Le chagrin et la pitié (1969)

Director:

Marcel Ophüls

Writers:

André Harris (writer)
Marcel Ophüls (writer)

Release Date:

25 March 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | History | War

Plot:

From 1940 to 1944, France's Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany. Marcel Ophüls mixes archival...

Plot Keywords:

Interview | France | Collaboration | Clermont Ferrand | Collaborator

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 5 wins

Cast

Georges Bidault	...	Himself
Matthäus Bleibinger
Charles Braun
Maurice Buckmaster
Emile Coulaudon
Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie
René de Chambrun		(as Comte René de Chambrun)
Christian de la Mazière
Jacques Duclos
R. Du Jonchay		(as Colonel R. du Jonchay)
Anthony Eden	...	(also archive footage) (as Lord Avon)
Sgt. Evans
Marcel Fouche-Degliame
Raphael Geminiani
Alexis Grave
Louis Grave
Marius Klein
Georges Lamirand
Pierre Le Calvez
Mr. Leiris
Claude Levy		(as Dr. Claude Levy)
Pierre Mendès-France	...	Himself
Cmdt. Menut
Elmar Michel
Mr. Mioche
Marcel Ophüls	...	Interviewer
Denis Rake
Henri Rochat	...	Himself
Paul Schmidt
Mme. Solange
Edward Spears	...	Himself
Helmut Tausend
Roger Tounze
Marcel Verdier
Walter Warlimont

Also Known As:

Das Haus nebenan - Chronik einer französischen Stadt im Kriege (West Germany)
Le chagrin et la pitié - Chronique d'une ville Français sous l'occupation (France)
The Sorrow and the Pity (USA)
Zorn und Mitleid (West Germany)

Runtime:

251 min

Country:

France | Switzerland | West Germany

Language:

French | German | English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | France:U | UK:12A | USA:PG

Company:

Télévision Rencontre

Trivia:

Originally intended for French television but broadcasters refused to show it.

Quotes:

Georges Bidault: Some people are resistants by nature. In other words, some people are naturally headstrong. Others on the contrary, try to adapt to the circumstances, and get what they can out of it. If you are a resistant over everything and nothing, you're exaggerating. But if you accept everything, you're lying.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (#4.21)" (1991)

Fine though un-systematic look at French in city during German Occupation

This is a fine documentary. Marcel Ophuls, the interviewer and director, is never too intrusive, never too opinionated - like a Ted Koppel or Jim Lehrer, he doesn't try to censor the views of those he interviews but to ask questions to help elucidate them.

The documentary selects a few dozen people to interview - virtually all with different roles and attitudes during the Occupation. I found particularly interesting:

the French doctor with "7.5 children" (?) who was concerned primarily with feeding his family throughout the Occupation and was thrilled when hunting began after a two year moratorium,

the champion bicyclist who began against great competition in 1943 because of the number of French riding bicycles due to the absence of gas to run their motorbikes or cars (and who said he didn't see many Germans around Clermont-Ferrand in Vichy France)

the extraordinarily gentlemanly and rather shy-seeming Resistance chief who refused to cooperate with the Communists in his ferocious anti-Nazi work,

the British transvestite singer who became a secret agent for the British in occupied France and broke up with his German soldier lover for fear of compromising him,

Anthony Eden's extraordinary tact and intelligence,

Pierre Mendes-France's wonderful restraint, objectivity, humor and

absence of recrimination,

the German father of the bride at a wedding reception whose attitude toward his (undoubtedly brave) service in the War is wholly uncolored by the fact that the country for which he fought was the aggressor, totalitarian, and vigorously persecutor of groups - (I actually suspect that if one were merely a soldier and had not personally acted dishonorably in the War, this is the attitude that most would have -whether a German or Russian soldier - despite extending one's own horrible system into the rest of Europe).

For one, such as myself, who does believe the Communist Party, especially in those days of Stalin, to have been as great a menace to the world as the Nazi Party, the documentary's failure to ever ask the Communist officials interviewed about their beliefs about substituting one horror for another is disappointing. I could not forget as I watched the interviews of Communists, the 14.5 million recently killed by the Russians in Ukraine as the result of the terror famine imposed on that region - or the Great Terror that killed more millions and concluded just as the War began. In fact, M. Ophuls discomfits the Resistance leader who defied Orders from the Free French in London to cooperate with the Communists against the Nazis - I felt like applauding his behavior!

I'm sure for most, the most fascinating character is M. de la Maziere, the extraordinarily candid, intelligent, disarming and charming aristocrat and former Fascist youth who, at the end of the War, volunteered to serve on the Eastern Front in the German Waffen S.S. - from which only 300 of the 5000 survived. He was quite remarkable to hear - he'd obviously spent a great deal of time thinking about what he had done, why, and although regretful, was unsparing in his description of what he knew and what he had done. However, in interviewing him in a German castle used between the Wars by the Kaiser, and in 1944 for Petain and Laval, the documentary makes it appear as if the castle somehow relates to de la Maziere - as if he owned it - when in fact Ophuls simply took him there for the interview. It's the one dishonest seeming moment in this wonderful documentary.

I strongly recommmend that others see it - you will wonder how you would react, and think about what those in your own country would react to foreign occupation.