc and give it nice looking 1080p / 24hz transfer .
jean - pierre melville, filmmaker
- in this introductory piece, directed by jacques dupont and part of the show chroniques de france, jean - pierre melville discusses what inspired him to shoot army of shadows, how he interacts with the actors he likes to work with, etc. in french, with optional english subtitles. (5 min, 1080i) .
in kessel’s book, ger­bier, who believes he’s going to be killed by a firing squad, thinks, “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! ” melville uses the entire text as a voice - over, one of many spoken by gerbier and other characters. as much as kessel’s concept of fiction as disguise, this idea affects the shape of army of shadows and the late gangster films that bracket it. the extreme elasticity of subjective time, particularly in the face of death—of subjectivity defined by that elasticity rather than by conventional point - of - view shots—is what makes melville’s films, and army of shadows in particular, not merely exquisite abstractions or exercises in style but graphs of human consciousness grappling with mortality .
notwithstanding what vincendeau refers to as “contradictory testimony” around melville’s resistance activities, army of shadows has the quality of lived experience like no other film in the director’s oeuvre. by comparison, even the most dazzling and affecting of the gangster films— le doulos (1962), le cercle rouge, le samouraï —seem like game playing. they transcend genre but not their own fetishistic defenses. (this criticism is, of course, relative. one has only to compare melville’s genre excursions to quentin tarantino’s to understand the gravity of melville’s project .) and while melville told nogueira that the attack on army of shadows by some french critics for presenting the resistance fighters as if they were characters in a gangster film was “absurd, ” he himself made another kind of connection: “tragedy is the immediacy of death that you get in the underworld or in a particular time such as war. the characters from army of shadows are tragic characters. you know that from the very beginning. ” those who come to the film with expectations of romantic heroes and daring action sequences that culminate in uplifting endings, that is, will be bewildered and disappointed by melville’s rigorous focus on process rather than action, and by the pessimism that tempers his characters as individuals and comrades in arms .
melville' s world is a world of broad shoulders and heavy burdens, shaved and grizzled faces, the civilized and the savage. it is a world in which a man' s hat is an emblem of his professionalism, part of the armor he dons for battle. when a resistance member walks into a boîte in
army of shadows ,
and melville shows us a row of nazi caps neatly lined on a shelf, it' s as if he were showing us a cache of weapons .
as someone who was never able to play the early fire emblem games, shadows of valentia seems more than just a retread of familiar ground, and with fun little changes to the formula to challenge the tactician in me .
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), his first feature, and léon morin, prêtre (1961) 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 le deuxième souffle (1966) and le samouraï (1967) and followed by le cercle rouge (1970) 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 .
the film is adapted from joseph kessel’s army of shadows, an account of the author’s experience in the french resistance, published in london in 1943. born in argentina, to a lithuanian jewish family, and educated in france, kessel was a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter (he also famously wrote the source novel for luis buñuel’s belle de jour), and army of shadows reflected this multiple training. “everything had to be accurate, and at the same time, nothing must be recognizable, ” kessel wrote in his preface. in other words, fiction, as a protective strategy, was applied to a work of reportage. in rui nogueira’s melville on melville, the director says that he read kessel’s book when he, too, was in london in 1943, and immediately wanted to film it. he also seems to have taken kessel’s method as the guiding principle for his entire oeuvre, explaining to nogueira, in a different context: “what people often assume to be imagination in my films is really memory, things i have noticed walking down the street or being with people—transposed, of course, because i have a horror of showing things i have actually experienced. ” the filmmaker whose subject was underground man assumed as a creative artist the strategies of secrecy, subterfuge, and masquerade that were life and death matters for his characters, whether gangsters or résistants. the meshing of this method of constructing story and identity in film (and perhaps in life as well) with the behavior of characters as seemingly different from each other as gerbier in army of shadows and corey in le cercle rouge largely accounts for the surprising emotional resonance and profound sense of unease across all of melville’s films, but most powerfully in army of shadows and the late gangster cycle—works that are as precise, distanced, and abstract as a game of chess .
