PARIS (AP) 鈥� Marcel Ophuls, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker whose landmark 1969 documentary 鈥淭he Sorrow and the Pity鈥� shattered the comforting myth that most of France had resisted the Nazis during World War II, has died at 97.
The German-born filmmaker, who was the son of legendary filmmaker Max Ophuls, died Saturday at his home in southwest France after watching one of his favorite films with his family, his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert told The Associated Press. He died of natural causes.
Though Ophuls would later win an Oscar for 鈥淗么tel Terminus鈥� (1988), his searing portrait of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, it was 鈥淭he Sorrow and the Pity鈥� that marked a turning point 鈥� not only in his career, but in how France confronted its past.
Deemed too provocative, too divisive, it was banned from French television for over a decade. French broadcast executives said it 鈥渄estroyed the myths the French still need.鈥� It would not air nationally until 1981. Simone Veil, Holocaust survivor and moral conscience of postwar France, refused to support it.
But for a younger generation in a country still recovering physically and psychologically from the aftermath of the atrocities, the movie was a revelation 鈥� an unflinching historical reckoning that challenged both national memory and national identity.
The myth it punctured had been carefully constructed by Charles de Gaulle, the wartime general who led Free French forces from exile and later became president. In the aftermath of France鈥檚 liberation in 1944, de Gaulle promoted a version of events in which the French had resisted Nazi occupation as one people, united in dignity and defiance. Collaboration was portrayed as the work of a few traitors. The French Republic, he insisted, had never ceased to exist.
鈥淭he Sorrow and the Pity,鈥� which was nominated for the 1972 Oscar for Best Documentary, told a different story: Filmed in stark black and white and stretching over four and a half hours, the documentary turned its lens on Clermont-Ferrand, a provincial town at the heart of France. Through long, unvarnished interviews with farmers, shopkeepers, teachers, collaborators, members of the French Resistance 鈥� even the town鈥檚 former Nazi commander 鈥� Ophuls laid bare the moral ambiguities of life under occupation.
There was no narrator, no music, no guiding hand to shape the audience鈥檚 emotions. Just people 鈥� speaking plainly, awkwardly, sometimes defensively. They remembered, justified and hesitated. And in those silences and contradictions, the film delivered its most devastating message: that France鈥檚 wartime story was not one of widespread resistance, but of ordinary compromise 鈥� driven by fear, self-preservation, opportunism, and, at times, quiet complicity.
The film revealed how French police had aided in the deportation of Jews. How neighbors stayed silent. How teachers claimed not to recall missing colleagues. How many had simply gotten by. Resistance, 鈥淭he Sorrow and the Pity鈥� seemed to say, was the exception 鈥� not the rule.
It was, in effect, the cinematic undoing of de Gaulle鈥檚 patriotic myth 鈥� that France had resisted as one, and that collaboration was the betrayal of a few. Ophuls showed instead a nation morally divided and unready to confront its own reflection.
Even beyond France, 鈥淭he Sorrow and the Pity鈥� became legendary. For cinephiles, its most famous cameo may be in Woody Allen鈥檚 鈥淎nnie Hall鈥�: Alvy Singer (Allen) drags his reluctant girlfriend to a screening, and, in the film鈥檚 bittersweet coda, she takes her new boyfriend to see it too 鈥� a nod to the documentary鈥檚 singular place in film history.
In a 2004 interview with The Guardian, Ophuls bristled at the charge that he had made the film to accuse. 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 attempt to prosecute the French,鈥� he said. 鈥淲ho can say their nation would have behaved better in the same circumstances?鈥�
Born in Frankfurt on Nov. 1, 1927, Marcel Ophuls was the son of legendary German-Jewish filmmaker Max Ophuls, director of 鈥淟a Ronde,鈥� 鈥淟etter from an Unknown Woman鈥�, and 鈥淟ola Mont猫s.鈥� When Hitler came to power in 1933, the family fled Germany for France. In 1940, as Nazi troops approached Paris, they fled again 鈥� across the rugged Pyrenees into Spain, and on to the United States.
Many years later, Ophuls settled in a home overlooking those mountains. 鈥淭he Pyrenees, he often said, had saved his life, as the Ophuls family once crossed them en route to safety," his grandson told AP.
Marcel became an American citizen and later served as a U.S. Army GI in occupied Japan. But it was his father鈥檚 towering legacy that shaped his early path.
鈥淚 was born under the shadow of a genius,鈥� Ophuls said in 2004. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have an inferiority complex 鈥� I am inferior.鈥�
He returned to France in the 1950s hoping to direct fiction, like his father. But after several poorly received features 鈥� including 鈥淏anana Peel鈥� (1963), an Ernst Lubitsch-style caper starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jeanne Moreau 鈥� his path shifted. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 choose to make documentaries,鈥� he told The Guardian. 鈥淭here was no vocation. Each one was an assignment.鈥�
That reluctant pivot changed cinema. After 鈥淭he Sorrow and the Pity,鈥� Ophuls followed with 鈥淭he Memory of Justice鈥� (1976), a sweeping meditation on war crimes that examined Nuremberg but also drew uncomfortable parallels to atrocities in Algeria and Vietnam.
In 鈥淗么tel Terminus鈥� (1988), he spent five years tracking the life of Klaus Barbie, the so-called 鈥淏utcher of Lyon,鈥� exposing not just his Nazi crimes but the role Western governments played in protecting him after the war. The film won him his Academy Award for Best Documentary but, overwhelmed by its darkness, French media reported that he attempted suicide during production.
In 鈥淭he Troubles We鈥檝e Seen鈥� (1994), he turned his camera on journalists covering the war in Bosnia, and on the media鈥檚 uneasy relationship with suffering and spectacle.
Despite living in France for most of his life, he often felt like an outsider. 鈥淢ost of them still think of me as a German Jew,鈥� he said in 2004, 鈥渁n obsessive German Jew who wants to bash France.鈥�
He was a man of contradictions: a Jewish exile married to a German woman who had once belonged to the Hitler Youth; a French citizen never fully embraced; a filmmaker who adored Hollywood, but changed European cinema by telling truths others wouldn鈥檛.
He is survived by his wife, R茅gine, their three daughters, and three grandchildren.
Thomas Adamson, The Associated Press
