I finally caught this last weekend, and I couldn't find any open threads about it so I thought that I'd start one up.
I thought that it was a fascinating movie--and very puzzling too. There's been a lot already written in reviews about the intensity of Melville's look at the moral decisions made by the members of the French resistance that are at the center of the film. I've read--maybe it was a J. Hoberman review?--that Melville's focus on conscience and interior processes is reflected in the composition of the movie--so many interior scenes that it's almost like a stage play.
I just have a couple of things that I thought that I throw out to see what people think:
--The action in the film becomes increasingly constrained and, frankly, unrealistic. The plot turns on so many unlikely coincidences and stereotypes--Gerbier pulls of an astonishing escape and hides in the one open barber shop run by someone sympathetic to the resistance. Jean almost confides that he's in the resistance to his older brother but backs off--then he ferries the leader of the resistance to an allied sub--and the big boss is his brother! (although he never seems to find out). Jean gets himself captured by the Gestapo and winds up in the same cell as his friend Felix. Mathilde mounts a rescue operation for Felix--and another one for Gerbier--that look like they came right out of Hogan's Heroes. What's Melville up to?
One of the things that I thought was that the movie looks like it's put together from bits of old WWII movies--the kind of propaganda movies that Warners and Universal cranked out druing the war, the kind that they pumped out in the UK too. It struck me that when the French want to put together a picture of wartime resistance, they have to depend on American and British films for the images. I don't really know anything about this, but I would guess that there weren't any movies being made like that by Vichy, and documentary films would be all about Germans marching around. Their positive memories of the period might be connected in some way to the US and British films that they saw--but that don't center on their own experiences. It's like Army of Shadows is the film that was never made at the time.
--Melville's characters seem to spend all their time either saving one another or killing one another. Often some combination--saving someone to kill them, or killing them to save them. The Germans seem incidental to the whole thing. In fact, if you didn't know any better, you'd think that the resistance didn't have much interest in the Germans at all--apart from the first poor schmoe that Gerbier knifes at SS HQ, the Germans get a pass. My guess is that, as a member of the resistance himself, Melville knew better. So why did he portray it this way?
--The movie was made in 1969. Did the experiences of 1968 have anything to do with the way Melville made it, or is it too much to think that 1968 had an effect on everything that happened in France after it?
Any thoughts?
I thought that it was a fascinating movie--and very puzzling too. There's been a lot already written in reviews about the intensity of Melville's look at the moral decisions made by the members of the French resistance that are at the center of the film. I've read--maybe it was a J. Hoberman review?--that Melville's focus on conscience and interior processes is reflected in the composition of the movie--so many interior scenes that it's almost like a stage play.
I just have a couple of things that I thought that I throw out to see what people think:
--The action in the film becomes increasingly constrained and, frankly, unrealistic. The plot turns on so many unlikely coincidences and stereotypes--Gerbier pulls of an astonishing escape and hides in the one open barber shop run by someone sympathetic to the resistance. Jean almost confides that he's in the resistance to his older brother but backs off--then he ferries the leader of the resistance to an allied sub--and the big boss is his brother! (although he never seems to find out). Jean gets himself captured by the Gestapo and winds up in the same cell as his friend Felix. Mathilde mounts a rescue operation for Felix--and another one for Gerbier--that look like they came right out of Hogan's Heroes. What's Melville up to?
One of the things that I thought was that the movie looks like it's put together from bits of old WWII movies--the kind of propaganda movies that Warners and Universal cranked out druing the war, the kind that they pumped out in the UK too. It struck me that when the French want to put together a picture of wartime resistance, they have to depend on American and British films for the images. I don't really know anything about this, but I would guess that there weren't any movies being made like that by Vichy, and documentary films would be all about Germans marching around. Their positive memories of the period might be connected in some way to the US and British films that they saw--but that don't center on their own experiences. It's like Army of Shadows is the film that was never made at the time.
--Melville's characters seem to spend all their time either saving one another or killing one another. Often some combination--saving someone to kill them, or killing them to save them. The Germans seem incidental to the whole thing. In fact, if you didn't know any better, you'd think that the resistance didn't have much interest in the Germans at all--apart from the first poor schmoe that Gerbier knifes at SS HQ, the Germans get a pass. My guess is that, as a member of the resistance himself, Melville knew better. So why did he portray it this way?
--The movie was made in 1969. Did the experiences of 1968 have anything to do with the way Melville made it, or is it too much to think that 1968 had an effect on everything that happened in France after it?
Any thoughts?
