Comments on: Books and movies about resistance movements

Question: Books and movies about resistance movements

Soda-Da — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:26:45 -0800

Bookfilter / Moviefilter - Need book and movie recommendations about resistance fighters in wars. Particularly interested in the European theatre of World War II but open to other times, settings, and points of view whether fictional or non-fictional.

I am about to finish reading Mary Doria Russell's novel 'A Thread of Grace' and my interest in resistance campaigns in wars has been heightened.

'A Thread of Grace' is historical fiction based on the true story of the vast underground effort of the Italian citizens who saved the lives of 43,000 Jews during the final years of WWII. It's a fantastic book that describes the intrigue and danger awaiting every character.

For example, one character changes his identity depending on the situation. At times he takes on the identity of a disabled priest. At other times he becomes a dashing German merchant who befriends the leader of the Nazi occupiers. Sometimes his identity is compromised so he has to destroy his fake documentation and start over.

Another character is a nun who leaves coded notes under a vase in the church. There is a massive orchestrated effort to keep thousands of people safe and much of it takes place in view of the enemy. The term they use is "hiding in plain sight." It's all very thrilling and interesting and I want to read more books like this.

I've read 'The Diary of Anne Frank' and I've seen 'Charlotte Grey' but that about covers my exposure to wartime resistance efforts. Please recommend novels, biographies, non-fiction books, and/or movies about resistance fighters in any war in history.

By: Midnight Creeper

Midnight Creeper — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:31:10 -0800

Currently in release is Paul Verhoeven's Black Book: "In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II, a Jewish singer infiltrates the regional Gestapo headquarters for the Dutch resistance."

Much older: Army of Shadows. "This non-spectacular movie (do not expect any Rambo or Robin Hood) shows us rigorously and austerely the everyday of the French Resistants : their solitude, their fears, their relationships, the arrests, the forwarding of orders and their carrying out... "

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:31:11 -0800

Leaves of Hypnos is an extraordinary series of poems by Rene Char, who fought in the French resistance, about that experience. Although I read a lot I don't much care for most poetry, but Leaves of Hypnos remains one of the best books I've ever read, and one I constantly think about since reading it 15 years ago.

By: Bromius

Bromius — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:39:39 -0800

Rome, Open City is an absolute classic.

In a non-fictional vein, The Sorrow and the Pity contains fascinating interviews with both resistance fighters and collaborators.

Would you count the insurgents in The Battle of Algiers as resistance fighters? Another great film, and one that was shown at the Pentagon in 2005 to highlight parallels with the situation in Iraq.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:40:23 -0800

Charlotte Gray

By: matildaben

matildaben — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:43:48 -0800

It's a bit pulpy (although in a feminist way), but Gone to Solders by Marge Piercy is a novel containing several intertwined WWII stories, including some Resistance characters.

By: biffa

biffa — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:43:49 -0800

Verhoeven's 'Soldier of Orange' also has a significant fraction set amongst the Dutch resistance in WW2. Subtitled.

Once you're on that IMDB page then clicking on 'resistance' on the keywords section will let you find some other related films, though you'll have to pick out the WW2 ones for yourself.

By: warble

warble — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:44:21 -0800

I recently read "The Moon is Down" by John Steinbeck, which is a fictional account of resistance against an army which is occupying a small town (generally given to be a Nazi-occupied Norwegian town). The novel starts with the initial invasion and slowly follow the townspeople as they steadily wear down the invading force.

The intro to the version I read had a great history of the novel - it was written as propaganda during WWII, and was a novel passed around underground in large numbers in France, Norway, and other occupied European countries during WWII.

Because it's fictional, you won't learn specific historical details, but it does an interesting job of breaking down the psychology of occupation on a small scale and it gave me a lot of food for thought. It's not very long (slightly over 100 pages), and reads almost like a fable. A very interesting little book, and one with a lot of historical and modern day resonance.

By: FuManchu

FuManchu — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:47:52 -0800

Red Dawn

By: docpops

docpops — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:05:45 -0800

The Avengers

By: strangeleftydoublethink

strangeleftydoublethink — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:10:39 -0800

Land and Freedom, and, of course, Pan's Labyrinth.

By: tiny crocodile

tiny crocodile — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:13:32 -0800

What about Orwell's Homage to Catalonia?

It's about the Spanish Civil War rather than WW2 but it's an interesting, well-written account of civil and military resistance to fascism.

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:16:07 -0800

It's not his best book, but Primo Levi's novel If Not Now, When? is still a very interesting and moving account of Jewish resistance-fighters in Russia and Poland ca. 1943-44.

By: otio

otio — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:16:47 -0800

John Frankenheimer's The Train is good. "This tense, 1964 action drama from John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) stars Burt Lancaster as a member of the French Resistance trying to prevent Nazi looters from taking valuable art treasures out of the country."

