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Army of Shadows

(L’armée des ombres, Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969)

New Restoration

A man is tied to a chair in the middle of a large room. There is a desk in front of him and two photos of military officers on the otherwise empty walls.

Not released in the US until 2006, Army of Shadows has since become a modern classic and one of the defining films about the French Resistance.

The great French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville is best known for such sharply conceived crime thrillers as Le samouraï (1967) and Le cercle rouge (1970), but Army of Shadows has arguably become his most highly acclaimed film. Based on the novel by Joseph Kessel, the drama is a captivatingly grim account of the experiences of a small band of French Resistance fighters working against the Nazi troops occupying France. They try to evade capture and the fate that awaits them if caught while also struggling with their own codes of honor. Channeling the exquisite minimalism of Melville’s gangster films, Army of Shadows is an unsparing tale of defiance, and this new restoration makes for essential viewing. In French with English subtitles. (145 mins., 4K DCP)

IMAGE CAPTION
Army of Shadows, courtesy of Rialto Pictures and StudioCanal.

"Dark as pitch and utterly without compromise."
Manohla Dargis, New York Times

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Scanned in 4K from the original negative by L'Image Retrouvée, supervised by Studiocanal’s Sophie Boyer and Jean-Pierre Boiget. With the funding support of CNC.

FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY 
National Endowment for the Arts 
Ohio Humanities

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY 
Rohauer Collection Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY 
Greater Columbus Arts Council
 
The Wexner Family 
Institute of Museum and Library Services
 
Mellon Foundation 
Every Page Foundation 
Ohio Arts Council, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts 
CampusParc 
Nationwide Foundation 
Lois S. and H. Roy Chope Fund of The Columbus Foundation
Ohio State’s Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme 
The Columbus Foundation 
Axium Packaging

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY 
Ohio State Energy Partners 
Ohio History Fund/Ohio History Connection 
David Crane and Elizabeth Dang 
Melissa Gilliam and William Grobman 
Rebecca Perry Damsen and Ben Towle

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