The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, April 26-May 2
Army of Shadows (1969)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Melville’s grim, kinetic Army of Shadows, an assiduous yet epic account of the French Resistance following the exploits of one determined network, is a superb cinematic example of anti-heroic World War II revisionism. Immediately after the war, viewers probably would have found it too downbeat and inglorious. Ironically, when released in 1969 in the fervid wake of the shameful French-Algerian War and the massive left-wing social protests of May 1968, the film was disliked on account of its rather muted Gaullist tilt. In the fullness of time, it scans as an admirably poignant if cold-eyed dose of realism. It is also authoritative, as Melville himself—a Jew born Jean-Pierre Grumbach in Alsace who took the surname of his favorite American author—was a longstanding member of the Resistance. He is certain about Resistance fighters’ ruthless dedication and their operational need to suppress humanity—epitomized by the brilliant Lino Ventura’s Philippe Gerbier—as well as the circumstantial inability of some to do so. If he raises doubts about the Resistance’s ultimate military effectiveness, he hardly crowds out the national inspiration that their episodic vengeance and sustained sacrifice engendered. The result is a movie definitive in both substance and attitude, suffused with Melville’s wartime experience and the singular noble outlaw sensibility that it produced in him. Jonathan Stevenson (April 30, 8:20pm; May 3, 1pm; May 7, 7:30pm; May 11, 4:35pm at Film Forum’s Melville series)