Lino Venura holding a briefcase, looking out at the camera, surrounded by those working in a government officealr

Army of Shadows
(L’armée des ombres)

Screening on Film
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.
With Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Simone Signoret.
France, 1969, 35mm, color, 145 min.
French and German with English subtitles.
Print source: Rialto Pictures

Based on a 1943 Joseph Kessel novel as well as Melville’s own experiences during World War II, Army of Shadows is a mesmerizing and haunting portrait of the Resistance in occupied France, for whose members paranoia, betrayal and the possibility of imprisonment, torture and execution are the stuff of everyday life. Melville’s mastery of the crime thriller and a complete absence of sentimentality combine to deliver a film both suspenseful and thoughtful, at once a celebration of heroism and a meditation on death and defeat. Cinematographer Pierre Lhomme had to struggle to convince Melville of his naturalistic lighting scheme, but the director’s attention to realism combined with Lhomme’s insistence on a cool, desaturated color scheme results in some of the most beautifully bleak images ever captured on film. – David Pendleton

ORDER TICKETS - SEPT. 22 

ORDER TICKETS - OCT. 27 

Part of film series

Read more

Melville et Cie.

Other film series with this film

Read more

Lhomme with a Movie Camera

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Psychedelic Cinema

Read more

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Read more

The Shochiku Centennial Collection

Read more

António Campos and the Promise of Cinema Novo

Read more
sepia photo of Artie Freedman in silhouette with a video camera at show

Boston Punk Rewound / Unbound. The Arthur Freedman Collection

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Read more
a mausoleum that looks like a miniature Spanish cathedral, next to a variety of others, against an evening sky

The Night Watchman by Natalia Almada

Read more
a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf