L'armée des ombres = [DVD] : Army of shadows / Janus Films ; Rialto Pictures ; une restauration ; Studio Canal ; Archives françaises du film ; CNC ; Les Films Corona présentent ; produit par Jacques Dorfmann ; adaptation et réalisation de [adapted and directed by] Jean-Pierre Melville ; co-production Franco-Italienne Films Corona (Paris), Fono Roma (Rome).
D'apres le livre de [After the novel by] Joseph Kessell. Lino Ventura (Philippe Gerbier), Paul Meurisse (Luc Jardie), Jean-Pierre Cassel (Jean-François Jardie), Simone Signoret (Mathilde), Claude Mann (Claude 'Le Masque'), Paul Crauchet (Félix), Christian Barbier ('Le Bison'), Serge Reggiani, André Dewavrin, Alain Dekok, Alain Mottet, Alain Libolt, Jean-Marie Robain, Albert Michel, Denis Sadier, Georges Sellier, Marco Perrin, Hubert de Lapparent, Colin Mann, Anthony Stuart, Michel Fretault. Originally released as a French motion picture in 1969. Booklet contains the essays "Out of the shadows" by Amy Taubin, "Melville's French Resistance" by Robert O. Paxton, and "Melville on Melville: 'Army of Shadows'" interview [with Jean-Pierre Melville] by Rui Nogueria. Classroom use may be subject to licensing restrictions.
Contents:
(145 min.) (1969); Commentary [optional audio feature]; Trailers (5 min.). Opening -- Gerbier -- Internment -- Comrade -- Gestapo -- Hôtel Majestic -- Quick shave -- Job in Marseilles -- Traitor -- Jean-François -- Talent agency in Lyon -- Special delivery -- Saint Luc and Little Jean -- Midnight passage -- London -- News of Félix -- Parachute drop -- Disguises and hideouts -- Rescue preparations -- Denounced -- Transport for Félix -- "You better lie low" -- Certain death -- Isolation -- News of Mathilde -- "Nothing's sacred anymore" -- Color bars (145 min.) (1969); Commentary [optional audio feature]; Trailers (5 min.). (24 min.) (1973). Ouvrez les guillemets [featurette, b & w] (5 min.) (1968) -- Revisiting a masterpiece : Pierre Lhomme and "Army of Shadows" [featurette] (14 min.) (2007) -- Restoration footage (7 min.) -- Françoise Bonnot : Editing with Melville [featurette] (11 min.) (2007) -- L'invité du dimanche: Jean-Pierre Melville [featurette, b & w] (30 min.) (1969) -- Jean-Pierre Melville et "L'armée des ombres" (30 min.) (2002) -- Le journal de la Résistance [featurette, b & w] (34 min.) (1944) -- Simone Signoret and Lucie Aubrac [featurette, col.] (6 min.) (1984) -- Ouvrez les guillemets [featurette, b & w] (24 min.) (1973).
Summary:
L'Armee des Ombres is a stark and unvarnished story about Resistance fighters in Vichy France in 1942-43 when the French leadership allowed the Nazis to occupy the country. The members of this army are cold, hungry, desperate men and women, with false names and no addresses, who can be betrayed in an instant by a traitor or an accident. They know they will probably die. A meditation on the nature of resistance and the price of courage, these heroes can save their own country only by cutting themselves apart from it. Entangled in the political turmoil engulfing France in the wake of May '68--as a result received poorly there--the film was not distributed in the US until 2006.
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