Original subtitles

I rediscovered the film by restoring it.

In restoring the film...

which was a delicate and difficult job,

I tried to recapture the film we'd made, but also the film we'd dreamed of making.

I tried to remain faithful

to how I remembered it,

because there weren't any usable copies left.

Copies on VHS were video transfers.

They were very old, and the quality was terrible.

The aspect ratio wasn't correct or the color grading was off.

But I think it's very close

to the original spirit of the film, how we remember it.

Fire!

I now believe

that this film has a place

at the summit of what's considered “classic cinema.”

In addition to the story, which is fascinating,

it's wonderful filmmaking.

I admire the direction, the choice of shots,

the way scenes were handled.

I realized these things while restoring the film,

not in the heat of the moment, during filming.

Thirty-seven years later, I was dazzled by what I saw.

I wasn't dazzled while shooting it. I had too much on my mind.

I'd never worked with a very authoritarian director,

and Melville was very authoritarian.

I was a bit terrorized by his authoritarian way of expressing things,

and it was a while before I was able to express my opinions.

When we did the first shot in the studio, he watched me very closely.

He comes down, looks at the setup, rehearses with Lino Ventura,

then looks at me and says, “Mr. Lhomme, turn off that lamp.

That lamp throws too much light on the bed.

I don't want to see the bed. You should just barely make it out.

I want it off.”

I said, “Without that lamp, the bed will disappear.”

I was taking a risk saying that.

He said, “I want it off.”

I said, “Fine, but we'll do two takes.

Once you've got your shot, we'll do it again with the lamp on,

just to make me happy, and we'll compare them in the dailies.”

He said, “I can't refuse you that.”

I was like the young cinematographer trying to score points

to earn the director's respect.

He instigated this kind of conflict,

so you had to respond in kind.

My generation, or more generally, those in the New Wave,

always considered Melville a forerunner,

precisely because he wasn't part of the distribution and studio system,

and he made films with very little money.

So for many filmmakers I knew, he was a role model.

He had his little studio, his editing room, his screening room.

He was very passionate about it.

A film like Bob le flambeur,

shot entirely in his little studio on rue Jenner

on a shoestring budget' with half a dozen lights and a few friends,

was an example for anyone who wanted to make films,

for all budding filmmakers.

Since I'd learned my craft

shooting on location using the lighting God provided,

on a soundstage I did my utmost to recreate natural lighting,

lighting that seemed real.

He couldn't have cared less about it.

There's a scene with German officers in e bar

that' was shot' in a real bar in Marseilles.

Later we were going to shoot the night scene in the street.

We '0' found a street close to the bar.

Suddenly, like in an action film, the white Camaro roared up

and skidded to a stop in front of where I was waiting.

Melville opened the door like a madman and said, “Get in.”

I got in, and we drove for 10 or 15 minutes

to a deserted part of Marseilles, where he said,

“Pierre, I was wrong. I want to shoot here.”

I said, “It's 1:00 a.m.

By the time we get the crew and equipment here,

and I light the street, it will be dawn.”

He said, “We're already two days behind schedule.

I've got an idea. I have a good friend in Marseilles who's a photographer.

He'll take pictures, and you'll make it work in the studio.”

So his friend took pictures of the street he wanted to shoot in.

Melville had them enlarged, pasted them on the soundstage walls,

and said, “We'll shoot the scene here.”

I thought, “How can I make a photographic backdrop look real?”

Well, we managed.

But that was Melville.

Even though he had money to make the film,

a good-sized budget,

he still stuck to low-budget ways of doing things.

Because he'd started out on shoestring budgets.

He was always doing things like that.

For example, in the shot used for the opening credits,

it was supposed to be raining.

We rehearsed the scene, and he says quickly,

“We have to zoom in and finish in a tight close-up of the van.”

This gets a bit technical.

I said, “If we go from 35mm to 200mm,

I won't get the raindrops at 200mm. I don't have the equipment.”

I could get the raindrops with a certain lens, but not the telephoto lens.

He said, “Don't worry about the rain. We'll do that separately.”

We did the shot without rain, and then he brought in a sheet of black drywall.

Using that as a backdrop, we turned on the rain-making setup,

filmed the rain and did a double exposure with the other shot.

That's an amateur trick used on low-budget films.

He loved the idea of makeshift solutions like that.

The airplane sequence with the fake explosions

and the flimsy-looking models -

I wasn't very happy with it,

but he thought it was great.

He'd say, “Look at Hitchcock's films.

The sets are obviously fake, and no one cares!'

I said, “Well, I care.”

That's how it went.

I had to stand up for my ideas about lighting.

He was really all for it, but it was a game.

He had very specific ideas about color.

He utterly detested warm tones.

He couldn't stand yellows, reds, or oranges,

whether on a set; a costume, or a landscape.

That's what gives Army of Shadows its monochromatic look.

The colors aren't saturated, and only cool tones are used.

With the set designer we discussed the skin tones Melville wanted.

On many of the sets, to get skin tones that were pale -

but it's more than that...

Once all the sets were finished,

they were given a coat of what's called “juice,”

a coat of yellow-orange glaze

that was removed in the color grading process.

So the set was in warmer tones than the final look we wanted.

During the color grading, we removed warm tones in the set,

as well as warm tones on the actors' faces.

For me, it was a real treat to work with a director

who wasn't obsessed with making everything visible.

Back then, hardly anyone ever did it,

but some scenes were in near darkness and even full darkness.

We got so carried away filming in shadow and darkness

that one day we ended up with nothing on the negative.

In the shot after the young traitor is executed...

I remember clearly that on the original print,

they turn off the light, and we see the dusk outside.

I said, “Jean-Pierre, the shot is totally black. We have to reshoot it.”

He said, “I don't mind. There'll be music there.”

When restoring the film,

I managed to get a bit of detail back in that shot

that had come out totally black.

We can't see anything, but Demarsan's music

underscores the drama these men are living through.

The film's essential quality

is a profound respect

for the audience.

Though the story is quite dramatic,

the audience always has time

to feel and think.

You can even think, “What would I do in that situation?

What would I do if it were me before the firing squad?”

This kind of cinema doesn't manipulate you.

That's what's so powerful in his way of telling a story.

The audience isn't taken hostage.

It was a painful

and difficult shoot,

but when I saw the finished film,

despite all the technical and psychological difficulties,

I felt like a real cinematographer.

I mean that sincerely.

After an adventure like that, I felt, “Now I'm a cinematographer.”