what a way to spend a resistance
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Arnold1502 — 19 years ago(March 18, 2007 11:49 AM)
Anti-american talk from Europeans how original.
Remember, the war wasn't coming to us. It was a major decision, and when we did come in, we did win it. So thanks would be nice. Oddly enough when we go in to help other people - Iraqis - you guys go up in arms.
Anyway. Melville's best film. And the resistance is shown as it was. Melville knows first hand. The fight wasn't in the battlefields, but in information, and sabotage. -
JohnnyFrench — 18 years ago(May 14, 2007 09:13 AM)
What decision ? Japan attacked your fleet on december 7th, 1941, and Germany declared war on you on december 11th. So America entered into war because it was forced to do it.
And, frankly, four years after the beginning of the war in Iraq, I wouldn't mention it as a liberation war. -
RDrrr — 18 years ago(August 15, 2007 08:10 PM)
If we're going to nitpick (since Germany wasn't exactly storming onto US shores)
According to the German declaration of war:
"On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel. In his speech of October 27, 1941, he once more expressly affirmed that this order was in force. Acting under this order, vessels of the American Navy, since early September 1941, have systematically attacked German naval forces. Thus, American destroyers, as for instance the Greer, the Kearney and the Reuben James, have opened fire on German sub-marines according to plan. The Secretary of the American Navy, Mr. Knox, himself confirmed that-American destroyers attacked German submarines."
..
Yes frankly, Iraq is a mess, always has been always will be, but we liberated Sadaam well enough. -
kayaker36 — 12 years ago(November 20, 2013 05:36 PM)
As I heard it, France didn't go to war against Nazi Germany with any great elan, either. How long did the drole de guerre (phony war) go on before the Germans attacked westward in May, 1940?
["We have all strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others./"]
La Rochefoucault -
harkness78 — 18 years ago(May 28, 2007 04:24 PM)
Blah blah blah. Us yanks are so stupid. If we enter a war to help someone, were stupid ignorant dicks just 50 years later. Good thing we stopped the germans huh? I love Europe and think our country is making lots of bad decisions. And that is what the vast majority of Americans think and feel.
Is this clear and understood? Hopefully so, because then I can get back to writing about how much the French Resistance sucked in Army of Shadows (not in real life, they kicked ass back in the day). This film's resistance couldn't resist a wet paper bag. They just sat around getting arrested and then shot the arrested once they got out. Tres bon! They killed more french than german. Thats how you win a war. If only Al Quedia were so efficent. -
gbr-8 — 18 years ago(June 07, 2007 04:24 AM)
This movie is about the activities of the LEADERS of the Rsistance, not about the ground fighters'. That's why there are no scenes of bravoury against the enemy depicted in this movie (although the showing of the tortures lead by the Gestapo already renders quite well what resistance was all about).
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AhaVanuR_24 — 18 years ago(November 05, 2007 10:10 PM)
You're acting like a bit of an a$$hole, hannah. He/She has a valid point of the people in the Resistance not actually accomplishing much. THat's not to insult their characters or the French Resistance, it's more Melville's point about the fighter's persistence in the face of futility. There's really no need to condescend to the poster like that.
Now then, you sound like you know Melville's films pretty thoroughly, and I'd like to see more of his work. Which of his films do you think is must-see?
Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head." -
RDrrr — 18 years ago(August 15, 2007 08:20 PM)
As an 'American', I find the post title and your 'amusement' to be trivializing of the subject. Otherwise what? the movie needs scenes of shooting and exploding to make its point? As mentioned elsewhere, these weren't the 'foot soldiers' of the Resistance movie was about 'administration, those who arranged for supplies and rescues, obviously. What's wrong with that
One of the more interesting parts was it seemed that the brothers didn't know each other were working in the Resistance. And it seemed the younger brother purposely got himself caught to help his friend Felix with whom he had flown
Perhaps. -
deeveed — 16 years ago(April 22, 2009 12:09 PM)
And that's the idea isn't it? Ordinary French people doing what they did even not knowing where they stood as group in the face of the German occupiers. The Resistance,in its essence,was just the sum of each individual who was willing to simply say "no" and act on it. No talk of heroics or awards or praise. It was all just individual action coming from their consciences to see the Germans
out of France. -
Marlonius — 16 years ago(June 05, 2009 12:29 PM)
The OP does make a fair observation of the film though - a large chunk of time is spent on the arrests and rescues. (Also significant screentime is spent in cafes or otherwise eating.)
