New 4K Restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows at Laemmle Theatres
Film
Army of Shadows by Jean-Pierre Melville. Courtesy of Rialto Pictures.
“A rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind…worthy of that overused superlative, MASTERPIECE.” – The New York Times. To be (re)discovered in a brand-new 4k restoration at Laemmle Theatres, August 16-22.
In a typically laconic and understated performance, Lino Ventura (Elevator to the Gallows, Classe Tous Risques) stars as an ordinary man in the center of extraordinary events, as he and his compatriots (including maîtresse of disguise Simone Signoret) go underground in face of the German Occupation – but the traitors in their own midst can be equally treacherous. Precursor to the New Wave and legend of the French gangster film, Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob Le Flambeur, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Samourai) realized the dream of a quarter century when he adapted “the book of the Resistance,” written by Joseph Kessel (Belle de Jour) in the white heat of immediacy. Melville turned the detached, unblinking gaze of his film noir classics on these memories of his youth – he himself served for years underground – adding a jarring finale of his own, so stoically uncompromising as to reduce Kessel himself to sobs on his first viewing.
DCP, 1969, France, War/Drama,145 minutes, Rialto Pictures, in French with English subtitles.
Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville.
Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville (adaptation), Joseph Kessel (novel).
Starring: Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse.
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