Army of Shadows
Synopsis
France, 1942, under German occupation. Philippe Gerbier, a civil engineer, is a French Resistance commandant. Denounced by a French collaborator, he is interned in a concentration camp. He manages to escape, and rejoins his network in Marseille, where he has the traitor executed. This movie reveals rigorously and austerely what life was like in the French Resistance: the solitude and fear of its members; their relationships with one another; the constant threat of arrest by the Gestapo; the Resistance command structure and the way its orders were carried out. Head writer Joseph Kessel and co-writer/director Jean-Pierre Melville were both veterans of the "Shadow Army".
Production Budget Analysis
The production budget for Army of Shadows (1969) has not been publicly disclosed.
CAST: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret, Claude Mann, Paul Crauchet DIRECTOR: Jean-Pierre Melville CINEMATOGRAPHY: Walter Wottitz, Pierre Lhomme MUSIC: Éric Demarsan PRODUCTION: Fono Roma, Les Films Corona
Box Office Performance
Army of Shadows earned $861,983 domestically and $44,150 internationally, for a worldwide total of $906,133. The film skewed heavily domestic (95%), suggesting strong North American appeal.
Profitability Assessment
Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.
INDUSTRY IMPACT
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
Summary: 4 wins & 1 nomination total
CRITICAL RECEPTION
When it was originally released in France in 1969, the film had a poor critical reception due to the political context of the time, as the events of May 68 had hurt de Gaulle's reputation, and the glorification of the Resistance had become taboo during the Algerian War. As a result of the poor reviews, it was not initially distributed widely outside of France, but it was very well-received when it was finally released in the U.K. in the late 1970s. American audiences were unable to discover the film until 2006, when a restoration was released, and the film then appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2006.
* 1st – David Ansen, Newsweek * 1st – Ella Taylor, LA Weekly * 1st – Glenn Kenny, Premiere * 1st – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times * 1st – Scott Foundas, LA Weekly * 1st – Stephanie Zacharek, Salon * 2nd – Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader (tied with Statues Also Die) * 2nd – Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun * 2nd – Nathan Lee, The Village Voice * 2nd – Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe
* 3rd – Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post * 4th – Shawn Levy, The Oregonian * 4th – Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter * 5th – Marjorie Baumgarten, The Austin Chronicle * 7th – Richard James Havis, The Hollywood Reporter * 7th – Richard Schickel, Time magazine * 8th – Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune Unranked top ten * Steven Rea, The Philadelphia Inquirer * V.A.
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