Movies about the French Resistance, any suggestions?

[MisterCairo]

Not a movie, but a stirring portrayal of resistance members nonetheless:

[video=youtube;zGNVU5ZjlgA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGNVU5ZjlgA&feature=related[/video]

 

[Renault]

There is a misconception that the French surrendered then the British evacuated Dunkirk. It was the other way round. The french fought just as bravely, and the real unsung heros were the Scottish troops! The French 1st Army held Rommel up for four long days, completely cut off, and keeping Rommel out of the majority of the Dunkirk battle. At Dunkirk, the British only defended one sector of the perimeter, the rest was held by the French and Scottish forces. The French held until June 4th, two days after the last British soldier left Dunkirk. To Churchill's credit, he did order the Royal Navy to make one last rescue attempt of French soldiers on June 4th! On June 4th French and the Scottish 51st Highlander Division counterattacked at Mareuil ridge, unfortunately they were outnumbered and the offensive ground to a halt. The 51st surrendered on June 12th and the 1st Royal Scots ceased to exist as a unit. Their are many in Scotland that are bitter to this day, and felt that Churchill sacrificed the Scot's to keep France fighting while the British troops pulled out of France. June 22nd the formal surrender was signed. When the tattered remnants of the British army returned home, there were wide scale cases of men throwing their rifles out the train windows, and simply going home. Only two Canadian Divisions were completely equipped, most of the BEF's heavy equipment was still on the Dunkirk beach. France fought bravely for their country, Austria and Czechoslovakia gave up with out a single shot being fired! Of course, I will leave the final words to Churchill, 'Wars are not won by evacuations'.

The misconception is beyond even Dunkirk. The bravery of the French Poilu was nothing less than that of the American defenders of Bataan or Coregidor. Before, during or after the fall they were not cowards. The entire campaign is an extremely complex and interesting study! The only army that was even close to being capable of stopping the German army of 1940 was that of the French. And it was entirely a case of too little too late! We here in the States had best be glad we had no military units in France at this time, as they would have met the same fate as the French!

And exceptional read on the entire subject of this dark time is "The Fall of France", by Dr. Julian Jackson. It was Petain's govt that gave the order for fighting French units to display the white flag the week of the armistice. Many refused.

There were entire French divisions that simply ceased to exist simply because they held their postition and were consumed by the onslought. On the subject of Dunkirk, I believe it was the 137e R.I. that made a bayonet attack and then countered a German counter attack again with bayonets because they had no ammunition. They burned their regimental colors on the beach. As did many units! The 213e R.I., a regiment of "Groupe B" reservist all WWI vets held Guderian at the Meuse River in Sedan with outdated equipment for 3 days until Guderian hit them with 3000 Stuka sorties! Their division the 55e ceased to exist after this. These are just a few examples. Afterwar interviews with German veterans who even fought on the Russian front, stated flat out that some of the toughtest fighting they experienced was against French infantry in 1940. Not to mention the French armored units that were able to get petrol in their vehicles! German armor had a deep and abiding respect for even a single operational Char B!

Sorry for my rant...... There are many who are absolutely clueless on this campaign....Their entire knowledge on this subject is based on a 2 page read in some Time Life book!

Renault

 

[Marc Chevalier]

...a disservice to those who died in the attempt to defend France, and to the gallant French resistance fighters who risked life and limb to try and oust the occupying forces from their country.

Thank you for adding that.

My grandfather, a French Army officer, was captured in 1940 while fighting the Germans in the Ardennes. He escaped from Stalag 9A, returned by foot to Paris, and gave support to the Resistance for the rest of the war.

An 18-year-old French nephew of my great-grandmother's husband dropped out of school, joined the Resistance and was captured by the SS, who interrogated him to death.

It's good to remember the heroes as well as the villains.

 

[Chasseur]

And exceptional read on the entire subject of this dark time is "The Fall of France", by Dr. Julian Jackson

.

A wholehearted second on that one, Jackson's works are excellent and well worth reading.

 

[Rats Riley]

Not sure if it was mentioned but there a film called Black Book that deals with the underground movement.

[video=youtube;Opry9jUDtQE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opry9jUDtQE&feature=related[/video]

Resistance
[video]http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=resistance+pill+paxton&aq=f[/video]

Charlotte Gray
[video=youtube;ZLBepvteMpM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLBepvteMpM[/video]

Army Of Shadows
[video=youtube;on38oTESbHU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on38oTESbHU[/video]

Allo Allo!
[video=youtube;uVdJaBKKqFc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVdJaBKKqFc&feature=related[/video]

http://allaboutwarmovies.com/tag/french-resistance/

The Scarlet and the Black
[video=youtube;sOfcuHEEoik]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOfcuHEEoik&feature=related[/video]

Edges of the Lord
[video=youtube;s2XucHgnLMM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2XucHgnLMM[/video]

 

[Saint-Just]

Having had a French grand father who fought in Dunkirk I couldn't possibly qualify the comments by roadierfl and will just marvel once more on the role Hollywood played in educating the masses.

