Jean Pierre Melville Files: Army of Shadows

Originally released in 1969, Jean Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows" really didn't come into acclaim until 2006 when Rialto pictures re-distributed it, crafting an arthouse success out of a sort-of long lost classic. Made in between Melville's string of hard nosed, French revisionist black and white noirs, perhaps "Army of Shadows" was doomed to a quiet existence because it didn't fit squarely into the great director's expected cinema lineage. Regardless of the reasons, Rialto's diligence and foresight in re-positioning "Army of Shadows" as the one Melville you had to see is a minor stroke of genius. It is a masterpiece, in every way.

Adapted from the memoirs of French Resistance fighter Joseph Kessel, "Army of Shadows" is a patient, brooding examination of the interior workings of one French Resistance cell. Based on actual people, I'm tempted to call "Army of Shadows" the best film about the Resistance, even though it comes relatively late in this spirited genre of films. Where a majority of the Resistance films deal with a certain person or action against the deadly German war machine, "Army of Shadows" shows us both the anxious and the mundane with events as diverse as the smuggling of a transmitter through a heavily guarded train station and a night time escort onto a submarine. The results- a free France- are the same, yet Melville gives both events the same heightened tension even though the submarine landing yields far less devastating consequences as the only threat present is an old French policeman, both related to the person running the Resistance mission and stating he's the only customs officer watching the entire beach for the Germans. Shifting through a series of near misses, captures, imprisonments, escapes, and cafe conversations, "Army of Shadows" reveals an entire universe of Resistance fighters and the fragile line between freedom and torture with pristine vision. Lino Ventura, as the "star" in the film in the loosest sense, plays Philippe Verbier, a man running the cell with clarity of purpose... stone faced and confident even when mounted against the fate of death by firing squad. Though so many Ventura films are unavailable on DVD and this praise is probably limited, but I think this is his best performance.

Also present in "Army of Shadows" (and most Resistance films) is the parlor of doom. Granted, Melville drapes a majority of his films in this, yet the tone is set from the opening scene as German soldiers march towards the camera next to the Arch de Triomph and central characters are picked up, tortured and executed with little warning. The film's central colors- drab blacks, deep browns and winter-time gray skies- also denote the seemingly insurmountable task the French Resistance fighters have against the German Army. But it's the procedural nature of the film and Melville's insistence on transferring a quiet thriller over the historical context that makes "Army of Shadows" such a breathless exercise. In the face of defeat, what shines through most deeply in Melville's film is determined resolve of human nature to fight for what belongs to us. Whether that's a smuggled transistor radio to hear BBC broadcasts or arranging for the violent escape of a fellow prisoner, "Army of Shadows" gives hefty weight and reverent reflection to both.


"Army of Shadows" is the first film in a series of posts looking at films that deal with the Resistance during World War 2.

The Jean Pierre Melville Files: Magnet of Doom

In between a string of moody crime films, French filmmaker Jean Pierre Melville released a gentler movie that afforded him the opportunity to view America from a European sensibility. Released in 1963 and starring Jean Paul Belmondo, "Magnet of Doom" is one of the hard to find Melville efforts probably because it broke the mold of his previous noir-ridden tales of loner criminals and trenchcoated cops. Also based on his own screenplay, "Magnet of Doom" concerns itself with the bankrupt empire of a French financier (Charles Vanel) escaping Paris in the aftermath of his company's shady business dealings. He posts an ad in the local classified section for a secretary and washed up boxer (Michel (Belmondo) answers it. It's not long before the two are hopping a plane for New York and then driving across America where they settle in New Orleans... one of them running from an extradition warrant and the other just running from his boring Parisian lifestyle. The central conceit of the film, besides the father-son relationship that slowly forms between Vanel and Belmondo is a topographical one. Melville is clearly fascinated by this alien landscape, allowing his camera to peruse over the tall buildings of Manhattan just as lovingly as he observes Blemondo and a hitch hiker (Stefanie Sandrelli) lounge by a rural stream. And we have to make pit stops along the way, once to observe the small Hoboken apartment where one Frank Sinatra was born and then later to document the obvious cultural differences between the white residential area of New Orleans and its African-American inhabitants. Above all else, "Magnet of Doom" swirls through a variety of genres, eventually settling on a moral tale that continually has one wondering just exactly where its headed.


Surrounding Melville's wide-eyed images of America lies Georges Delerue's melodic soundtrack that, at times, reminds one of a western. At one critical moment, when Vanel decides to dump his life savings over the cliff, "Magnet of Doom" recalls the psychological emptiness of John Huston's "Treasure of the Sierra Madre"... high praise that I'm sure Melville never intended, yet the film faintly echoes throughout its entire running time. But perhaps the most incredible aspect of the film is that, a dozen or so years before it became quite fashionable to pose a European art film against the backdrop of the Americanr road movie (Wenders, Akerman etc.), Melville was setting the blueprint- just as he did for his hardboiled French re-inventions of the noir genre. With "Magnet Of Doom", he simply went right to the source itself.

