Latest news with #OccidentalCollege
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Marcel Ophuls, L.A.-raised documentarian and Oscar winner, dies
Renowned documentary filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, who, along with his family, fled Nazi Germany as a child and spent his formative years in Los Angeles before having a cinematic career which earned him both an Oscar as well as condemnation from some quarters, died Saturday in France, his adopted country. He was 97. Ophuls' death, first reported by news agencies, was confirmed by family members. He is survived by his wife, Regine, their three daughters and three grandchildren. The director's 1969 masterpiece, 'The Sorrow and the Pity,' an intense, four-hour work that made Ophuls' reputation, began as a project for a government-owned French broadcast network. Ultimately, though, it was banned and did not air on television until many years later, due to its searing indictment (or 'explosion,' as Ophuls preferred to called it) of the myth of France's heroic participation in the war — a false if popular version of events that ignored Vichy collaboration with the German occupiers. Born in Frankfurt in 1927, Ophuls was the son of film director Max Ophüls (his father later dropped the umlaut) and Hildegard Wall, a theater actor. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Ophuls clan left Germany for Paris. Then, when France fell, they settled in Los Angeles in November 1941, where Max Ophuls would come to enjoy a significant moviemaking career ("Letter from an Unknown Woman"). For young Marcel — German Jewish, a citizen of both France and the United States and fluent in three languages —the ethos and landscape of Southern California posed a very different and sometimes alienating experience. After graduating from Hollywood High, he was drafted by the U.S. Army and later enrolled at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, but still found assimilation difficult, revealing to writer Studs Terkel in a 1981 interview that, even as a refugee, he was shocked by the prejudice he observed toward people of color in the divided communities of Los Angeles following Pearl Harbor. 'When I made movies,' he said, 'one of the things that kept me from being too self-righteous is my memory of the Japanese kids who were in my class one day, then gone the next.' While his father Max struggled at first to find work in Hollywood, Marcel felt destined, as he often said, for a career in the film industry. As he revealed in his 2013 documentary memoir 'Ain't Misbehavin,' he began his career as an actor, playing, ironically, a member of the Hitler Youth in Frank Capra's 1942 War Department film 'Prelude to War.' Ultimately following his father to France in 1950, Ophuls turned to making nonfiction films for French television, after trying his hand in narrative cinema. 'My second film flopped, but it was a very bad film that deserved to flop,' he said frankly, speaking about his career in London in 2004. His self-deprecating brand of humor, tinged with a touch of irony, was often apparent in the interviews he conducted for many of his films, confronting former Nazis and collaborators. Alternately, his tone was infused with contempt, sarcasm or genuine sympathy for his subjects who had been victims of brutality unleashed by the Gestapo or secret police of the Vichy regime. Ophuls won the Academy Award for documentary feature in 1989 for 'Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie,' which depicted the crimes of the head of the Gestapo in Lyon who, after the war, escaped French prosecutors with the help of U.S. Army intelligence, evading justice and living in South America until he was extradited to France from Bolivia in 1983. Barbie died in prison in 1991. Ophuls was also known for other documentaries, including 1976's 'The Memory of Justice,' about the legacy of the Nuremberg trials, and 1972's 'A Sense of Loss,' which dealt with the troubles of Northern Ireland. About his famous confidence when seated face-to-face with intimidating subjects — one interview was with Albert Speer, Hitler's chief architect and minister of armaments — Ophuls was characteristically candid and self-effacing. "He was so fantastically cooperative," he said of Speer. "He even offered to show me his home movies. It just seemed to me to be part of my job." Sign up for Indie Focus, a weekly newsletter about movies and what's going on in the wild world of cinema. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Marcel Ophuls, L.A.-raised documentarian and Oscar winner, dies
Renowned documentary filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, who, along with his family, fled Nazi Germany as a child and spent his formative years in Los Angeles before having a cinematic career which earned him both an Oscar as well as condemnation from some quarters, died Saturday in France, his adopted country. He was 97. Ophuls' death, first reported by news agencies, was confirmed by family members. He is survived by his wife, Regine, their three daughters and three grandchildren. The director's 1969 masterpiece, 'The Sorrow and the Pity,' an intense, four-hour work that made Ophuls' reputation, began as a project for a government-owned French broadcast network. Ultimately, though, it was banned and did not air on television until many years later, due to its searing indictment (or 'explosion,' as Ophuls preferred to called it) of the myth of France's heroic participation in the war — a false if popular version of events that ignored Vichy collaboration with the German occupiers. Born in Frankfurt in 1927, Ophuls was the son of film director Max Ophüls (his father later dropped the umlaut) and Hildegard Wall, a theater actor. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Ophuls clan left Germany for Paris. Then, when France fell, they settled in Los Angeles in November 1941, where Max Ophuls would come to enjoy a significant moviemaking career ('Letter from an Unknown Woman'). For young Marcel — German Jewish, a citizen of both France and the United States and fluent in three languages —the ethos and landscape of Southern California posed a very different and sometimes alienating experience. After graduating from Hollywood High, he was drafted by the U.S. Army and later enrolled at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, but still found assimilation difficult, revealing to writer Studs Terkel in a 1981 interview that, even as a refugee, he was shocked by the prejudice he observed toward people of color in the divided communities of Los Angeles following Pearl Harbor. 