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:27:10 -0800

Homage to Catalonia is a fabulous book, but it isn't about the resistance, it's about one proxy army fighting another.

By: goo

goo — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:32:23 -0800

Are you also interested in the small resistances undertaken by ordinary people? Or only the large, organised movements? If the first, Heinrich Böll's 1971 novel Group Portrait with Lady (he won the Nobel for Literature the following year) is an excellent account of a woman's life in Cologne through the war. I cannot recommend this novel highly enough - it had me gasping for air.

Also - Thomas Kenneally's Schindler's Ark is very, very good (although it may only be sold now under the film title, I don't know).

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:36:27 -0800

Seconding If Not Now, When.
Soldiers Of The Night is an account of the resistance in France.

By: gwynp

gwynp — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:37:34 -0800

Alan Furst has written a series of excellent thrillers set during WWII, and in Eastern Europe or Paris. Try The World at Night or Red Gold which feature Jean Casson a film producer in peace time who becomes a reluctant resistance fighter. Furst captures the atmosphere of wartime quite brilliantly

By: goo

goo — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:39:24 -0800

Oops that should be one n in Keneally.

By: utsutsu

utsutsu — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:40:04 -0800

I highly recommend Lisa and Jesper by Carol Matas.

They are short novels about young people involved with the Danish resistance during World War 2.

The books are certainly written with young people in mind but I believe they could be enjoyable to all. I read them in Junior High and they left a great impression on me.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:58:13 -0800

Star Wars
Seriously, there is a ton of science fiction that's on this theme, and that is based on WWII resistances, and popular depictions of them in the late 40s and 50s.

By: spacefire

spacefire — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:07:19 -0800

The Guns of Navaronne, a classic film about British underground in Greece.

By: NickPeters

NickPeters — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:26:24 -0800

for an amazing first hand account of the danish resistance movement read "Letter to My Descendants" by Niels Aage Skov. Niels was my professor at The Evergreen State College and is an amazing character, even more so after reading about him blowing up weapons stores and tracking down Nazi's in the time immediately following WWII. Also documents his escape from Nazi POW camp. Great read.

By: gompa

gompa — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:52:36 -0800

Alan Furst.

All of his novels are set around the outbreak of WWII (roughly 1938 to 1942), and almost all of them involve protagonists from Central and Eastern European countries, often living in exile in Paris, who wind up involved in espionage, sabotage and other resistance activities. Furst adores Paris and hates war, and his novels all have a mix of elegaic despair and brief moments of joie de vivre that have earned them frequent comparisons to Casablanca. (He sometimes lingers long and lovingly, for example, on the meals served up at Parisian bistros.)

His milieu and page-turner approach are frequently compared to Graham Greene and John le Carre, and at his best - The World at Night, Kingdom of Shadows, Blood of Victory - I think he's their peer as a writer as well. Highly recommended.

By: gompa

gompa — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:53:54 -0800

Seconding gwynp, I now notice.

By: munchingzombie

munchingzombie — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:18:39 -0800

If you get tired of all this serious stuff and feel the need for a break please check out Top Secret. Directed by Jim Abrams and the Zucker brothers of The Kentucky Fried Movie and The Naked Gun fame it is ridiculous.

By: santojulieta

santojulieta — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:32:32 -0800

Pan's Labyrinth
Robin Hood
Braveheart

(about resistance efforts, but not WWII.)

There are about a million books on resistance efforts during WWII for young readers.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry is one excellent one.

By: greycap

greycap — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:50:43 -0800

Ill Met By Moonlight (book and later film), about the British officers who led the resistance in Crete during the Second World War (including the legendary Paddy Leigh Fermor).

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:27:14 -0800

Best war book I've ever read is For Whom the Bell Tolls. Although it's about the Spanish Civil War and not WWII, I have a feeling that it may just be what you're looking for.

By: Dr.Pill

Dr.Pill — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:39:27 -0800

Come and See. More partisan than resistance but an outstanding film none the less.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:55:19 -0800

The Hiding Place is about Corrie ten Boom and her family helping Jewish people escape from the Nazis with the help of the Dutch underground.

I haven't read them, but Other Italy: The Italian Resistance in World War II and The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945 sound interesting.

Axis History Forum :: Recommended reading on the Resistance Movements

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Jewish Resistance - A Working Bibliography

By: canoehead

canoehead — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:46:25 -0800

the samuel beckett biography by Deirdre Bair has some description of his involvement in the French resistance.

By: elisynn

elisynn — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:00:38 -0800

And There was Light by Jacques Lusseyran--autobiography of a French resistance fighter

The Bitter Years by Richard Petrow--Scandinavian side of WWII

By: Violet Hour

Violet Hour — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:55:46 -0800

Resistance by Anita Shreve.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (children's book).