Film Forum

France/Italy, 1969
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret
Based on the novel by Joseph Kessel
In French with English subtitles
Approx. 145 min. 4K DCP.

France, The Resistance: an escape from the Gestapo, so sudden and hairsbreadth as to leave the toughest of tough guys gasping with the icy sweat of terror and relief; two brothers remain unaware, to the end, of each other’s clandestine activities; patriots who, in relentless pursuit of traitors, must steel themselves to the most brutal of face-to-face violence. Lino Ventura (ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS, CLASSE TOUS RISQUES, etc.), aided by compatriots including maîtresse of disguise Simone Signoret, goes underground in face of the German Occupation — but the price of heroism can be truly horrific. Precursor of the New Wave and legend of the French gangster film, Jean-Pierre Melville realized the dream of a quarter-century when he adapted “the book of the Resistance”, written by Joseph Kessel (BELLE DU JOUR) in the white heat of immediacy. Melville turned the detached, unblinking gaze of his Noir classics on these memories of his youth — he himself served for years in the Resistance — adding a jarring finale of his own, so stoically uncompromising as to reduce Kessel himself to sobs on his first viewing. But ARMY OF SHADOWS wasn’t released here until 2006 — when it dominated the year’s Ten Best lists (topping the Premiere and New York Times lists) and copped the New York Film Critics Circle’s award for Best Foreign Film of the year — 37 years after it was completed.

Scanned in 4K from the original negative by Image Retrouvée, supervised by Studiocanal’s Sophie Boyer and Jean-Pierre Boiget. With the funding support of CNC.

Presented with support from the George Fasel Memorial Fund for Classic French Cinema and the Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film.

A RIALTO PICTURES RELEASE

Reviews

“A rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind… Worthy of that overused superlative MASTERPIECE.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Lovers of cinema should reach for their fedoras and sneak to this picture through a mist of rain. You are in the hands of a master.”
– Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

“A STUNNING LOST MASTERPIECE!”
– Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out (New York)