'When I made movies,' he said, 'one of the things that kept me from being too self-righteous is my memory of the Japanese kids who were in my class one day, then gone the next.' While his father Max struggled at first to find work in Hollywood, Marcel felt destined, as he often said, for a career in the film industry. As he revealed in his 2013 documentary memoir 'Ain't Misbehavin,' he began his career as an actor, playing, ironically, a member of the Hitler Youth in Frank Capra's 1942 War Department film 'Prelude to War.' Ultimately following his father to France in 1950, Ophuls turned to making nonfiction films for French television, after trying his hand in narrative cinema. 'My second film flopped, but it was a very bad film that deserved to flop,' he said frankly, speaking about his career in London in 2004. His self-deprecating brand of humor, tinged with a touch of irony, was often apparent in the interviews he conducted for many of his films, confronting former Nazis and collaborators. Alternately, his tone was infused with contempt, sarcasm or genuine sympathy for his subjects who had been victims of brutality unleashed by the Gestapo or secret police of the Vichy regime. Ophuls won the Academy Award for documentary feature in 1989 for 'Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie,' which depicted the crimes of the head of the Gestapo in Lyon who, after the war, escaped French prosecutors with the help of U.S. Army intelligence, evading justice and living in South America until he was extradited to France from Bolivia in 1983. Barbie died in prison in 1991. Ophuls was also known for other documentaries, including 1976's 'The Memory of Justice,' about the legacy of the Nuremberg trials, and 1972's 'A Sense of Loss,' which dealt with the troubles of Northern Ireland. About his famous confidence when seated face-to-face with intimidating subjects — one interview was with Albert Speer, Hitler's chief architect and minister of armaments — Ophuls was characteristically candid and self-effacing. 'He was so fantastically cooperative,' he said of Speer. 'He even offered to show me his home movies. It just seemed to me to be part of my job.'
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.
Business Insider
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
I'm a filmmaker who used AI to make a sci-fi film for under $300. I'm deeply conflicted about it.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Aleem Hossain, an associate professor of Media Arts & Culture at Occidental College. He's also a filmmaker who recently created the short film, "Do Bangladroids Dream Of Electric Tagore?" This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. I was a filmmaker before I became a professor. I started making films in high school because I was deeply interested in telling stories that just weren't being told. I gravitate toward the stories of underrepresented folks. My films are personal — and a bit vulnerable — so it's not always easy to find funding. Many of them are science fiction. There's a long tradition of independent sci-fi, but it doesn't get talked about much. It's nowhere near as common as an independent comedy or realist drama. That's because, quite literally, sci-fi is usually imagining the world differently from how it exists today, and it takes money and resources to do that. I've made one feature-length film, and I'm working on a second right now. I've also made about 15 short films. I've found ways to fund my creative pursuits, investing personal money, running Kickstarters, and convincing stakeholders to contribute. My first feature film cost about $30,000. I've made many of my short films for far less. "Do Bangladroids Dream of Electric Tagore" is my most recent short film, and it cost me just about $300. A big reason for the low cost is because I used AI. I spent a bit on subscriptions to Midjourney, an AI image generator. I used a free version of a generative AI voice tool, ElevenLabs. I also hired a voice actor. That was pretty much it. The film takes place 50 or so years in the future, somewhere in New Jersey. There are no humans. There's been a failed robot uprising, and the robots that survive reflect on their memories of home by reciting the poems of Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali writer. The title is a direct reference to Philip K. Dick's novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," which was also the inspiration for the movie " Blade Runner." Both of those pieces ask several interesting questions about our responsibilities to the robots we create. They're great, but those stories are largely told through a white male lens. I wanted to expand that. I'm half South Asian, so I told a story set in that context. My dad is a Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh, and my mom is a white woman born and raised in Connecticut. I grew up watching Steven Spielberg and Bollywood, and I wanted to convey that experience through my film. It's a parallel to how we live our lives these days. In this crazy, modern world, our ancestors can come from one part of the world, but we live in another. That's also true of the items we buy, and the clothes we wear, which, oftentimes, and to the surprise of many Americans, are made in Bangladesh. What if the equivalent were true, but for robots? This is a film that envisions a future in which our country is populated by robots from another country, brought here to serve — and what memories they carry of home. It asks people to reflect on how they treat others. How we worry about being oppressed, but in fact, there are ways in which we might be the oppressor. I took an AI filmmaking course from Curious Refuge, which helped me better prompt these tools. What's interesting about prompting is that it's just sort of churning. You're pulling a slot machine over and over again. I generated thousands of robots to get the ones in the movie. You have to experiment. Ask for a "robot-horse" in the style of Guillermo del Toro, then try Spielberg, and see which one you like better. I used a mix of technical terms and descriptive verses in prompting. For example, I like the depth of field and spatial distortion of a 28-millimeter lens, so I often include "28-millimeter" in my prompts. I think it's a mistake for the critics of AI to say that one of the downsides of AI is that it can't be used to make great art. I think this film is pretty good. I feel a deep sense of having authored it. I came up with the story and every frame. Still, I don't feel like I have the right to profit off of it. This technology is clearly violating intellectual property. It poses a real danger of displacing and putting people out of work. It's also exacerbating climate damage because of how energy-intensive it is. I'm deeply conflicted about it. See Hossain's full movie below.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Occidental students use hunger strike to spotlight Palestinian plight, escalate demands
