Army of Shadows on Arte: Why Lino Did Not Speak to Ventura Melville

Army of Shadows is a powerful film, a favorite of cinematographer Roger Dickins, and important to its director, Jean-Pierre Melville, who instilled in it many memories of occupied France.

However, the shooting of this feature film will be very tense due to the disagreement between the movie star, Lino Ventura, and the film director. To understand where these complex accounts come from, we need to go back a few years.

We are in 1966, Jean-Pierre Melville forces Paul Meuris and Lino Ventura to star in a film noir called Le Deuxieme souffle. The story is about a fugitive (Ventura) who is followed by a supervisor (guardian).

During the course of the film, Ventura’s character has to catch up with a moving train to board. Unbeknownst to the actor, Melville instructs the car driver that he is going to run faster and Ventura really has to suffer to succeed in climbing, which he says looks better on screen.

The scene is shot in such a way that the actor knows nothing about this strategy. When he finds out about this machination later, Ventura will directly announce that he will no longer work with the director. To the present day 1969.

Indeed, Jean-Pierre Melville remembers the good memories of a former wrestler who became an actor to offer him a new feature film with Paul Meury: The Army of Shadows. Adapted by Joseph Kessel, the film takes place in occupied France and tells the story of Gerbier, an engineer at Ponts et Chaussées, one of the leaders of the resistance. Condemned and captured, he is in jail. As he prepares to flee, he is picked up by the Gestapo.

Known as a man of principles and speech, Ventura really does not want to work with Melville again and refuses the role. Except that the filmmaker has a mandatory Ventura contract, which the director still owes to the film. So the actor regrets it and the atmosphere on the set is electric. Ironically, The Army of Shadows deals, among other things, with the subject matter and betrayal of a given word.

A witness to the situation, Bertrand Tavernier, Melville’s then-press secretary, recalls the years. later :

I remember once, at a restaurant, Lino raised a table and said, “I want to make sure Hyena is not under the table.” They talked to each other through assistants, but always very politely.

For communication, Melville and Ventura pass assistants and limit any verbal exchange to a strict minimum and what is necessary for shooting. Despite this awful climate, the feature film still had 1.4 million participants, which is an average of the usual Melville films.

About 2 months later, Ventura will forget about this difficult shoot by sharing the success of Le Clan des Siciliens with Jean Gabin and Alain Delon for the 4.82 million ticket sold. Released from the contract, he will never work with Jean-Pierre Melville.