L'armée des ombres: A historic film. A Historical Tool?

8/10/2019 L'arme des ombres: A historic film. A Historical Tool?

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LARME DES OMBRES

A HISTORIC FILM.

A HISTORICAL TOOL?

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T H O M A S S I T T L E R

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

On June 14, 1940, French society stood thunderstruck at the effectiveness of the Blitzkrieg asGerman troops marched into Paris unopposed. In less than six weeks, the well-equipped and highlyorganized German army, unafraid of violating Belgian neutrality, had circumvented the Maginot line

and conquered the capital, sweeping aside Frances feeble military response. The international shockat this incredible allied defeat was tremendous but the French themselves underwent the mostradical shift in national consciousness. This defeat, it was purported, must have been a moral one,caused by the decadence of traditional values of work and patriotism. After France signed anarmistice on June 22nd that gave Germany control over the north and west of the country, but leftaround 2/5 of Frances territory unoccupied, the exiled French government moved to the spa townof Vichy. It is in this context that the Marshal Ptain, as prime minister, was able to assume fulldictatorial powers on July 11 after a 569-80 vote by which both houses of parliament granted thecabinet the authority to draw up a new constitution. Ptain seems at the time to have had relativelybroad support from a demoralized and pacifist French people. The Germans draconian policies,carried out with the support of Vichy, such as the payment of about 20 Million Reichsmarks per dayfor the upkeep of the German army of occupation, or the Compulsory Work Service, led to the

emergence of a minority discontented enough to form paramilitary groups dedicated to both passiveand active resistance.

Charles de Gaulle, then an obscure cavalry colonel only recently appointed junior minister, enjoyedlittle legitimacy for his free French government in London. This is evidenced by the fact that outof the 100 000-odd French soldiers temporarily on British soil in June, only 7000 stayed on to join deGaulle. Nonetheless, his appeal of 18 June 1940 was long regarded by official French history as theorigin of the Rsistance. This term is used to refer to the collection of French Rsistance movementsagainst the Nazi occupiers and the Vichy regime, who, in addition to their guerilla warfare activities,published underground newspapers, provided intelligence to the allies and maintained escapenetworks for allied soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. The Rsistance deeply divided Frenchsociety, as people were forced to choose sides, and often bitterly resented those who chosedifferently, even in their own families. The question of how many were active in the Rsistance

remains highly controversial in France as it is laden with deep emotional involvement. The Rsistanceis to this day the main example of French patriotic fulfillment, and is help up to defend the claim thatFrench nationhood was notexistentially undermined during WW2. American historian Robert Paxtonventured an estimate that the number of active resisters was about 2% of the adult Frenchpopulation, or about 400 0001.

The French rsistants were men and women of a broad range of generational social, professionalreligious and political groups. Strands Rsistance did have clear political affiliations, as Rsistancegroups often emerged out of previously existing political structures (parties, paramilitaryorganizations). Some groups were clearly affiliated Gaullists, just as some came from the FrenchSection of the Workers' International (Socialist party) and, after Germany invaded the Soviet Unionin 1941, the communist party established a Rsistance branch, calling itself Francs-tireurs partisans.

Despite this extreme political diversity, opposition to German occupation was the overwhelming

1Paxton, 1972


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factor of unity, and nearly all Rsistance movements progressively merged with one another andbecame organized under the National Council of the Rsistance, starting from mid-1943.

As Allied victory became progressively more likely towards the end of the war, Rsistancemovements became much emboldened. They are generally recognized to have played a significantpart in the liberation of France, sabotaging German installation and providing intelligence to the

allies. In the wake of D-Day, militarized Rsistance groups known as French Forces of the Interiorfought alongside the Allies in the liberation of France.

SYNOPSIS OF THE FILM

The film opens with an image of German soldiers marching down the Champs-Elyses, which fadesinto a French field under heavy rain. A date appears: October 20 th, 1942. Philippe Gerbier, our mainprotagonist, is arrested by the Vichy police and placed in an internment camp run by the Frenchauthorities. The camps director reads from his file that he is an eminent civil engineer, quick witted,independent minded. Gerbier is also suspected of Gaullist sympathies. Later, he is delivered tothe German secret police (Gestapo), which transfer him to a hotel for questioning. Gerbier manages

an unlikely escape and returns to Marseille where his Rsistance network is based. Gerbiers closestassociate, Felix Lepercq, has identified a young traitor who betrayed Gerbier, but about whomnothing else is known. Together with Guillaume Vermersch, Le Bison , and Claude Ullmann, LeMasque, a young rsistant eager to prove himself, they kill the traitor by strangling him. Gerbier,Ullmann, and Lepercq are visibly distraught by the killing.

