The Longest Day

The title is a prediction by Rommel on his way back to Germany.

Valéry says a poem’s first line is a gift of the gods, on condition the poet write a second just as good. Verlaine is the code signal on the French broadcast of the BBC, two lines (six verses), announcing the invasion and ordering action.

Berlin is aware of the code because, it may be assumed, it’s in the briefcase of a man gunned down from a German staff car while running to escape it through a field in France at the start of the film, a scene never mentioned again.

The long sobbings from violins in autumn

My heart pang with a languor monotonous