Le chagrin et la pitié (1969)
(The Sorrow and the Pity)
Country: FR/GER/SW
Technical: bw 251m
Director: Marcel Ophüls
Cast: doc.
Synopsis:
The inhabitants of Clermont Ferrand, together with German soldiers who were stationed there and statesmen involved from both France and Britain, recount their experiences during the occupation of France (1940-44). The film has two parts (L'Effondrement and le Choix) and adroitly gives its subjects sufficient reassurance and leeway to betray more than they would have cared to under more antagonistic interviewing.
Review:
A classic of the documentary form and the first film really to question the Gaullist myth of a united France of resistors, it did so in the wake of May 1968 and thanks to a very forward-looking Munich-based television company. Uses of music such as Maurice Chevalier and Brassens's la Tondue are surprisingly modern in their visual juxtapositions, but on the whole the film makers are very neutral in their treatment of both sides, being content to take note without passing judgement and allowing individuals such as the pharmacist who pontificates before his gathered family the chance to be their own unconscious ironic commentators. The Grave brothers, Anthony Eden, Pierre Mendès France and the Englishman who was a female impersonator/radio operator for Whitehall in France, are among those who live in the memory.
(The Sorrow and the Pity)
Country: FR/GER/SW
Technical: bw 251m
Director: Marcel Ophüls
Cast: doc.
Synopsis:
The inhabitants of Clermont Ferrand, together with German soldiers who were stationed there and statesmen involved from both France and Britain, recount their experiences during the occupation of France (1940-44). The film has two parts (L'Effondrement and le Choix) and adroitly gives its subjects sufficient reassurance and leeway to betray more than they would have cared to under more antagonistic interviewing.
Review:
A classic of the documentary form and the first film really to question the Gaullist myth of a united France of resistors, it did so in the wake of May 1968 and thanks to a very forward-looking Munich-based television company. Uses of music such as Maurice Chevalier and Brassens's la Tondue are surprisingly modern in their visual juxtapositions, but on the whole the film makers are very neutral in their treatment of both sides, being content to take note without passing judgement and allowing individuals such as the pharmacist who pontificates before his gathered family the chance to be their own unconscious ironic commentators. The Grave brothers, Anthony Eden, Pierre Mendès France and the Englishman who was a female impersonator/radio operator for Whitehall in France, are among those who live in the memory.
(The Sorrow and the Pity)
Country: FR/GER/SW
Technical: bw 251m
Director: Marcel Ophüls
Cast: doc.
Synopsis:
The inhabitants of Clermont Ferrand, together with German soldiers who were stationed there and statesmen involved from both France and Britain, recount their experiences during the occupation of France (1940-44). The film has two parts (L'Effondrement and le Choix) and adroitly gives its subjects sufficient reassurance and leeway to betray more than they would have cared to under more antagonistic interviewing.
Review:
A classic of the documentary form and the first film really to question the Gaullist myth of a united France of resistors, it did so in the wake of May 1968 and thanks to a very forward-looking Munich-based television company. Uses of music such as Maurice Chevalier and Brassens's la Tondue are surprisingly modern in their visual juxtapositions, but on the whole the film makers are very neutral in their treatment of both sides, being content to take note without passing judgement and allowing individuals such as the pharmacist who pontificates before his gathered family the chance to be their own unconscious ironic commentators. The Grave brothers, Anthony Eden, Pierre Mendès France and the Englishman who was a female impersonator/radio operator for Whitehall in France, are among those who live in the memory.