Marcel Ophuls, Oscar-Winning Director of ‘The Sorrow and the Pity,' Dies at 97

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6 days ago

Marcel Ophuls, the documentary filmmaker behind the incisive WWII films 'The Sorrow and the Pity' and 'Hotel Terminus,' has died at his home in France at the age of 97, according to the Associated Press.
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Ophuls fled his home country in 1933 following the rise of the Nazis with his family, including famed director Max Ophuls. The family stayed in France until the Nazis invaded in 1940, eventually arriving in Los Angeles just as the U.S. entered the war in December 1941.
After graduating from Occidental College and UC Berkeley, Ophuls returned with his family to France in 1950 and entered the film industry, working with directors such as Julien Duvivier, John Huston and Francois Truffaut well into the mid 1960s.
But his claim to fame started when he pivoted to documentary filmmaking and television news reporting following a series of box office disappointments. In 1969, he released his groundbreaking, iconoclastic film 'The Sorrow and the Pity,' which interviewed everyday French people as well as officers during WWII about life inside Nazi-occupied France.
'The Sorrow and the Pity' was credited for being the first documentary to critically examine France's response as a nation to the threat of the Nazis, examining how everyday people respond to the threat of tyranny and how difficult it can be to speak out and act against it.
It ran contrary to France's postwar self-image of itself as one where defiance was widespread despite the collaboration of leaders like Marshall Phillippe Petain, and instead presented an image of France where collaboration and complicity with Hitler's forces could be seen amongst everyday people.While the film was commissioned for a government-run TV station, executive Jean-Jacques de Bresson refused to air the film because it 'destroys myths that the people of France still need.' The film was not publicly released in theaters until a few months after the death of French president and resistance leader Charles de Gaulle in November 1970 and wasn't aired on TV until 1981. Still, the film was well-received abroad, winning a BAFTA and earning an Oscar nomination.
Ophuls later won an Academy Award for his 1988 documentary 'Hotel Terminus,' which recounted the story of Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie. The officer was accused of torturing Jews and French Resistance members personally while serving as the head of the Gestapo in Lyon, with the film's name derived from the hotel where he was accused of committing his war crimes.
Through interviews with torture survivors, eyewitnesses, journalists, investigators, and former government officials, 'Hotel Terminus' recounted not only Barbie's accused crimes, but also his escape to Bolivia with the help of American counterintelligence officials who saw him as an asset against the spread of communism. Barbie was arrested in 1983 and extradited to France, where he was sentenced to life in prison.
In 'Hotel Terminus,' Ophuls highlights the contradicting descriptions of Barbie, with descriptions from survivors of how he tortured them alongside those who spoke fondly of him and how he was useful to the Allied nations after the war, particularly to the U.S. Roger Ebert praised the film as 'the film of a man who continues the conversation after others would like to move on to more polite subjects.'
In 2015, Ophuls received the Berlinale Camera award at the Berlin Film Festival in recognition of his life's work. One of the last projects of his career, and which went unfinished, was a film in which he had intended to explore Israel's occupation of Palestine alongside Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan.
Ophuls is is survived by his wife, Régine, their three daughters, and three grandchildren.
The post Marcel Ophuls, Oscar-Winning Director of 'The Sorrow and the Pity,' Dies at 97 appeared first on TheWrap.