Pierre Lhomme – Army of Shadows: “Melville was constantly settling scores…”

France 5 is rebroadcasting The Army of Shadows this evening, by Jean-Pierre Melville. Première had met his cinematographer shortly before his disappearance, in July 2019.

France 5 is offering a great classic this Friday evening, Army of Shadowswith Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse and Simone Signoret. The painful story of the members of a Resistance network confronted, on a daily basis, with death and betrayal in occupied France. Trailer:

Interview initially published on July 5, 2019: The greatest French cinematographer has died. We share one of our last interviews with the man who lit the cinemas of Jean Eustache, Jean-Paul Rappeneau and Jean-Pierre Melville, who are discussed in this final interview.

Do you remember specifically your first meeting with Jean-Pierre Meville?

He had arranged to meet me at noon in front of the station of a provincial town. On the square, empty, he was waiting for me near his Camaro, white I think, with his Stetson, his Ray-bans, his putty raincoat… It was quite impressive, especially since knowing his reputation, I was a little tense. Melville was in fact a magnificent, slightly perverse seducer. He could give me “Pierre” or “mon petit Pierre”, then suddenly “Monsieur Lhomme” to regain his stripes with authority.

It was Henri Decaë who illuminated his previous masterpieces. Did he explain to you why he called on you on this one?

I never asked him the question. He knew well the few films in which I had participated like La Chamade by Alain Cavalier. We had in common a love of cool colors because they are more faithful to the texture of the skin. He wanted an image as monochromatic as possible, in blue and green tones. It was important for him that the resistance fighters didn’t look babyish, as if they were coming back from winter sports… In fact, we would have liked to shoot in black and white but the film was expensive, it was too great a risk.

You have stated several times that you pushed Melville to pay more attention to the artistic direction of the film. It’s surprising from a filmmaker who is classified in the category of great formalists.

I didn’t “push” him. I regretted that Théo Meurisse, the design director, did not have the time to give more realism to certain sets in the studio. Too often, we opened a door or window on cardboard. Melville replied that in Hitchcock’s films, it didn’t bother anyone. Let’s say that an image that was intended to be naturalistic did not go well with pasteboard. But it is only the poor operator and the poor decorator who see the aesthetic approximations!

There is still this improbable scene where Charles De Gaulle is played, for a very short long shot, by an extra wearing a mask! That’s quite a failure…

But it’s not a mask! Melville had a painting of De Gaulle’s face made, applied as best as possible to the actor… everything had been thought out so that the connection of the look was just right. We were crying with laughter behind the camera when we saw the result! Melville studied in poverty, so to speak, with limited means. But as he was very astute, he had managed to develop a certain skill in getting out of delicate situations.

In the delicate situation genre, a lot of things are said about the filming of the pre-credits where fake German soldiers parade on the Champs-Elysées. And in particular that Melville would have filmed it alone, without authorization.

It’s a legend. The problem was getting the Champs-Elysées empty, a request ultimately accepted. For the record, the soldiers are played by dancers who rehearsed for a week at the Boulogne studio. Melville thought no one else could goose-step. He was obsessed with this shot to the point that in the days leading up to it, he kept leaving the set saying, “Commies, I’m going to see my dancers!“.

How did you manage the conflicts between Melville and Lino Ventura or Simone Signoret?

What can a team do when a director begins to humiliate an actor? You have to be as calm and kind as possible with the person in question, which wasn’t difficult with Ventura, an amazing guy. Melville was constantly settling scores, he was a very hard man. He had an unresolved dispute over The second wind which he made Lino pay. With Signoret, it was more insidious. He respected the actress but not the woman, whose beliefs he did not share. At that time she was unhappy and physically damaged. On one or two occasions, I suggested to Melville that he cut certain shots in two, so as to approach Simone from a different angle and size. When I couldn’t film his look well, I was still very annoyed. Melville didn’t care.

Why had he chosen them?

The cinematographic requirement came first and foremost for him.

You are sometimes credited in the credits with Walter Wottitz…

I ended up getting angry with Melville. When he asked me, well after filming, to make connections, I was no longer free – I was preparing the Pan-African Festival with William Klein. I still thought about these connections and suggested a colleague that I had briefed in advance – Yann Le Masson, who had filmed certain sequences, including the day in London. Melville did not credit him (this is the custom for second unit operators), although he did so for Walter Wottitz, also the author of some plans. He actually called me to tell me how upset he was by his presence in the credits. A little revenge from Jean-Pierre…

Melville, Rappeneau, Eustache, Duras… We have the impression that you liked working with strong personalities.

Cinema is a story of encounters, some are provoked, others are the result of chance. Why do we shoot a very visual film or a film with a lot of dialogue? We cannot listen and see at the same time, I agree with Bresson on this. In retrospect – forty years later – while supervising the restoration of the film, I realized how Bressonian Jean-Pierre Melville was. All his moments of great cinematography, basically, are Bresson with great actors.

Simone Signoret- Alain Delon: their two meetings at the summit