Latest news with #MaxOphuls
Khaleej Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
French documentary filmmaker Marcel Ophuls dead at 97
Oscar-winning filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, who blew the lid off the myth that France resisted its World War II Nazi occupiers in The Sorrow and the Pity, has died aged 97, his family said. Ophuls, who was the son of renowned German Jewish director Max Ophuls, "died peacefully on May 24", his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert said in a statement. Ophuls rocked France with 1969's The Sorrow and the Pity, about the occupied French provincial city of Clermont Ferrand during the time of the collaborationist Vichy regime. It quietly demolished one of the country's most cherished myths—that France and the French had always resisted the Germans—and was banned from public television until 1981. Through a jigsaw of interviews and newsreels, it showed how collaboration with the Nazis was widespread, from the humblest hairdresser to the top of high society. Ophuls played down his feat, stressing that he was not trying to judge France, and was just working on a TV commission. "For 40 years, I've had to put up with all this bullshit about it being a prosecutorial film. It doesn't attempt to prosecute the French," he insisted. "Who can say their nation would have behaved better in the same circumstances?" he added. Despite being over four hours long, his film struck a chord with a generation, drawing crowds to the cinemas at a time when documentaries were rarely shown on the big screen. Fled Nazis Ophuls was born Hans Marcel Oppenheimer in Frankfurt, Germany on November 1, 1927, to German actress Hilde Wall and director Max Ophuls. He fled for France with his father and the film directors Billy Wilder and Fritz Lang, before escaping across the Pyrenees mountains and arriving in the US in 1941. He grew up in Hollywood, going on to serve as a GI in Japan in 1946. Returning to France in 1950, he started out as an assistant director, working on his father's last film Lola Montes in 1955. He made an unsuccessful entry into fiction with Banana Skin in 1963, starring the star duo of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jeanne Moreau, before shifting to documentary when hired by French public television. Hotel Terminus - The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie won him an Oscar for best documentary in 1989. But his 1994 documentary The Troubles We've Seen, about war reporting in Bosnia, was a commercial flop. He spent several years afterwards holed up in southern France not working. His return with Un voyageur, a travelogue, in 2013, packed the cinema at the Cannes Film Festival. He was philosophical about the influence of his father. "It helped me to get work. More than anything, it helped me to be modest about my achievements. I was born under the shadow of a genius, and that spared me from being vain," he said.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Marcel Ophuls, acclaimed filmmaker behind 'The Sorrow and the Pity', Dies at 97
Oscar-winning filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, who blew the lid off the myth that France resisted its World War II Nazi occupiers in "The Sorrow and the Pity", has died aged 97, his family said Monday. Ophuls, who was the son of renowned German Jewish director Max Ophuls, "died peacefully on May 24", his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert said in a statement sent to AFP. Ophuls rocked France with 1969's "The Sorrow and the Pity", about the occupied French provincial city of Clermont Ferrand during the time of the collaborationist Vichy regime. It quietly demolished one of the country's most cherished myths -- that France and the French had always resisted the Germans -- and was banned from public television until 1981. Through a jigsaw of interviews and newsreels, it showed how collaboration with the Nazis was widespread, from the humblest hairdresser to the top of high society. Ophuls played down his feat, stressing that he was not trying to judge France, and was just working on a TV commission. "For 40 years, I've had to put up with all this bullshit about it being a prosecutorial film. It doesn't attempt to prosecute the French," he insisted. "Who can say their nation would have behaved better in the same circumstances?" he added. Despite being over four hours long, his film struck a chord with a generation, drawing crowds to the cinemas at a time when documentaries were rarely shown on the big screen. - Fled Nazis - Ophuls was born Hans Marcel Oppenheimer in Frankfurt, Germany on November 1, 1927, to German actress Hilde Wall and director Max Ophuls. He fled for France with his father and the film directors Billy Wilder and Fritz Lang, before escaping across the Pyrenees mountains and arriving in the United States in 1941. He grew up in Hollywood, going on to serve as a GI in Japan in 1946. Returning to France in 1950, he started out as an assistant director, working on his father's last film "Lola Montes" in 1955. He made an unsuccessful entry into fiction with "Banana Skin" in 1963, starring the star duo of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jeanne Moreau , before shifting to documentary when hired by French public television. "Hotel Terminus - The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie" won him an Oscar for best documentary in 1989. But his 1994 documentary "The Troubles We've Seen", about war reporting in Bosnia, was a commercial flop. He spent several years afterwards holed up in southern France not working. His return with "Un voyageur", a travelogue, in 2013, packed the cinema at the Cannes Film Festival. He was philosophical about the influence of his father. "It helped me to get work. More than anything, it helped me to be modest about my achievements. I was born under the shadow of a genius, and that spared me from being vain," he said. Check out our list of the latest Hindi , English , Tamil , Telugu , Malayalam , and Kannada movies . Don't miss our picks for the best Hindi movies , best Tamil movies, and best Telugu films .
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Marcel Ophuls, Oscar-Winning Director of ‘The Sorrow and the Pity,' Dies at 97
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 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.
Canberra Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Canberra Times
Filmmaker who forced France to face its WWII past dies
Born in Frankfurt on November 1, 1927, Marcel Ophuls was the son of legendary German-Jewish filmmaker Max Ophuls and when Hitler came to power in 1933, the family fled Germany for France. In 1940, as Nazi troops approached Paris, they fled again — across the rugged Pyrenees into Spain, and on to the United States.
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Oscar-winning filmmaker Marcel Phuls, director of 'The Sorrow and the Pity,' dead aged 97
Marcel Ophuls, best known for his award-winning film 'The Sorrow and The Pity,' has died at age 97. The German-born filmmaker, who was the son of legendary filmmaker Max Ophuls, died Saturday at his home in southwest France of natural causes, his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert told The Hollywood Reporter. This is a developing story...
