Category Archives: History

WARNING : This is not a war film…

“Jean-Pierre Melville, perhaps the least known French film director of his generation  is steadily moving into the ranks of the greatest directors… He was not much honored in his lifetime. We now know from his gangster film “Bob le Flambeur” (1955) that he was an early father of the New Wave — before Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut and Louis Malle…
He used actual locations, dolly shots with a camera mounted on a bicycle, unknown actors and unrehearsed street scenes…
In “Le Samourai” (1967), at a time when movie hit men were larger than life, he reduced the existence of a professional assassin (Alain Delon) to ritual, solitude, simplicity and understatement.
And in “Le Cercle Rouge” (1970), he showed police and gangsters who know how a man must win the respect of those few others who understand the code.
His films, with their precision of image and movement, are startlingly beautiful…
With “Army of shadows”we have the Cinematiki premiere of perhaps his greatest film…”  

“Melville, who was himself a member of the Resistance, is not interested in making an action film. Action releases tension and makes it external. His film is about the war within the minds of Resistance members, who must live with constant fear, persist in the face of futility, accept the deaths of their comrades and expect no reward, except the knowledge that they are doing the right thing. Because many die under false names, their sacrifices are never known.” – Roger Ebert

Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 French Resistance Masterpiece is “The Best Film og 2006!” – New York Times