On Monday, after consulting with medical professionals, 10 students at Occidental College launched a hunger strike, hoping to draw attention to their long-standing demands for the college to divest from weapons manufacturers with ties to Israel as the war in Gaza continues. And in this new season of protest, they have tacked on additional demands, calling on Occidental to bolster protections for international students amid the Trump administration's sweeping efforts to revoke the visas of students whose activities it deems counter to national interests, in some cases targeting students who have protested Israel's war on Gaza. The hunger strikers say they were inspired by students at Chapman University in Orange, who launched a similar campaign in April. That strike ended after 10 days with no concessions from their university. It appears to mark a new phase in protest tactics for students concerned about the plight of Palestinians now that many California campuses have banned or restricted the overnight encampments that burgeoned last school year, in some cases fueling violent confrontations and allegations of antisemitism. Occidental's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter occupied an encampment for nine days last year, calling on the college to divest from investments in manufacturing companies that have provided arms and equipment to the Israeli military. In May, Occidental's Board of Trustees agreed to consider divestment and the encampment came down, but the board subsequently voted against divestment. As of August, the total valuation of indirect investments in the companies that the students want targeted was about $940,000, or about one-tenth of the college's total endowment assets, according to college spokesperson Rachael Warecki. In a list of demands sent to Occidental President Tom Stritikus this week, the hunger strikers re-upped their call for the college to remove direct and indirect investments in weapons-making companies with ties to Israel. They also asked that the campus bolster protections for international students by providing pro bono legal support for students facing visa revocations and expunging student records of protest-related conduct charges. International students make up about 7% of the student body at Occidental. "I've talked with the students engaging in this protest, and others across campus, about these concerns many times over the last several months," Stritikus said in a message to the campus Friday. "In this case, many of the initiatives that students are advocating for are already in place, based on the work we've been doing this semester for the benefit of our international students and academic community. While we may not agree on all of the tactics to get there, I fundamentally believe that we do align on the future we want to build." On April 9, Stritikus issued a statement announcing the college had signed onto an amicus brief registering concerns about the Trump administration's efforts to revoke the legal status of hundreds of international students, often with minimal explanation. He said if students at Occidental were to lose their legal status, the college would make "all reasonable efforts" to help them retain eligibility for financial aid and housing. He also said the campus would "continue to provide community and individual resources, training, and programming, such as our previous Know Your Rights sessions, community town halls, and timely guidance related to potential immigration enforcement actions." But the students involved in the hunger strike say the college isn't doing enough. Friday represented Day 5 of their strike. In daily video updates, they offer emotional condemnations of the Palestinian deaths attributed to Israel's continued airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, and a seven-week-old blockade that has depleted food stocks in the region. Israel cut off entry of humanitarian deliveries of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza in early March, saying it wanted to increase the pressure on Hamas to release the remaining Israeli civilians that the group took hostage during its deadly October 2023 attacks. The strikers said they are consuming only water with zero-calorie electrolyte powder. Jackie Hu, 20, a junior, said that by the third day, it was becoming harder to sleep and she was experiencing headaches, lightheadedness and numbness. On top of that, Hu, a biochemistry major, is studying for final exams next week. 'While that's difficult as a student, there is an ongoing genocide in Palestine, and there are no universities left in Gaza,' she said. Each day, the strikers set up an area near the campus dining hall, with a cardboard sign marking each day of the strike. By Thursday, some students were passing out, said Tobias Lodish, an organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine. That same day, Stritikus stopped by to speak briefly with students, according to videos shared with The Times. 'I totally appreciate your passion around this, and I understand it, and I share it — that's why we've done what we've done,' he told the students. 'I think you all have a different view of things that you want me to do. I've articulated why we won't do this, why we won't do that. And your hunger strike is different and unrelated from those demands.' 'You are in control of feeding yourselves, and I want you to,' he urged. Evan Zeltzer, an 18-year-old freshman taking part in the strike, said the students were cold and tired, but would persevere. 'The state of the world is just so dire,' said Zeltzer, a critical theory and social justice major. 'And I think we just feel no other way to have our voices feel heard.' Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
