DISQUS

sean · 2 years ago

Since you didn't elablorate on plot or anything else I will merely say that from its bizarre opening shot on the Champs Elysee to its climax (or climaxes, in a sense there are a few) Shadows is highly restrained emotionally. Yet in the end, restraint is only about a third of it.

Dan Leo · 2 years ago

Thanks for commenting, Sean. Yeah, restraint is simply the mode, the style that Melville uses. The story of course is filled with the most horrible drama.

One thing I can safely mention (because I still want our readers who haven't seen the movie to be able to see it without knowing the plot and the events ahead of time): on the special features of the DVD set they had a TV interview with Melville and a resistance leader named André Dewavrin whom Melville had gotten to play a small part. The host asked Dewavrin how he dealt with the memories (they'd been talking about all the comrades who had died). He said he tried not to think about it, and just to live his life. And that when he had to talk about it (like at that moment) he tried to keep his sense of humor, because you need a sense of humor to live. And this reminded me of my father, who lost his leg in the battle of the Bulge, and yet who, if he ever said anything about his army days, and he didn't often, had a great sense of humor about it all.

(I remember my dad telling me that some of the orderlies in his hospital were German POWs, veterans of the Afrikakorps. They were allowed to keep their corps insignia. Those were the days, treating prisoners fairly and with respect.)

Oh, and that opening pre-credits shot by the Arch of Triumph: Melville's editor Françoise Bonnot told a great story on the features about how they went back and forth putting that scene in the beginning and at the end of the movie. Finally opened the movie in six theatres in Paris with the scene at the end. Next day Melville changes his mind, calls up Bonnot and they drive to each theatre and splice the scene back into the opening.

Now my comment on your comment is almost as long as my original piece!

Self Styled Siren · 2 years ago

Since I have this on my desk from Netflix, waiting to be seen, I am glad you are leaving the plot unspecified. I was otherwise occupied during its re-release (pregnant) and didn't get to see it. By way of cute coincidence Army of Shadows figures in my Hostel post above. :)

Here is a quote about Melville for you, from Volker Schlondorff:

"He begged us to turn our backs on what he considered to be misguided works like Johnny Guitar, and to look instead to the American classics for inspiration. Biased as he was, he contended that only two--at that time, disdained--directors counted for anything at all; William Wyler and Robert Wise."

Dan Leo · 2 years ago

Dear Siren, our comments on each others' posts seem to have crossed each other in cyber-space. I love these little anecdotes about Melville's oddities. But, you know, speaking of odd, I was just thinking that with certain directors their movies all feel like movies from one particular director (for good or ill, as Hunter Thompson would say); Melville's "Army" feels like a Melville film, even with the absence of gangsters (or at least non-military gangsters); Chabrol's movies feel like Chabrol movies,etc. And then you have guys like Wyler and Wise who can blithely go from Ben Hur to The Children's Hour to the Collector to How to Steal a Million to Funny Girl (Wyler), or from Odds Against Tomorrow to West Side Story to Two for the Seesaw to The Haunting (Wise).