12 ARMY OF SHADOWS [FrenCH: L’ARMÉE DES OMBRES]
Background
Former Re sis tance fighter turned filmmaker Jean- Pierre Melville (real name: Jean-
Pierre Grumbach, 1917–1973) read Joseph Kessel’s seminal novel about the French
Re sis tance, L’a r mée des ombres (Charlot, Algiers, 1943), at the time of its publica-
tion and was haunted by its authenticity and evocative power. Twenty- five years
later, when Melville fi nally managed to adapt Kessel’s book to the screen, he cre-
ated a tense, somber noir masterpiece of epic length that is vividly naturalistic, yet
rife with ambiguity and infused with a tragic sense of futility.Production
Generously bud geted at 8,175,000 francs, Army of Shadows was filmed at Boulogne
Studios in the Boulogne- Billancourt district, a Paris suburb, and on location in Nice
and vari ous other sites in Paris. Shot in color by world- class cinematographer Pierre
Lhomme, Army of Shadows was brilliantly edited by Françoise Bonnot, who won
an Oscar for her work on Costa- Gavras’ Z (1969).Plot Summary
In October 1942 Vichy police arrest Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura), a civil engi-
neer and the head of a Re sis tance cell. He is imprisoned in a concentration camp
and then moved to Gestapo headquarters at the Hôtel Majestic in Paris for inter-
rogation, where he makes a daring escape by killing a guard. Gerbier travels to
Marseilles where he and three of his men— Félix Lepercq (Paul Crauchet), Guil-
laume Vermersch, aka “Le Bison” (Christian Barbier), and Claude Ullmann, aka
“Le Masque” (Claude Mann)— are forced to kill one of their own members, Paul
Dounat (Alain Libolt), for having betrayed Gerbier. The men brutally strangle the
young agent. Thereafter Lepercq recruits an old friend in a bar, a former pi lot named
Jean- François Jardie ( Jean- Pierre Cassel). On his initial mission to Paris, Jardie
meets Mathilde (Simone Signoret), a bourgeois house wife who is actually one of
Gerbier’s key operatives. Gerbier then travels to the Free French headquarters in
London in a British submarine. En route, Gerbier meets Luc Jardie, a leader in the
Resistance— a fact unknown to his brother, Jean- François. Once in London, Ger-
bier sets up a network of support for the re sis tance, but after discovering that the
Gestapo has taken Lepercq to a Gestapo prison in Leon, he ends his trip and returns
to France. Mathilde forms a plan to save Lepercq and shares it with Jean- François
Jardie. As a result, Jean- Francois sends an anonymous letter to the Gestapo turn-
ing himself in to get close to Lepercq. The two become cellmates and sustain
unbearable wounds from torture. Disguised as a German nurse and two Weh-
rmacht soldiers, Mathilde, Le Masque, and Le Bison use forged papers to get Lep-
ercq transferred, but their scheme fails when Lepercq is deemed unfit to be moved.
Jean- François takes pity on Lepercq and supplies him with his single cyanide pill.
Despite Mathilde begging him to flee to London, Gerbier is captured in a raid and
handed over to the Germans. Mathilde’s team rescues Gerbier at the last moment,
before execution. He then isolates himself in a farm house in the countryside. Luc
Jardie asks his advice following the arrest of Mathilde, but goes into hiding when
Le Masque and Le Bison arrive. Gerbier orders Mathilde’s execution but Le Bison