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The Blood of Others

The Blood of Others (Le Sang des autres)

Movie · 1984 · 15 people

Claude Chabrol directed the war drama The Blood of Others (French: Le Sang des autres) in 1984, a co-production between France, Canada and the United States. It grows out of Simone de Beauvoir's 1945 novel of the same name, with a screenplay by Brian Moore. HBO stood behind the production, and the film was first conceived as a three-hour English-language television work. Jodie Foster plays the lead.

The story unfolds in occupied Paris, where a young woman finds herself in the middle of the struggle between the German occupiers and the French Resistance. She is pulled between the political and existential questions of the resistance and the responsibility she bears for the consequences of her own choices. Alongside Foster appear Michael Ontkean, Sam Neill, Lambert Wilson, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Micheline Presle and Alexandra Stewart, with Samuel Fuller also in the cast.

The work circulated in two forms. The long version aired on HBO on 25 August 1984, while a version shortened by about forty minutes and dubbed into French was released in cinemas; the French release date is given as 2 May 1984. In Russian it is also known as Eto bylo v Parizhe.

DirectorClaude Chabrol
Production companyHBO

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Cast

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Alexandra Stewart Alexandra Stewart Film actor · 87 years old Dominique Zardi Actor · died at 79 Jodie Foster Michael Ontkean Sam Neill Lambert Wilson Samuel Fuller Stéphane Audran Jean-Pierre Aumont Micheline Presle Renaud Verley John Vernon Roger Miremont Kate Reid Alain Doutey

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Through different eyes

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Many films about Paris under German occupation turn the Resistance into a tale of heroism; The Blood of Others instead puts forward the question it takes from Simone de Beauvoir's novel: when a person's choices reach into other people's lives, where does the responsibility lie? That approach is valuable because it moves the occupation out of a good-versus-evil frame and into the moral dilemmas of ordinary people. On the other hand, telling the story of the French Resistance in English, with an international cast, wears away some of the period's local texture. It speaks to viewers who want wartime France as the stage for an existential argument rather than as a historical panorama.

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

The German occupation and the French Resistance are in the background, but don't go in expecting a war thriller. This is an existential drama: at its centre are not firefights but questions about choices and what they cost. The pace is slow and the stakes are mostly moral. For an action fan it's a test of patience; for anyone who wants to see the occupation years through one woman's inner reckoning, it's the right pick.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

The defining thing about this production is that it is split between two forms. A film conceived for HBO as a three-hour English-language television work, then cut by about forty minutes and dubbed into French for cinemas, carries traces of the other version whichever one you watch. In the short cut, some compression of a novel's intellectual layers is almost unavoidable, and the dubbing makes a story set in Paris feel artificial a second time. On paper, Chabrol and Beauvoir's question of responsibility are a strong match. In my view, though, these production conditions make it hard for the film to find its own voice. Anyone planning to watch it should know from the start which version they are choosing.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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