West European Studies

Until the last few years, Hollywood reinforced the view that the French Resistance was an effective undertaking on the part of the French to fight the Nazis. In the 1946 film La Bataile du rail, French railway workers sabotaged German reinforcement trains. In the 1950s, movies were less heroic than in the late 1940s. The 1956 film La Traversee de Paris portrayed the French black market as an important economic base of the French Resistance.

With de Gaulles return to power in 1958, the portrayal of the resistance returned to its earlier form. In the 1966 movie Is Paris Burning, the role of the French Resistance was revalued according to de Gaulles political standing. In successive films, the image of the Resistance was widened to include poor farmers and women. The films La Brigade (1975) and Le Dernier Metro reinforced the notion that the French Resistance was a powerful paramilitary organization. In 1997, Claude Berri produced Lucie Aubrac, an overt portrayal of a strong, mass-based French Resistance.

Hollywoods overt focus on the French Resistance is based on three general facts. First, de Gaulle had influenced the course of films which pertained to the French Resistance. De Gaulle overemphasized the value of the resistance in state-sponsored films. Indirectly, Hollywood adopted this mythic notion and transformed it into heroic movies.

Second, the economic value of these movies could not be ignored. French-inspired movies over the past 50 years earned more than 10 billion dollars. Lastly, the message of the French Resistance appealed to the ordinary mind. Hollywood had to adapt to the situation by reinforcing the traditional image of the Resistance.

According to Douglas Porch, the French Resistance did not help the Allied war effort (101). Porch noted that, contrary to popular belief, the French did not rise up after D-Day to attack Germans behind the front lines. The sabotage of Nazi supply and communication lines did little to influence the outcome of the war. He also added that only 5 of the French were nominally members of the underground movement. Of these, only a small portion ever fired a shot (107).

The German army knew nothing of the Resistance, apparently because it was virtually non-existent. The German commander in France did not take the activities of the Resistance seriously (103). During the D-Day, only 200 French resistance fighters joined the Allies in driving the Germans out of France. The six Resistance division that Eisenhower mentioned was nothing but an empty praise.

The Resistance legend was almost entirely the work of Charles de Gaulle, wartime leader of the Free French government in London, and of the French Communists. He needed to build up his otherwise weak position in the eyes of the allies.