A Pity Indeed

The Sorrow and the Pity, a film on France before and during the Nazi occupation, runs four hours and twenty minutes—a record length which beats the equally exhausting, though more entertaining, Gone with the Wind. But then, GWTW was historical fiction while The Sorrow claims to be an historical documentary. It has won all the honors a documentary can hope for— an award from the National Society of Film Critics, a nomination for the Academy Award and so on. As movie critics cannot be considered authorities on modern or any other history, it was, presumably, its cinematographic form rather than its content they found outstanding. Yet what is “documented” remains as relevant as its technique; if the documentation distorts realities, it deserves praise merely as fiction—or, possibly, as propaganda.

With an impressive collage of old newsreels and recent interviews with survivors, witnesses and participants of the Second World War, Marcel Ophuls, a young French director, attempts to retrace the case history of Clermont-Ferrand as one French town in the years 1939-1945. Forgotten films of Marshal Pétain and Pierre Laval and, of course, Hitler are skilfully interwoven with thoughtful reflections of Anthony Eden, Georges Bidault, Pierre Mendès-France—perhaps, too skilfully: The viewers of 1972—the overwhelming majority of whom were not there when it happened and have never bothered to read the history of the period—are bound to believe the story this film tells. And when they leave the theater, they feel not only tired and thirsty but also highly knowledgeable about one chapter of history with serious lessons for the present.

NM

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Norbert Muhlen

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The Sorrow and the Pity, a film on France before and during the Nazi occupation, runs four hours and twenty minutes—a record length which beats the equally exhausting, though more entertaining, Gone with the Wind. But then, GWTW was historical fiction while The Sorrow claims to be an historical documentary. It has won all the honors a documentary can hope for— an award from the National Society of Film Critics, a nomination for the Academy Award and so on. As movie critics cannot be considered authorities on modern or any other history, it was, presumably, its cinematographic form rather than its content they found outstanding. Yet what is “documented” remains as relevant as its technique; if the documentation distorts realities, it deserves praise merely as fiction—or, possibly, as propaganda.

With an impressive collage of old newsreels and recent interviews with survivors, witnesses and participants of the Second World War, Marcel Ophuls, a young French director, attempts to retrace the case history of Clermont-Ferrand as one French town in the years 1939-1945. Forgotten films of Marshal Pétain and Pierre Laval and, of course, Hitler are skilfully interwoven with thoughtful reflections of Anthony Eden, Georges Bidault, Pierre Mendès-France—perhaps, too skilfully: The viewers of 1972—the overwhelming majority of whom were not there when it happened and have never bothered to read the history of the period—are bound to believe the story this film tells. And when they leave the theater, they feel not only tired and thirsty but also highly knowledgeable about one chapter of history with serious lessons for the present.