the timing of army of shadows’ s initial french release, in the fall of 1969, could not have been worse. most serious french critics, including those of the influential cahiers du cinéma, savaged the film for what they saw as its glorification of general charles de gaulle, who, then president, was despised as the betrayer of the may 1968 student uprising. de gaulle, in fact, is a marginal figure in this french resistance saga, and melville depicts him with an irony that makes it clear his heroism would not outlive the extreme circumstances in which the war had placed him. given the enormous sway cahiers du cinéma held over american art - film programmers and distributors during the heyday of the french new wave, it’s not surprising that the film was ignored here for so long. in the midnineties, however, cahiers du cinéma published a reconsideration of melville, and particularly of army of shadows, which led to a restoration of the original 35 mm camera negative by studiocanal and a rapturously received rialto pictures release in the united states .
jean - pierre melvilles 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 melvilles 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 .
dark as pitch and utterly without compromise ,
army of shadows
traces the harrowing feats of a small band of resistance fighters operating during the occupation. melville first read joseph kessel' s slim novel of the same title in 1943, the year it was published, and for the next quarter - century nurtured a desire to turn it into a film. (cinephiles will appreciate that kessel also wrote the novel
belle de jour .
) he finally did so in 1969 .
when french director jean - pierre melville' s movie about the french resistance, army of shadows, was released in 1969, it was met with critical and box - office indifference. its languid pace, long set - pieces, bleak tone and sombre style made it unpopular. politically, the movie' s reception was controversial and hostile. for melville, himself a former resistance member, had daringly upturned the conventional view of the resistance that had dominated france since 1945 - a national movement of brave men and women unified in their determination to overthrow nazi occupation, supported and admired by the french population at large. it wasn' t until the end of the century - decades after melville' s death in 1973 - that army of shadows at last received the acclaim it deserved, and the recognition that it was probably the best film ever made about the resistance movement .
why people chose to join the resistance is a question that historians must strive to answer, and they do so with caution and trepidation because there is no simple answer. if fiction offers far greater freedom to speculate on the motivations of resisters, two of the most potent films to grapple with this issue, army of shadows and lacombe, lucien, jettison a psychological approach. the first presumes that resistance was necessary and focuses on the moral dilemmas such engagement posed for participants; the second famously proposes that the decision to resist or to collaborate was the result of circumstances rather than ideological commitment. whether one agrees with this proposition or not, lacombe, lucien just like army of shadows, raises the important question of choice and what it entailed, as our two specialists demonstrate. students like to imagine how they would have responded and need sophisticated ways to think about it. the resistance continues to attract writers and film - makers, as witnessed by the release of ismael ferroukhi’s les hommes libres (free men) in september which, like other recent films, seeks to highlight a little - known aspect of parisian resistance. michael lonsdale plays si kaddour ben ghabrit, rector of the paris mosque, who saw it as his humanitarian duty to hide jews and resisters, and tahar rahim, of the prophet fame, a young algerian who drifts, somewhat lucien lacombe - like, into collaboration before experiencing moral qualms and a change of heart. unlike the despair of army of shadows or the cynicism of lacombe, lucien, and without being maudlin, the film offers a psychologically credible depiction of engagement .
this masterpiece by jean - pierre melville 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, featuring lino ventura, paul meurisse, jean - pierre cassel, and the incomparable simone signoret as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their conception of honor in their battle against hitler’s regime .
world film directors, vol. ii. , john wakeman (ed .), wilson, co. , ny 1988, quoted in “conversations about great films: army of shadows / l’armée des ombres”, diane christian and bruce jackson (eds .), buffalo film seminars, xv: 6, the center for studies in american culture, state university of new york, buffalo, ny (2 october 2007) .
pierre lhomme - in this interview, cinematographer pierre lhomme, who supervised the restoration of army of shadows, discusses the various obstacles that had to be overcome to reproduce as best as possible the original look of the film. a collection of stills from the film is also included. in french, with optional english subtitles. (15 min, 1080i). 1. rediscovering the film 2. earning melville' s respect 3. a low - budget mentality 4. cool tones and darkness 5. respect for the audience
this memorable movie movingly pays tribute to those who chose not to remain silent, to those ordinary men and women who chose to do extraordinary things... from the shadows .
discussing army of shadows, melville once declared that he had
no intention of making a film about the resistance. so with one exception - the german occupation - i excluded all realism .
