Army of Shadows

Description

The most personal film by the underworld poet Jean-Pierre Melville, who had participated in the French Resistance himself, this tragic masterpiece, based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, recounts the struggles and sacrifices of those who fought in the Resistance. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret star as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their conception of honor in their battle against Hitler’s regime. Long underappreciated in France and unseen in the United States, the atmospheric and gripping thriller Army of Shadows is now widely recognized as the summit of Melville’s career, channeling the exquisite minimalism of his gangster films to create an unsparing tale of defiance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds

Special Features

High-definition digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Pierre Lhomme, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray

Alternate 2.0 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray

Audio commentary from 2006 featuring film scholar Ginette Vincendeau

Interviews from 2007 with Lhomme and editor Françoise Bonnot

On-set footage and excerpts from archival interviews with director Jean-Pierre Melville, cast members, author Joseph Kessel, and real-life Resistance fighters

Jean-Pierre Melville et “L’armée des ombres” (2005), a short program on the director and his film

Le journal de la Résistance (1944), a rare short documentary shot on the front lines during the final days of the German occupation of France

Restoration demonstration by Lhomme

Trailers

PLUS: An essay by critic Amy Taubin, along with (for the Blu-ray) a piece by historian Robert O. Paxton and excerpts from Rui Nogueira’s Melville on Melville

Cover by Michael Boland