As to Resistance movies, L'armée des ombres is the masterpiece, but the book by Joseph Kessel is also worth a read. René Clément's La bataille du Rail and Is Paris Burning have also been mentioned, but there is a third, darker one, Mr Orchid

An absolute masterpiece of a thriller is A man escaped

More recently, there was a film made about Lucie Aubrac...

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Though not about the French Resistance, the two movies that come to mind are Soldier of Orange and A Bridge Too Far in its portrayal of the Resistance, in the case of both movies, the Dutch Resistance.

 

[Renault]

The wife and I would love to see a movie about Susan Travers... Look her up.

Renault

 

[Rats Riley]

There was one about two french assassins who would bump collaborators off. I saw it on netflix, but I can't remember the name.
Here it is
Flame and Citron
[video=youtube;qJnfNAEwQ8U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJnfNAEwQ8U[/video]

And though it's not french resistance, I always liked Uprising.
[video=youtube;UXxfdpEYN1I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXxfdpEYN1I&feature=related[/video]

 

[FriarTuck]

"The Train" w/Burt Lancaster is a good one...FriarTuck

 

[Spitfire]

Ahemmmm...Rats Riley. With all due respect: "Flame & Citron" is about the danish resistance. Takes place in Denmark. Not France. But it's a great movie anyway!

 

[Rathdown]

As to movies you could try: 'The sorrow and the pity' a 1969 documentry about all aspects of the German occupation of one particular town in France from all sides.

I'd second this-- Forget the "Hollywood History of the French Resistance" unless your interest is in developing a character for LARPing around in a beret. The Sorrow and The Pity is a superb documentary by Swiss director Marcel Ophuls. Four hours in length, it is simply awesome, and well worth watching, even if you spread it out over two days.

 

[Steven180]

The Sorrow and The Pity is a superb documentary by Swiss director Marcel Ophuls. Four hours in length, it is simply awesome, and well worth watching, even if you spread it out over two days.

Rathdown, appreciate the insight! Sounds like an exceptional find! Am presently tracking on a copy on the net...thanks again for the scholarly advice.

By chance have you ever heard of a book called 'Choices in Vichy France' by John Sweets? Sounds like it parallels the same approach as your documentary recommendation.

Thanks again!
M.

 

[Rathdown]

Thanks for recommending Sweet's book; I'll have my local book guy track down a copy.

 

[Vilna]

There are some very good movies on the topic of the nazi-German occupation of France. Some years ago the movie "The army of crime" came out. It's about a communist resistance group in Paris consisting of immigrants. It ends very tragically. Well so does almost all of these movies. Then there is Cost-Gavras movie from the early seventies "Section special" it's about kangaroo courts set up by the French administration in Paris to retroactively try political undesirables and sentence them to death, in order to placate the German occupation power.
Louis Malle has made two movies about this period. "Lacombe Lucien" from the seventies is about a country youth who wants to join the resistance but is rebuffed, and is then recruited to the collaborationist French police. "Au revoir les enfants" from the eighties is about some Jewish boys who were hid in a catholic boarding school. Supposedly this movie is based on Malle's own memories.

 

[Vilna]

I forgot some other movies about this period that are also worth watching. There are two excellent documentaries by Marcel Ophüls. "The sorrow and the pity" about collaboration, resistance, and attentisme (those who sat the ordeal out). This movie was so incisive that despite it being produced for French television it was banned from French television for more than ten years. Then in the eighties Ophüls made "Hotel Terminus" about the capture by Gestapo of the resistance leader Jean Moulin and his killer Klaus Barbie. This movie was available on YouTube last I checked. Ophüls has a wicked sense of humor, which makes these movies very funny to watch despite the serious and tragic matter at hand, and the length of the movies, both are at least three hours long.
A feature movie from 2002 "Laissez-Passer" by Bertrand Tavernier, is about about collaboration, resistance, and attentisme in the French movie industry during the occupation. It's a bit slow paced but all right.

 

[Two Types]

Ok, the English troops under English Generals failed to tell the French and Scottish troops that they were retreating and pulling their troops from France! Hardly what you would do to members of your own army. It was a low point in the British armies history.

OK, I'm very late to this argument but not to refer to the 51st Highland Division as 'British' and insist on it being Scottish isn't accurate. It was a division of troops with Scottish infantry regiments. But look at some of the attached units:
1st Bn Princess Louise's Kensington Regiment (Machine-Gunners)
7th Bn The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers (Machine-Gunners)
7th Bn The Norfolk Regiment (Pioneers)

plus miscellaneous artillery and engineer units. I believe the anti-aircraft outift in the division were Londoners.

As such, in these terms, dividing the units as British or Scottish is inaccurate.

 

[Two Types]

Back on the main theme. I'm surprised no one mentioned 'Carve Her Name With Pride' (1958) or, more recently, 'Female Agents' (2008).

And here's a list from Moviemail

And next door in Belgium, there's Against the Wind

 

[Smithy]

Obliquely off topic with the Norwegian resistance rather than French but "Max Manus" is an excellent flick. Saw it when we were back in Norway a couple of years ago. Definitely recommended.

 

[Vilna]

I agree, the "Max Manus" is well worth watching. I think it's available on Netflix.