athough the movie, as ebert notes, is primarily about the state of mind of those working under extreme psychological pressure and constant danger, it is in many ways one of the most realistic of all films about the resistance in its emphasis on the necessary details and routines of resistance work. these range from apparently mundane aspects as arranging clandestine meetings and issuing orders, to the problems posed by new neighbours near a safe house - which leads to the issue of deciding how best to execute an informer with the minimum of noise .
the hideous mess in iraq, the sense that we are enmeshed in a situation in the middle east where all options are bad, may partly account for the embrace in 2006 of melville’s depiction of the tragedy within even the “good” war. in their pessimism about the inevitability of war and its cost in individual lives, clint eastwood’s admirable and moving world war ii films letters from iwo jima and flags of our fathers, released late in the same year, have something in common with army of shadows. all three films show that in the worst of circumstances, human beings can act with courage and honor, but that there is a larger tragedy in the fact that war is the realm in which such heroism comes into being. perhaps a line from roger ebert’s review best accounts for the contemporary power of this emissary from 1969: “rarely has a film shown so truly that place in the heart where hope lives with fatalism. ” amy taubin is a contributing editor for film comment and sight & sound. she also writes frequently for artforum. this piece originally appeared in the 2007 dvd edition of army of shadows .
there may be psychosexual explanations for why this is the case, but the war and france' s shame were reason enough. melville, a jew, was serving in the military when france capitulated to germany, and he subsequently joined several networks in the resistance. decades later, while discussing
army of shadows ,
he pointedly noted ,
don' t forget that there are more people who didn' t work for the resistance than people who did .
it' s no wonder
army of shadows
feels like a cold rejoinder to the cherished romance of the french resistance fighter, wearing a beret and a sneer, and holding back the nazi tide that had already swept the country. kessel writes :
today it is nearly always death, death, death. but on our side we kill, kill, kill .
that is melville' s war .
jean - pierre melville' s masterpiece about the french resistance against the nazi occupation 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 battle against hitler' s regime .
however, melville' s chief interest, as in most of his films, was in examining the self - imposed codes of honor and behaviour that his main characters tried to maintain. philippe gerbier, like most of melville' s protagonists, (frequently thieves or gangsters) takes pride in his professionialism: the careful, studious application of personal expertise. army of shadows reveals melville' s fascination with the choices that people have to make under extreme pressure, and by how his protagonists accept the consequences of those decisions. what melville admires is the stoicism, even fatalism, of his' heroes' as they abide by their code of honor. his film is not concerned with the morality of otherwise of their actions, but with their loyalty to a particular group and adherence to a personal ethical code .
although kessel’s book ends hopefully, it was written during the war, so understandably the novelization focuses on hope rather than despair. melville’s army of shadows is quite the reverse. for the director, the film was a historical marker, signifying his generation—the pre - may 1968 generation. it does not highlight the past or future but instead remains in the film’s present: the sad mental state of necessary maquis cells operating during wwii. for every procession of german soldiers marching on the champs - elysées, there was a small company of everyday frenchmen, working in the gloom of their eventual deaths to stop them .
commentary - in this audio commentary, recorded for the british film institute in 2006, film historian ginette vincendeau discusses jean - pierre melville' s involvement with the french resistance, joseph kessel' s novel, the various similarities between the french director' s gangster films and army of shadows, the mixed reviews the film received from various critics after it premiered in france, its main characters, the unique use of color, unorthodox message, etc. in english, not subtitled .
he second stunning revival of the week comes by way of jean - pierre melville' s 1969 war movie, which tells in typically sombre, deadpan style, of the french resistance and their operations against the nazi occupation forces. forget about the bullet - ridden hell - storms or raffish derring - do of your conventional second world war picture: this is a world of cold, grey - painted rooms, as often as not containing immobile figures dripping with blood. melville' s own history with the free french is well - known, and army in the shadows, an adaptation of joseph kessel' s novel was his third time with the subject .
if army of shadows is a tragedy rather than a melodrama—and i believe it is—this is its first act. the narrative will come full circle, and the theme music will be heard again, in the last sequence, when once more gerbier, this time with his commander, luc jardie (paul meurisse) —the character partly modeled on the legendary resis­tance hero jean moulin—decides it is necessary to kill one of their group. but now it is one of the most valued members. after the damning deed is done, melville shows us, one by one, the agonized faces of those remaining and, through the windshield of their car, the arc de triomphe. a second later, a series of title cards briefly describe how each of them was executed by the germans. one expects that an image or two from a film as powerful as this one will stick in one’s memory, but in the months since i’ve seen army of shadows, it’s these words, which originate not with kessel but with melville, that will not leave my mind. all the bleak beauty of the film’s drained color palette and the nearly impenetrable blacks, which are a tribute to the title, lead to this series of filmic tombstones—white letters on black grounds .
