The Army of the shades
Homonymy: The Army of the shades is the nickname given to the secret Armée during the Résistance.
the Army of the shades is a film free - Italy N of Jean-Pierre Melville left on the screens in 1969.
Synopsis
October 20th, 1942, in occupied France . Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura), engineer distinguished from the thought Bridges and Chaussées suspected of gaullists, is stopped by the police force of Vichy and placed in a camp It slices on the other prisoners by a not very common strength of character, and by the supports which placed it in this camp A few days later, the French authorities give Gerbier to the Gestapo, the secret police Nazi E, which transfers it to Paris for interrogation. Gerbier succeeds in escaping with the assistance from a resistant anonymity and a hairdresser petainist (Serge Reggiani), then turns over to Marseilles where the network is based which it directs indeed.The right-hand man of Gerbier, Felix Lepercq (Paul Crauchet), identified a certain Paul as the Traître which denounced its chief. With the assistance of Guillaume Vermersch “the Bison” (Christian Barbier) says, a colossus of an absolute honesty, old of the Légion, Felix and Gerbier leads Paul in an uninhabited house of Marseilles for carrying out there. They find Claude Ullmann there says “the Mask” (Claude Mann), a young person resisting eager to prove reliable in a difficult mission. It proves to be impossible to kill Paul with the Pistolet as envisaged because a family moved in the day before in the close house and would not fail to hear the shots. Having sought in vain another method, Gerbier orders with its men to help it to strangle their prisoner. The Mask moves back in front of the manner of the execution, which is for him the first, but Gerbier the rabroue hard and entrusts to him with a point of emotion that it is the first time for him too. The Mask is begun again and the three men conclude the work.
He also marked by the execution, Felix stops with a bar and meets there by chance a former old army mate, Jean-François Jardie (Jean-Pierre Cassel), tempting a playboy, in love with the risk, but discrete and reliable. Jean-François agrees the offer of Felix to engage, by trouble and taste of the adventure, and enters Resistance, carrying out successfully several operations of increasing importance. At the time of its first mission with Paris, it becomes acquainted with Mathilde (Simone Signoret, in a role inspired of large resistant the Lucie Aubrac) which under the appearance of an anonymous housewife is in fact a showpiece of the network of Gerbier, without the knowledge of her husband and his daughter. Its mission accomplished, Jean-François returns a surprise visit to his older brother Luc (Paul Meurisse), whom it calls “Saint-Luc”, philosophical of reputation which carries out a life érudite and contemplative in its Private mansion of the sixteenth district.
During this time, Gerbier settled with Lyon and there prepares with Felix his voyage to the General headquarter of the free France with London. It must embark of night on a Sous-marin English off the Atlantic coast with a group of killed aviators. Jean-François and the Bison will ensure the safety of the operation. At the last time, Gerbier informs Felix that the Big boss, the chief of their group, whose identity is a jealously kept secrecy, will be him also voyage. After all the others embarked, Jean-François led the Big boss to the submarine in the total darkness, then turns over to ground without never to have seen his passenger. It is only when this one is on board that the light is done on the Big boss, who is not other than Luc Jardie.
In London, Gerbier receives a logistic support reinforced for its network and Jardie is made Compagnon of the Release in deprived by Charles de Gaulle itself. Gerbier must however curtail his stay when he learns the arrest from Felix by Gestapo. He is parachuted in France, and is sheltered close to Annecy in all full knowledge of the facts by the baron de Ferté-Talloire, royalist convinced which hates the occupant even more than the République. In the absence of Gerbier, Mathilde took the command and appears an exceptional chief. She learned that Felix is held under guard reinforced by Gestapo in Lyon and develops a daring plan of escape: on board a false ambulance, she will affirm to be sent for remmener Felix in Paris. It is necessary to warn Felix to guarantee the success of the plan but Mathilde, despite everything its ingeniousness, does not find the means of it. Jean-François, who attended in silence all the discussions, makes his decision. He writes a resignation letter with Gerbier and denounces himself in Gestapo by an anonymous letter. Won bet: after interrogation and beating up, Jean-François is thrown in the same cell as Felix who, tortured with repetition, is in a critical condition.
Mathilde is unaware of the gesture of Jean-François, but convinces all the same Gerbier to put the plan at execution, provided that this one does not take part in the operation. Disguised as a military nurse German, and accompanied by the Bison and the Mask they also in German uniform, it is presented in the ambulance to the Lyons prison of Felix, carrying an order counterfeited for the transfer of Felix in Paris. It achieves the control of entry in perfect German and the ambulance penetrates in the central court of the prison within sight of Jean-François. The army medical officer of the prison examines Felix in his cell and declares it untransportable, trustful in Jean-François that he will not survive his wounds. Mathilde has of another choice only to take the news with phlegm and to set out again bredouille. Jean-François has on him a pill of Cyanure and the offer with Felix to give him the possibility of putting an end to his sufferings of prisoner while committing suicide; he makes him believe that he has several of them.
