{"id":30316,"date":"2026-09-07T16:29:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T15:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=30316"},"modified":"2026-09-07T16:31:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T15:31:56","slug":"a-review-of-a-n-important-new-french-film-de-gaulle-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=30316","title":{"rendered":"A review of an important new French film &#8220;De Gaulle: R\u00e9sistance&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">General Charles de Gaulle was the most famous and consequential military and political French figure of modern times and it is appropriate that a bio-pic of his activities in the Second World War should be the most expensive production in French cinematic history. The film was directed by Antonin Baudry, co-written with B\u00e9r\u00e9nice Vila, and based on the 900-page, non-fiction book &#8220;A Certain Idea Of France: The Life Of Charles de Gaulle&#8221; by the distinguished British academic Julian Jackson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, &#8220;R\u00e9sistance&#8221; is only the first part of a double bill and covers the period from the German invasion of France in 1940 to the acceptance of the Free French as a credible force in 1942. Almost all the speaking roles represent real-life characters, most notably French-Armenian Simon Abkarian as de Gaulle and the English Simon Russell Beale as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.\u00a0<div>This excellent film skilfully weaves together, on the one hand the political battles between the different Western allies and between the Free French and Vichy France and, on the other hand, military operations such as the British bombing of the French Fleet at Mers El K\u00e9bir and the Free French defiance of the Germans at Battle of Bir Hakeim. The real success of the work is the way so much information is conveyed in an entertaining format that is by turns often exciting, humorous and moving.<\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The French have a complicated history of the war period and much of the story in this film will be unfamiliar to many in today&#8217;s France. Indeed the film was a slow-burner which only gradually won ever-larger audiences, largely through word of mouth. Most people in Britain know even less about de Gaulle&#8217;s role in the war and this film will tell them a good deal, not just about the French but also the British at this crucial time in world history. Sadly, however, the work has had a very limited release in British cinemas and you&#8217;ll have to catch it where you can. The second part of the story is called &#8220;De Gaulle: Libert\u00e9&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>General Charles de Gaulle was the most famous and consequential military and political French figure of modern times and it is appropriate that a bio-pic of his activities in the Second World War should be the most expensive production in French cinematic history. The film was directed by Antonin Baudry, co-written with B\u00e9r\u00e9nice Vila, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-issues","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30316"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30318,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30316\/revisions\/30318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}