In a bar, Lepercq happens to meet his old friend Jean-Franois Jardie, a handsome adventurousyoung man wearing a pilots coat. Jardie accepts Lepercqs offer to join the Rsistance not out ofideology, but for love of risk. On one of his missions, Jean-Franois Jardie must bring a radio toMathilde, who, unbeknownst to her family, is a key member of Gerbiers network. Jean-Francois,being in Paris, pays a visit to his older brother Luc, who seemingly lives a paltry and scholarly life inhis mansion. Jean-Francois does not feel he can confide in his brother that he has become part of aRsistance group.

Meanwhile, Gerbier is preparing his voyage to the Free French headquarters in London. He will betaking a submarine along with a group of Royal Air Force pilots whose planes were shot down. Atthe last minute, Gerbier informs Lepercq that the Big Boss, the chief of their group, will also bejoining them. His identity is a closely guarded secret. Jean-Francois rows the Big Boss to thesubmarine in total darkness, unable to see his face. Once on the submarine, it is revealed that the BigBoss is none other than Luc Jardie.

In London, Jardie receives a military honor (Compagnon de la Libration) from Charles de Gaullehimself. A news arrives that Lepercq has been arrested by the Gestapo, Gerbier returns to Franceimmediately via parachute. He now lives with the baron of Fert-Talloir, a royalist who nonethelessput his grounds and paramilitary group at the disposal of the Rsistance effort. Meanwhile, Mathilde

has taken Gerbiersplace as head of their Rsistance unit. She is planning to free Lepercq from theGestapo by pretending to be a German army nurse.

Jean-Francois, however, denounces himself to the Gestapo through an anonymous message; and inhis letter of resignation to Gerbier, he tells him not to attempt to find him. He is placed in the samecell as Flix, who is dying from the repercussions of his torture. The remaining members of thegroup nonetheless go through with their plan. They are able to penetrate into the building where


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Flix is held, and Jean-Francois sees them. The prison doctor comes to examine Flix but refuses histransportation, saying he is dying. The plan fails thus. Jean-Franois offers Flix cyanide so that hemay commit suicide in the cell.

In a restaurant, Mathilde urges Gerbier to flee to London and keep a low profile, but he refusesbecause of his perceived duty to organize the many Rsistance movements that are developing in the

region. Just after Mathildes departure, Gerbier is caught in a routine raid by the Vichy police.Recognized, he is handed over to the Germans. After a few days in a cell, Gerbier is taken to a firingrange where an officer explains a sadistic game in which the prisoners are to race to the far end of theroom as a machine gun firing squad fires on them. Gerbier again escapes miraculously with the helpof Mathilde who threw him a line to pull him out of the firing range.

After his escape, Gerbier is taken by Vermersch to an isolated safe house. After one month, Gerbierreceives an unexpected visit from Luc Jardie, who tells him that Mathilde has been arrested carrying aphoto of her daughter. The Gestapo threatens to send the young woman to a brothel in Poland forGerman soldiers if Mathilde does not betray the whole network. But Mathilde gives only two namesand is released on the pretext of leading the Gestapo to the rest of the network. Gerbier and Jardiehave decided that Mathilde must be killed as she represents a threat to the group. Vermersch initially

refuses to participate and vows to protect Mathilde with his life, but he is ultimately convinced tocarry out the killing.

The film ends with the assassination of Mathilde in a Parisian street from a car in which Vermersch,Gerbier, Ullmann and Jardie are present. She casts a last wide-eyed look at her killers beforeVermersch shoots her. The final shot is again of a German soldier before the Arc de Triomphe, thistime reduced to traffic duties.

HISTORICAL VALUE

So-called social history is an approach to studying history that emphasizes the experiences ofordinary people in the past. Many historians who identify themselves to this school believe that films

can serve a historical purpose in enhancing our understanding not only of the society whichproduced the films (a commonplace position), but also of the historical period represented. We willfirst deal with this second claim, after which we will examine the value of lArme des Ombres as atelling example of Francesattitude to its collective memory of the Rsistance.

NOT A DOCUMENTARY

Though the terms definitions are constantly being blurred by incursions of dramatization into factualfilms, or vice-versa, lArme des Ombres , based on the 1943 novel by Joseph Kessel, can be agreed notto be a historical documentary. And if we are to take Jean-Pierre Melvilles word for it, his film hasno ambition whatsoever to emulate one. In a 1971 interview, the director perhaps not withoutsome provocation said about Larm des Ombres: I had no intention of making a film about the

Rsistance. So with one exception the German occupation I excluded all realism2

. With this

2Melville on Melville,Rui Nogueira, 1971.