Revisiting a Classic- Bob Le Flambeur

Is film noir passe? Have we, via modern times, recycled and re-invented the genre so much that a majority of its energy has been parodied, zapped out and left for dead? Well the cure for this type of dirge is to go back and enjoy the black and white melodies emanating from the films of Jean Pierre Melville, and especially the relaxed 1955 character study called "Bob Le Flambeur". Starring Robert Duchesne as the title character, Bob is a degenerate gambler who sleeps until eight every night and then stumbles through the neon lights of Paris, drinking and gambling his way to oblivion. He's a genial enough fellow, creating a makeshift family along the way in his friendship with two youngsters, Paolo (Daniel Cauchy) a small time hood and the beautiful (yet frisky) Anne (Isabel Corey). He invites Anne to share his apartment, but not for sex, but due to the fact he feels sorry for her having to walk the glittery streets in the morning hoping that an American GI or a Frenchman with money will open a door for her. She's just an inch away from prostitution, and Bob sees the tremendous damage a life like that might do to the young Anne. Through an acquaintance, Bob discovers that a local casino usually holds close to 800 million francs the night before the Grand Prix. Armed with that information (and the fact that Bob has done time in the past for robbery) Bob slowly sets a plan in motion to recruit and rob the casino. As in alot of Melville's films, good and evil are closely intertwined as Bob is friends with a local detective (Guy Decomble) and, naturally, in this world of pimps, thieves and jealousy, not everyone can keep a tight lip about Bob's foray into crime. Melville slowly boils the plot to a deceptively simple climax. Like the best of the burgeoning French New Wave cinema (which many regard this film as the first), Melville infuses more life and thought into the longeurs leading up to the crime rather than the crime itself. When most films would stage a set-piece around the casino hold-up, "Bob Le Flambeur" magnifies the small moments- the act of learning to crack a safe, the precise way in which Bob gets dressed before the robbery and looks around his apartment, and certainly the hypnotic spell that one gains when confronted with a hot winning streak. Like the best of Melville, the glory is in the details.

I first watched "Bob Le Flambeur" about five years ago when I was catching up with the films of Melville (few there are on DVD and VHS). It's unusual that 2006 was, perhaps, Melville's breakthrough year in filmmaking after being dead for over 30 years (he died in 1973 of a heart attack). Last year saw the release of his previously unseen 1969 film entitled Army of Shadows. The film went onto claim top spots in many critics' lists and renew an interest in Melville. It renewed my interest as well, forcing me to place the few Melville films I've seen onto my Netflix queue. My favorites, a close tie between "The Red Circle" and "Un Flic" (unusual because both are color efforts) are there but "Bob Le Flambeur" is something altogether different. It's a film that feels both familiar and alien at the same time. The similiarities are striking upon second viewing, however, that Melville was always working close to something basic, such as the way Detective Ledru and Bob are friends. All of Melville's films pare the film noir genre down to its simple essence. His characters are men of few words, calmly going through the rhythmns of crime with a precise attention to detail. In one scene, Bob takes all of his recruits out to a field where chalk lines are drawn on the ground mimicking the lay out of the casino. He forcefully but scientifically walks each man through his assignment, then calls it quits and hops back into the car without a word further. One gets the sense that Bob (like all of Melville's men) are floating towards an inescapable destiny that owe less to man's choices and more to the roulette wheel of chance. And that is what makes a great film noir- the idea that this is a world that defies calculation and planning, and runs by an entirely different set of rules that act like a black hole and, eventually, will suck the life and energy out of any man who chooses to step into the noir universe. Melville understood that, and Bob is the definitive noir character. If Bob could've been something else... a dentist or a construction worker... he would've been that nice guy next door. But, this is film noir, so he's a high rolling gambler who walks towards the void. The alien part comes with the way Melville's Paris feels like something out of a science fiction novel, framed at just the right moment when night is fading and daylight begins to unmask the neon ugliness. I can't think of another black and white film that uses light and darkness in quite the same way.

There's been one attempt to remake "Bob Le Flambeur", notably by director Neil Jordan in "The Good Thief" from 2003. Lacking in worn-out feel and featuring a disenchanted lead played by Nick Nolte, if anything, "The Good Thief" was to glossy to be a true noir. In a much less structured attempt, there are also some similiarities of "Bob Le Flambeur" to Paul Thomas Anderson's "Hard Eight" in 1997. The great Philip Baker Hall embodies the same type of wordless, gentle creature of the night who sulks across the Las Vegas dens and casinos with pure cool. He too befriends a puppy-dog like loser named John (John C. Reilly) and a down-on-her-luck beauty (Gwyneth Paltrow) who create a small family out of very little expectations with each other. Whereas Melville's world outlook was bleaker than Anderson's, giving the Paolo/John dependent a more sinister denouement in "Bob Le Flambeur" at the scene of the hotel robbery, "Hard Eight" is probably the closest any modern film noir has come to establishing that feel of all night activity taking a toll on the human body and mind. Both films portray the world outside of the dark gambling rooms as frustrating and encroaching. And both films present main characters who come from a life of crime and are simply waiting for that lifestyle to collect its dues. And its almost sad when those dues catch up to Bob the Gambler.

"Bob Le Flambeur" is the type of film that's easy to saddle with the monikor of film noir, and even easier to admire as a cynical and brilliantly simple representation of characters drawn to a certain type of lifestyle. I don't think film noir is dead. I just think it was done with more intelligence and passion when Jean Pierre Melville was creating masterpiece after masterpiece. 1955 and "Bob Le Flambeur" is as good as any place to start.