this film is a sad and tragic film and after the murder of madame mathilde; the film shows the unfortunate endings of each member of what was left of the resistance .
army of shadows barely received acknowledgment in france upon its initial release; the critical response was polarized, and the film did not perform well at the box office. ginette vincendeau attributes the film’s failure to poor timing. it was considered a gaullist picture. by the time it was finished, general de gaulle had been voted out of politics after the student strike of may 1968, at which time gaullist theory was suddenly unpopular. and so the film never obtained u. s. distribution. melville, however, did receive a number of letters from real - life resistance members praising him for his affecting film. while in france army of shadows was remembered fondly over time, even the most devout american cinephile could not place it within melville’s oeuvre (unless having seen it in france during its initial theatrical run). in 2006, rialto pictures circulated a print around art house and minor revival theaters in america, introducing this forgotten classic to new audiences. the film received massive critical acclaim, with many calling it the best film released that year .
film historians and melville scholars have noted that army of shadows bears a “funeral tone” throughout, as if mourning the resistance fighters either already dead or soon to die within the picture. melville’s films often brood, and in many cases, preemptively grieve for the hero’s death. then again, his filmic moods could be interpreted as simply pensive—a stylistic trait creating atmosphere through silent protagonists. except, such an explanation is perhaps too simple when looking at his career. in le samouraï and le cercle rouge, for example, his male narcissistic heroes harbor the same meditative disposition as army of shadows ’ lead philippe gerbier (played by lino ventura) —in each of these three films the tone reaches levels of almost ceremonial defeatist stoicism, and in each the “hero” dies in the end. (whereas in bob le flambeur, the hero’s attitude is relatively blithe, allowing the protagonist to live .) melville adds the tone, the lack of dialogue and humor, as part of his minimalist style. the result crafts an appropriately poetic feel (both poignant and harrowing next to bob le flambeur) given this comparatively serious subject matter .
if melville wished, he could have added action into army of shadows, making scenes like the escape attempt from the gestapo prison in lyon more about brute force than suspense. when maquis member lepercq is captured, tortured, and imprisoned, gerbier allows a break - out attempt where three resistance fighters go undercover as medical transports. but rather than grandiose music and fluid camerawork, melville shoots this scene like many of his finest sequences—with no music and patient concentration on detail. this scene compares to the robbery from le cercle rouge or the train heist from un flic, as all are virtually silent, meticulously paced, and with little focus on dialogue. his approach is intellectual rather than physical, making us ponder frame of mind. recognizing the process of decision making becomes more important than action or suspense. melville, having fought in the resistance, understands such a state of mind more than any other filmmaker, which is why army of shadows emerges as a meditation more than a historical account. the film’s events are not realistic, save for their psychology. it contemplates the type of person required to expect betrayal around each corner, to prepare for any unforeseen event, and to survive, all by means of melville’s own romantic penchant for masculinized storytelling .
the hideous mess in iraq, the sense that we are enmeshed in a situation in the middle east where all options are bad, may partly account for the embrace in 2006 of melville’s depiction of the tragedy within even the “good” war. in their pessimism about the inevitability of war and its cost in individual lives, clint eastwood’s admirable and moving world war ii films letters from iwo jima and flags of our fathers, released late in the same year, have something in common with army of shadows. all three films show that in the worst of circumstances, human beings can act with courage and honor, but that there is a larger tragedy in the fact that war is the realm in which such heroism comes into being .
this film, which was never released in america and will now be making its way across the country in limited release, has been immaculately restored and features new subtitles. you can get lost in the blackness of its heart and its shadows. you might never come back .