Tightened more and more near by Gestapo which stopped and carried out Ferté-Talloire, Gerbier finds Mathilde in a restaurant of Lyon. This one beseeches it to flee in London, but Gerbier refuses in front of the need to organize the command of many the maquis which is formed in the area. Just after Mathilde left the restaurant, Gerbier is taken in a fortuitous descent police force of Vichy against the fraud with the ration coupons. Recognized and given to the Germans, Gerbier is led with other prisoners in the long corridor of a field of fire where an officer S explains the rules of the game to them. A Mitrailleuse is out of battery right behind the prisoners. To the signal of the officer, the prisoners must run as quickly as possible towards the bottom of the field of fire. The officer will give the prisoners a little in advance before ordering fire; whoever reached the alive wall… in front of the machine-gun with the will be again condemned following ones. With the signal, Gerbier initially refuses to run but changes opinion. At the time when fire starts, the team of Mathilde, in position on the roof, launches Fumigène S there to block the field of fire and Gerbier extract of accuracy by means of a cord. The Mask leads then Gerbier to an abandoned farm where it must hide, and to await only new orders.
Three weeks pass, then Gerbier receives the unexpected visit of Luc Jardie who came to seek council near him after the arrest of Mathilde. In spite of the warning statement of Gerbier, this one had kept with it a photograph of his/her daughter. Gestapo gives him the choice: or Mathilde says all on the network, or his/her daughter will be sent in Poland in a brothel for returned soldiers of the Russian face. Hardly the Big boss it explained the situation that the Bison and the Mask are announced. Jardie does not want that its presence is known and is withdrawn in the kitchen of the farm while the two men bring a mail coded to Gerbier. This one learns that Mathilde was given in freedom the day before and that two members of the network were stopped shortly after. It orders the immediate execution of Mathilde but the Bison refuses to obey, promising to prevent Gerbier by the force so necessary. Gerbier and the Mask will neutralize it, when Jardie enters the part slowly, subjugating the three men by his presence and the force of its personnalité.
Conscious of the danger which from now on Mathilde for the network represents, it estimates as Gerbier that its liquidation is necessary; but the admiration and the blind friendship of the Bison for Mathilde prevent this last from accepting the need for killing her. That pushes Jardie with ruser: the only way of circumventing the reserve of the Bison to kill Mathilde and of making him believe that it is the will of the resistant one, which is perhaps true. Filled up doubts, dubious of the veracity of its own remarks but hoping to say the truth, Jardie convinces the Bison: the purpose of the actions of Mathilde, which delivered only two men in spite of his photographic memory and was made give in freedom under the pretext of lead Gestapo to the remainder of the network, are only to give to Resistance the opportunity to cut down it to protect the network and to save his/her daughter. The Bison goes to the logical relentless and accepts the task, to which Jardie announces its participation in order to make in Mathilde a good-bye worthy of it.
A few days after, on February 23rd, 1943, Mathilde goes in a street of Paris when Jardie and its men approach with the idle in a German car. By seeing them, Mathilde solidifies and launches in Jardie a long glance of good-bye (and perhaps of surprised) while the Bison declads slowly and cuts down it of two shots. The car escapes.
The film is completed on a series of screens reporting the destiny of the four men:
Claude Ullmann, known as “the Mask”, had time to swallow his cyanide pill, on November 8th, 1943, Guillaume Vermersch, known as “the Bison”, was decapitated with the axe in a German prison on December 16th, 1943. Luc Jardie died under torture on January 22nd, 1944 after having delivered a name: his… And on February 13rd, 1944, Philippe Gerbier decided, this time, not to run.
Data sheet
Distribution
Around film
- One of the musical topics of the film (the walk of Gerbier towards the firing squad) is especially famous to have been used as credits with the French television program the Files of the screen . This topic is not of the type-setter of film, Eric Demarsan, but is an extract of the second movement of the continuation of orchestra Spiritual of the American type-setter Morton Gould.
- Melville took as a starting point the novel of Joseph Kessel, written in 1943, but also of its own memories of resistant, much of people are clearly figures of the network Cohors-Asturies (Release-North).
- the late exit of film in the United States in 2006 was an event cinephilic unanimously applauded by the specialized critics. It was even classified better film of the year by the American magazine Premiere .
- Andre Dewavrin, the Colonel Passy, plays his own part.
External bonds
- the representation of resistance to the cinema studied through the example of '' the Army of the Shades ''
- praises of the American film critics discovering this film in 2006