However, the actual resistance operations are there too: they smuggle some downed pilots out of the country to a waiting British Submarine, visit England for exchange of information, and coordinate Lysander landings in France for English commando missions.
Speaking more about the film in general, I rather enjoyed it.
I appreciated more than anything else that the members of the resistance were ordinary untrained people. The main character, Bergier, was an engineer. For relaxation, he read books about Math - being in an underground war was certainly not his element. As deeveed says above, that's the whole point of the film - to see ordinary people reduced by the war to having to assassinate their own friends, and to then see the coda in which we learn that they all died "in the line of duty" is very very powerful. -
LSigno — 16 years ago(December 28, 2009 12:33 PM)
What a lot of people doesn't seem to realize, is that "Army of Shadows" is one of the few movie that states a very very VERY uncomfortable truth, which was conveniently forgotten in the years after WWII - the truth is that in 1942 (the year "Army of Shadows" is supposed to happen) the "resistance" to Nazism in occupied Western Europe was close to nihil. There was some guerrilla in Norway, but elsewhere (I mean, in West Europe) the only kind of active resistance to the Nazi and their local collaborators was made by few hundreds of people, who were either strongly patriotic or communists, or (few) Jews, or disliked the Nazi for a whole set of different reasons (sometimes even religious).
And the reason why so few people chose to side actively against the Nazi in 1942 was that, well, the Axis was more or less winning everywhere (or at least, they weren't losing). The only nation in W Europe still actively fighting the Axis was Great Britain, as America hd his hands full on the Pacific - all hopes were on the URSS to resist, and in mid 1942 the outlook of the war in the East looked, for the Allies, quite grim. The Nazi armies had reached the Volga, most of Russia was in shambles, and it looked like Stalin would collapse from one moment or the other. And the common understanding was that, once Russia was conquered, the war in Europe was settled for good - the Thousand Year Reich would really happen etc etc. Everyone believed that (except for, to be honest, the people actually fighting in the Eastern Front - they knew things weren't so simple)
So Resistance in 1941 in France was COMPLETELY HOPELESS. The people portrayed in the movie had not hope at all - they knew they were walking dead, stubbornly refusing to give up, and providing vital informations to the Allies (if the 1944 invasion succeed it was also because of 4 years of intelligence provided by French patriots). But in 1942, hopes for Allies freeing France in a couple of years were absolutely not existent. It was something like being the last human settlement besieged by the zombies: your first priority is to keep alive, then trying to figure out a way your descendent may survive, but little or not hope for yourself. I believe that, more or less, this should have been the feeling Gerbier and the other character of the movie must have felt.
It should be also remembered that one year later (1943), things had COMPLETELY changed. The Russian had kicked the Nazi butts all the way from Stalingrad to Kurks the Dnepr; The Afrika Korps had been destroyed in Northern Africa; The Allies had invaded Sicily and Italy had dropped out of the Axis (and incidentally in Italy it had started a vicious anti-Nazi guerrilla fueled mostly by disgruntled Eastern Front veterans). For the Nazi, the Alps weren't anymore a safe R&R haven, but a dangerous guerrilla terrain. Not only Hitler wasn't winning anymore - he was losing quite rapidly. So everyone in Western Europe scrambled to find Jews to hide, and "Resistance" became something that could finally not only "resist", but inflict damage to the Axis.
But for the Gerbier and the rest of the "army of shadows" it was already too late. -
Ismaninb — 16 years ago(January 23, 2010 07:12 AM)
Signo hits the nail on its head, except that he/she is still a tad too optimistic about resistance in 1943. Already shortly after May 1945 several Dutch writers demythologized resistance. A fine example is Pastorale 1943, finished as early as August 1945, so the author Simon Vestdijk had quite fresh memories.
The heroism in the early years was not in spectacular actions, it was in the courage not to accept the supremacy of a seemingly undefeatable evil enemy.