jean - pierre melville' s
l' armée des ombres
a. k. a
arny of shadows
( 1969) arrives on blu - ray courtesy of criterion. the supplemental features on the disc include an audio commentary with film historian ginette vincendeau; interview with cinematographer pierre lhomme; interview with editor francoise bonnot; selection of excerpts from the french television program
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
the next interview is with film editor françoise bonnot. for 11 - minutes she talks about her mother who was an editor, and then covers her work on z, which earned her an oscar. she then talks about melville (saying hes a tyrant to work with) and the work she did with him, army of shadows primarily of course. she goes into great detail about the sound effects and then the opening march, which apparently moved from the beginning to the end and back again and again. in all its a charming interview and one of the better ones to be found on the release .
jean - pierre melville died of a heart attack in 1973 at the age of fifty - five .
we also briefly dabbled in shadows of valentia’s amiibo functions. using the new alm and celica amiibo, we were given the option of either trying out a special dungeon, or being able to summon the amiibo in the battle map. in battle, the amiibo serve as phantom allies of other protagonists for a single turn. we were also told that all fire emblem amiibo from the super smash bros. series could also be used to summon phantoms of their counterparts, complete with new art. you’re even able to use non - fire emblem amiibo to summon run - of - the - mill monsters to help you out for a single turn. but don’t think you’ll be able to summon a phantom army without consequence, as doing so will cost some of your unit’s health .
now we have the american premiere of perhaps his greatest film (i have not seen them all, but i will). when
army of shadows
was released in 1969, it was denounced by the left - wing parisian critics as
gaullist ,
because it has a brief scene involving degaulle and because it involves a resistance supporting his cause; by the late 1960s, degaulle was considered a reactionary relic. the movie was hardly seen at the time. this restored 35mm print, now in art theaters around the country, may be 37 years old, but it is the best foreign film of the year .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
those familiar with recent fire emblem titles like awakening and fates may be disappointed to learn that pairing up units for dual strikes or guard stance won’t be a part of this remake. but on the bright side, new, fully voiced supports between units who fight close together can be viewed on the battlefield, so expect your units to be a lot more vocal in shadows of valentia with tons of voice acting .
jean - pierre melville' s 1969 french resistance masterpiece is
the best film of 2006 !
( premiere, new york times, l. a. weekly, sight and sound, film comment). jean - pierre melville' s masterpiece about the french resistance against the nazi occupation 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 battle against hitler' s regime .
at least one woman is present in melville’s film, but in a way that removes her femininity. french actress simone signoret plays mathilde, just as valuable a member of her resistance group as any one of the men. mathilde is an older, de - sexualized female. dressed in common, muted colors, she integrates into the resistance collective as easily as if she were male. years prior, signoret was a beauty in casque d’or and diabolique; in army of shadows, she is one of the boys, showing but a glimmer of femininity only once in the film—in her glassy eyes after failing to free their comrade from the lyon prison. melville has often been criticized for his depiction of women, who are regularly only set - pieces to the director’s male hero. here, though she is void of cinema’s stereotypical feminine qualities, namely sexuality, but she is nonetheless a strong female hero. by the end of the film, melville asserts that mathilde may be the most valuable member of the film’s resistance group .
booklet - a 44 - page illustrated booklet containing amy taubin' s essay
out of the shadows
, originally published in the may / june 2006 issue of film comment; professor roberto o. paxton' s essay
melville' s french resistance
; and an interview with jean - pierre melville excerpted from rui nogueira' s
melville on melville
.
elegant, brutal, anxiety - provoking, and overwhelmingly sad, jean - pierre melville’s 1969 army of shadows was released theatrically for the first time in the united states in 2006, to nearly universal critical acclaim. from the village voice ’s j. ? hoberman (“emerges from the mists of time... as a career - ­capping epic tragedy”) to the new yorker ’s anthony lane (“lovers of cinema should reach for their fedoras, turn up the collars of their coats, and sneak to this picture through a mist of rain”) to newsweek ’s david ansen (“the best foreign film of the year”), critics from across the spectrum, who almost never agreed, rallied around melville’s neglected masterpiece. too bad the director, who died in 1973, at age fifty - five, was not around to experience the tide turn for his most personal film .