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over to the Gestapo by the French police at the end of 1942 even though, according to SimonKitson, this did not occur in the southern zone until spring 1943. Yet, while the film makes fewreferences to specific events or people, it canserve a purpose in transmitting not the facts, but thefeelings of daily Rsistance activity. That no dramatic sense of history in the making emerges fromthe film can be seen as precisely reflecting the rsistantsexperience. For it is only with hindsight thatwe have devised such grandiloquent phrases as history in the making the combatants, engaged in a

daily, prosaic, and often gritty fight against their occupier simply did what they did because of theirperceived duty to do it, disconnected from ideology or History.Melvilles decision to include details,such as the death of Dounat, that contribute to a bleak, unromantic view of the protagonists, clearlyresonates with this view. Melville said he blended his own experience into the film, which becomes atruly personal portrait not of the Rsistance as a movement, but of its fighters as people. The longsilences, the darkness of the scenes, and the austerity of a cut with very few tracking shots and amostly immutable camera thrillingly convey the sacrificed lives of the rsistants. In this respect, one ofKessels sentences is aptly dreary: "Today it is nearly always death, death, death. But on our side wekill, kill, kill."

A VISION OF 1960S FRANCE

The political and social context of the first screening of lArme des Ombres in 1969 is highly relevantto the work, and examining the film through this prism allows us to rediscover it as a profoundlyuseful historical tool. It offers many insights into French societys relation to its wartime past, andespecially the evolution of its collective historical memory. The next few paragraphs are an attempt todistill these and their conclusions.

The difficulty in coming to terms with the events of the occupation has always profoundly markedFrench public discourse, and it especially did so in the decades immediately following the war. HenryRousso has described these attitudes as part of a Vichy Syndrome, whereby French historicalmemory regarding collaboration and Rsistance underwent a political pendulum movement of firstdenying Vichys responsibility only to later overestimate it, contributing to a sort of guilt-riddennegativity in the 1970s. In many ways, LArme des Ombres is the pivotal film of this evolution.

The immediate postwar years saw the appearance of films that were arguably propaganda. La batailledu rail (1946) was financed by a group with close links to the French communist party and theRsistance-Fer movementa resistance group composed precisely of those railway workers that thefilm portrays as flawless heroes of French patriotism. The same year Le Pre Tranquille,regarded bycritics today as a tool to reinforce national cohesion, told the story of a quiet bourgeois insuranceagent who was in fact head of a Rsistance movement. Especially after Charles de Gaulles return topower, in 1958, popular culture portrayals of the occupation period were marked by what Roussocalled rsistancialisme:the myth according to which all French citizens had unanimously and naturallyresisted the Germans and Vichy.

The civil unrests of May 1968 profoundly shook the political, social and cultural landscape in France.Though French cinema, as epitomized by the Cahiers, was socially progressive relative to the norm,

Melville was the polar opposite of this stereotype. He describes himself as an an extremeindividualistand a right-wing anarchist.It is therefore difficult to ascertain whether the events ofMay, which certainly did undermine Gaullist rsistancialismeamong many filmmakers circles, had anyeffect on lArme des Ombres. Whether a reflection of post-1968 anti-Gaullist tendencies or simply asign of greater distance with passing time, it remains to be stated that Melvillesfilm sets a milestonein its rejection of previous romanticizations of the Rsistance. Accused of applying the precepts ofgangster films to lArme des Ombres, he certainly shows no restraint in his unforgivingly bleak


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portrayal of Gerbier and his colleagues, especially so in the final scene which truly does remind of aChicago 1920s gang execution. As the first Rsistance film to receive almost universal critical acclaima notable exception are theCahiers, which accused Melville of having made a Gaullistfilm itseems to have been important in enabling the onset of a liberation of French historic memoryregarding this period. Indeed, films such as the hallmark Le Chagrin et la Piti (1971), and Lacombe,Lucien (1974), took on the far more difficult topic of collaboration.

However, this should not be taken to mean that occupation was not still a highly controversial issueby 1969. Strikingly, Melville was simultaneously criticized for portraying the rsistantsas gangsters,and, from the opposite side of the political spectrum, of having made a Gaullist filmglorifyingthem. This highlights the extreme political sensitivity of the issueeven as Melville purposely triedto de-politicize the film by naming as few political affiliations as possible for his characters andgroups. Finally, both Melvillesdifficulties in obtaining the authorization to shoot the Arc deTriomphe scene, with German uniforms walking down the Champs-Elyses, and the fact that he wasfinally able to do it, for the first time after the war, are highly symbolic. As such, LArme des Ombresisa taboo finally broken, a first step towards Francesreconciliation with its past.

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L'armée des ombres: A historic film. A Historical Tool?