by Released in 1969, censored on French television for more than ten years, “The grief and pity” of Marcel Ophüls caused an earthquake, breaking the falsely unanimous image of a completely resistant France during the occupation.
“”Marcel Ophülswinner of an Oscar and an essential figure in committed cinema, died peacefully on May 24, 2025 at the age of 97 “. It is in these terms that Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert, grandson of the illustrious documentary maker, spoke, in a statement transmitted to AFP.
He himself son of a great filmmaker, Max Ophüls, Marcel Ophüls left a decisive and historical imprint in documentary cinema, in particular with a work released in 1969 which had a huge impact: sorrow and pity.
Chronicle of a provincial city under the Nazi occupation
Cited at the Oscar for the best foreign film, Sorrow and pity: chronicle of a French city under the occupationis a real masterpiece. Starting from the study of the case of Clermont-Ferrand, the film draws up the chronicle of the life of a provincial city between 1940 and 1944.
The film expands its factual remarks to all of Auvergne, but also includes testimonies of personalities who played an important role during the war (soldiers, statesmen, key witnesses) or having participated actively in it, not necessarily in Clermont-Ferrand or even in Auvergne.
Lasting 4:10 am, the film, shot in black and white, is made up of interviews and news images of the time. These, presented without any comments, were carried out under the control of the propaganda of the Vichy government except for the penultimate of them. A cinematographic interview with Maurice Chevalier, speaking in English, intended for the American public, justifying himself to have collaborated with the Germans, followed by images of the liberation punctuated by a joyful song by the famous fanciful. Which leaves the spectator at the end in a situation of real discomfort.
Censored for more than ten years in France
In France, this film was censored for more than 10 years on television. It gives a very negative vision of part of the French population, more turned towards Pétain than to de Gaulle. The French right, but also the French Communist Party, anxious to emphasize a resistant France embodied by General de Gaulle, has often tried to minimize collaboration to preserve national cohesion. This is how the film will be banished from the small screen until the arrival of the left in 1981.
The film, released in 1969, had a huge impact, because it tended to French society an image that collective conscience had taken care to bury: occupation and collaboration. The film historically constitutes the first cinematographic dive made in the French collective memory over the period of the German occupation during the Second World War.
Gaumont
To an ideology which had practically noted until then only facts of resistance, Marcel Ophuls made it possible to emphasize much more ambiguous daily behavior towards the occupier, even frank collaboration.
By breaking the falsely unanimous image of an entirely resistant France, the film played a decisive role in the inauguration of a phase of the memory of the occupation from the 1970s. This current of thought will be largely nourished by a work that will be a date and is still considered today as a work sum on this period: “Vichy France” by the American historian Robert O. Paxton, translated into French in 1973.
Through its rigor and historical scope, sorrow and pity remains, 56 years after its release, one of the greatest documentaries of the 20th century. It is available in VOD and DVD.