this is not to discount melville’s gangster films from his typically more serious work such as army of shadows, silence, or léon morin, prêtre; on the contrary, these tonal similarities bring them closer together. melville’s stories, regardless of genre, act as tenants to his distinctive style; the plot is secondary to the film’s mood—an atmospheric architecture where aesthetics take precedence. his characters even dress the same: gangsters, nazi intelligence, and resistance members all wear similar trench coats, with collars up and guns concealed in their pockets, as if out of a 1940’s hollywood gangster picture. (certainly mathilde’s assassination in the finale better resembles a capone - style drive - by more than a covert execution. )
re - released in 2006 to rave reviews (
for the first, and maybe the only, time this year, you are in the hands of a master ,
declared anthony lane in the new yorker), melville' s tense, gripping tale of honour and betrayal in the clandestine world of the french resistance was selected by melville authority chris peachment as one of the ten greatest films in the history of cinema. flinty lino ventura plays philippe gerbier, a resistance leader who escapes from the gestapo and goes after the turncoats who betrayed his cadre; simone signoret brings fatalistic fatigue to her role as one of gerbier' s operatives, whose love for her daughter is eventually turned against her. melville, who worked for the resistance during the war, called the joseph kessel novel on which the film is based
the greatest and most comprehensive document about this tragic period in the history of humanity ,
and the director does it full justice, giving army of shadows a clenched, existential tone, a steely visual design and an epic sense of gravity .
france, 1942, during the occupation. philippe gerbier, a civil engineer, is one of the french resistance' s chiefs. given away by a traitor, he is interned in a camp. he manages to escape, and joins his network at marseilles, where he makes the traitor be executed... this non - spectacular movie (do not expect any rambo or robin hood) shows us rigorously and austerely the everyday of the french resistants: their solitude, their fears, their relationships, the arrests, the forwarding of orders and their carrying out... both writer joseph kessel and co - writer and director jean - pierre melville belonged to this
army in the shadows
. (imdb )
beware, major spoilers ahead. elegant, brutal, anxiety - provoking, and overwhelmingly sad, jean - pierre melville’s 1969 army of shadows was released theatrically for the first time in the united states in 2006, to nearly universal critical acclaim. from the village voice ’s j. ? hoberman (“emerges from the mists of time... as a career - ­capping epic tragedy”) to the new yorker ’s anthony lane (“lovers of cinema should reach for their fedoras, turn up the collars of their coats, and sneak to this picture through a mist of rain”) to newsweek ’s david ansen (“the best foreign film of the year”), critics from across the spectrum, who almost never agreed, rallied around melville’s neglected masterpiece. too bad the director, who died in 1973, at age fifty - five, was not around to experience the tide turn for his most personal film .
setting the tone to army of shadows ahead of the opening credits, melville shows us german soldiers marching on the champs - elysées. aside from the obvious visual significance—the collective body stomping with an orderly and geometric shape, more assembled and impenetrable than a tank—melville fought just to shoot such an image. subsequent to wwi, any german uniform was forbidden on the champs - elysées. dressing up actors (or in this case dancers, to capture the robotic movement that would enunciate the sound of the german march) in nazi dress proved a difficult sell, but melville convinced the powers that be to allow it. an aperture to the rest of the film, soldiers step directly toward the camera, as if about to march right through the screen to trample the audience, filling the viewer with dread and with the promise of an equally despairing finale .
in the short demo i experienced, we were able to try out one regular battle map and part of a dungeon. while the battles and maps didn’t offer much variety in terms of topography or objectives, both experiences highlighted some of the more interesting tactical choices shadows of valentia has to offer compared to other titles on the 3ds. like fire emblem awakening, you’re able to traverse a world map between points of interest - enemies on the map will launch you into battles, while certain towns and other places will let you freely explore them from a different perspective .
the same can be said of
army of shadows ,
which is bleak and beautiful by turns, that rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind. lino ventura plays philippe gerbier, a resistance fighter who has willingly surrendered his entire being to the cause. (much as melville surrendered to cinema .) the film opens with gerbier' s imprisonment in a concentration camp and, shortly thereafter, his escape from his captors. exciting if implausible, the escape seems almost an afterthought to the scene immediately after in which gerbier hides in a barbershop. sitting in a chair with a face full of lather, his throat to a strange blade, the escapee seems cruelly vulnerable anew, the tension abating only after the barber puts down his razor and shows his true colors .
