Some cinematic approaches to the French Resistance

Rene Clement's 1949 movie 'La Bataille du Rail' ('Battle of the Rails') was one of the few early postwar French films to examine the role of the Resistance.

'The Quiet Father' is another Rene Clement film about the Resistance, using the metaphor of a family to represent French opposition to the Occupation.

Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Silence of the Sea' made in the late 1940s, was the director's first film. It examiners the question of moral responsibility in the resistance to evil exemplified by the German Occupation of France.

J-P Melville's classic and controversial view of Occupation and Resistance.

IS PARIS BURNING? Director Réne Clément (1966)

One of the greatest documentary films ever made, Marcel Ophuls' 1971 movie used interviews and documentary footage to demolish the official myth that France was united against the German forces during World War II. It also revealed the extent of collaboration and anti-semitism.

Jean-Perre Melville's 1969 movie 'L'armée des ombres' anticipated many of the later revisionist approaches to the Resistance. Probably the best of all films about the Resistance, this is a masterpiece of mood and tension.

Melville's 1961 movie subtly employs Occupation (by Italian and German forces) as a backdrop for a study of moral and sexual temptation.

'Army of Crime', (2009) was directed by Robert Guediguian, and compares the initiative and courage of a disparate group of Algerians, Jews and others who fought the Nazis with the willingness of most Frenchmen to accept or assist the occupiers.

Louis Malle's 1974 about a 17 year old who collaborates with the Germans and betrays Resistance members met with such a hostile reception in France that the director moved to America. Its French critics were furious at Malles' suggestion that the amoral Lacombe was not much different from most French people during the war.

John Frankenheimer's "The Train" is not only a thrilling movie of action and suspense, it also raises interesting issues about the importance of art and culture as measured against human lives.

Claude Lelouch's fine 1998 updating of Victor Hugo's novel to Occupied France enables him to make some pointed comments about the nature of French collaboration and resistance.

Rose Valland (checking retrieval of stolen art - she is holding papers, 3rd from left) features briefly in "The Train" and will be a more sustained presences in the George Clooney's upcoming movie "The Monuments Men. Photos right show Damon and Clooney on location.

German forces arresting members of the Resistance c.1943.Historians now estimate that many Resistance members were betrayed by fellow French citizens, some of them from within the ranks of the Resistance itself.

Part of the impressive Museum of the Order of the Liberation, with its special section on the Resistance. Located in the Museé de l'Armeé at the Hotel National des Invalides in Paris.

A Resistance poster for Paris, produced by the Communist Party faction of the movement.

French Resistance: still a controversial issue almost seven decades later

Movies about the French Resistance have played a major role in determining the way that movement has been perceived in France and even in the wider world. For decades movies presented the Resistance in what historians in the 21st century now classify as a distorted and politicised series of myths (see column below left). This traditional but mythical account  of a brave national struggle to overcome hated Nazi oppressors has become central to modern French identity. It is only now being overturned 

Myths about the French Resistance

For many years, movies about the French Resistance portrayed it as having  several crucial features. As recent historians e.g. Robert Gildea have pointed out, these alleged characteristics are largely the results of mythologising by Charles de Gaulle and his political supporters. The reality of the nature of the Resistance has also been distorted by accounts produced by French Communists, bitter opponents of the Gaullists.

• the Resistance was a very popular movement, large in numbers and supported by most French people;
•it was a highly effective operation and well organized organization which was a constant thorn in the side of German Occupation forces;
• Resistance forces relied mainly on aggressive armed actions against the German Occupiers, inflicting considerable damage and disruption.
• the Resistance was a unified force, combining French people of all shades of social class and political belief;
• it worked willingly under the forceful leadership of Charles de Gaulle, head of the Free French based in London, and also with various Allied military authorities

New Views about the French Resistance

Since the late 1960s several movies  anticipated recent revisionist views that have demolished many myths about the Resistance:
• the Resistance was NOT a widespread and popular movement - only a very small proportion of the population participated;
• many members of the Resistance were betrayed by their own countrymen. most of whom accepted German occupation / influence
• overall, the Resistance inflicted comparatively little damage on German forces in France;
• most Resistance activity was small-scale in nature, consisting largely of spying and sabotage;
• it was a bitterly divided movement, split along political and ideological lines, constantly squabbling
• de Gaulle's attitude towards the movement was ambiguous; he was regarded with suspicion by many in the Resistance;
• for many in the Resistance, the movement existed not only to defeat the Germans. It was also intended to prepare the way for a  completely different postwar French social and political system.

A photo that reveals the controversy about the French Resistance

This photo shows Charles de Gaulle heading a parade down the Champs d'Elysee just after Allied troops liberated Paris. Many in the crowd were members of the Resistance. Initially this image appears to support the traditional view of the Resistance movement as popular and united: prominently located in the front are Georges Bidault (head of the National Council of the Resistance) and Georges Dukson, a twenty-two year old black Frenchman who had fought in Paris for over a week with his resistance unit. Dukson even captured a German tank during the fighting and had become something of a local hero.
Dukson wasn't supposed to be so conspicuously placed in the parade - he apparently decided spontaneously to join the front ranks to win a bet. However, he didn't stay there very long -minutes after the photo was taken, he was removed - at gunpoint. De Gaulle  wanted to be in complete control of events. He also wanted the parade to be an orderly, dignified march, not the spontaneous eruption of largely civilian triumph that it quickly became. Dukson's forced removal from the parade -after de Gaulle had ordered him to stop smoking -  reveals the widening division  between the Gaullists and left-wing elements within the Resistance. Within weeks Dukson was dead. He was found selling looted German goods on the black market, arrested by orders of the Paris Military Governor, and shot while trying to escape, dying in hospital of his wounds. [See Matthew Webb, The Resistance: the French Fight Against the Nazis (London: 2009),p.269-70; 381]
The apparent harmony and unity of liberated Paris that the photo appears to show was in fact a facade that concealed the longstanding divisions and rivalries between the various French liberation groups. These animosities and the sense of disillusion that accompanied them would eventually become the inspiration for several outstanding movies about the Resistance.

Some other movies based on the French Resistance

A once forbidden topic becomes a hit French TV series

The popularity of a current French tv series, Un village francaise, which is based on the lives of the inhabitants of a fictional French village under German occupation, shows that after decades of neglect what was a controversial issue, shunted aside by politicians, academics and public alike, has finally become an acceptable topic for prime-time French television. Although the series veers at times into soap opera territory, it also deals effectively with such key problems as collaboration and resistance, relationships (romantic and otherwise) with the German occupying forces, and awareness of what was happening to local Jewish families and the consequences.

Advertisement featuring the cast of the French series 'Un village francaise'.