next is a making - of made by studio canal in 2006 called melville et larmee des ombres. it again features lhomme talking again about the look of the film and how tough it could be to work with melville. bonnot also appears again, talking about the same material she covers in her lone interview found in this set. but we also get interviews with jean - pierre cassel, composer eric demarsan, and then filmmakers philippe labro and bertrand tavernier. though some of the material covered in here is mentioned elsewhere, primarily within the commentary track, theres still a wealth of information here about melville and his career, along with material specific to army of shadows, like the touchy working relationship between melville and actor lino ventura, his friendlier working relationship with simone signoret, and then the directors american influences. again some of the material is repeated in the other supplements but its a decent making - of. it runs 28 - minutes and has been divided into 6 chapters .
on the ninety - ninth anniversary of jean - pierre melville’s birth, we’ve gathered a selection of essays, photos, and videos that showcase the best of the iconic director’s varied oeuvre .
jean - pierre melville' s
army of shadows
opens with the startling image of german soldiers marching down the champs - élysées, framed by the arc de triomphe. the image was, this french director later admitted to an interviewer, a
crazy idea .
actors in german uniforms had not been permitted on the avenue since world war i, or so he claimed, and the shot was both costly and logistically complex. and yet ,
it was a fantastic sight ,
melville said with unmistakable satisfaction .
wagnerian. unfilmable .
this former resistance fighter had exacted a peculiar revenge on his complicit countrymen: he had invaded paris himself, seizing it for his own vision.
army of shadows ( french : l'armée des ombres ) is a 1969 french film directed by jean-pierre melville . it is a film adaptation of joseph kessel 's 1943 book of the same name , which blends kessel 's own experiences as a member of the french resistance with fictionalized versions of other resistance members . army of shadows follows a small group of resistance fighters as they move between safe houses , work with the allied militaries , kill informers , and attempt to evade the capture and execution that they know is their most likely fate . while portraying its characters as heroic , the film presents a bleak , unromantic view of the resistance . at the time of its initial release in france , army of shadows was not well received or widely seen . in the wake of the events of may 1968 , french critics denounced the film for its perceived glorification of charles de gaulle . at the time american art-film programmers took their cues from cahiers du cinéma , which had attacked the film on this basis . it was not released in the united states for almost forty years . in the mid-1990s cahiers du cinéma published a reappraisal of the film and melville 's work in general , leading to its restoration and re-release in 2006 . the film was greeted with critical adulation in the u.s. , appearing in many critics ' year-end top ten lists . 
army of shadows (french: l'armée des ombres) is a 1969 french film directed by jean-pierre melville. it is a film adaptation of joseph kessel's 1943 book of the same name, which blends kessel's own experiences as a member of the french resistance with fictionalized versions of other resistance members. army of shadows follows a small group of resistance fighters as they move between safe houses, work with the allied militaries, kill informers, and attempt to evade the capture and execution that they know is their most likely fate. while portraying its characters as heroic, the film presents a bleak, unromantic view of the resistance. at the time of its initial release in france, army of shadows was not well received or widely seen. in the wake of the events of may 1968, french critics denounced the film for its perceived glorification of charles de gaulle. at the time american art-film programmers took their cues from cahiers du cinéma, which had attacked the film on this basis. it was not released in the united states for almost forty years. in the mid-1990s cahiers du cinéma published a reappraisal of the film and melville's work in general, leading to its restoration and re-release in 2006. the film was greeted with critical adulation in the u.s., appearing in many critics' year-end top ten lists.
army of shadows (french: l'armée des ombres) is a 1969 french film directed by jean-pierre melville. it is a film adaptation of joseph kessel's 1943 book of the same name, which blends kessel's own experiences as a member of the french resistance with fictionalized versions of other resistance members. army of shadows follows a small group of resistance fighters as they move between safe houses, work with the allied militaries, kill informers, and attempt to evade the capture and execution that they know is their most likely fate. while portraying its characters as heroic, the film presents a bleak, unromantic view of the resistance. at the time of its initial release in france, army of shadows was not well received or widely seen. in the wake of the events of may 1968, french critics denounced the film for its perceived glorification of charles de gaulle. at the time american art-film programmers took their cues from cahiers du cinéma, which had attacked the film on this basis. it was not released in the united states for almost forty years. in the mid-1990s cahiers du cinéma published a reappraisal of the film and melville's work in general, leading to its restoration and re-release in 2006. the film was greeted with critical adulation in the u.s., appearing in many critics' year-end top ten lists.