The Sorrow and the Pity
On paper The Sorrow and the Pity sounds torturous: more than four hours of talking-head interviews in several languages, blended with wartime documentary footage and zipped up with the music of Maurice Chevalier. But don't run just yet. This epic account of France under the occupation of the Nazi regime during World War II is a humanist masterpiece, thanks an artful assortment of film technique and pacing. Ophuls interviewed the residents of the French town of Clermont-Ferrand who remembered the Occupation, as well as various French, German, and British officials, local artists and farmers, as well as German army veterans. The result is a transcendent portrait of how real people conduct themselves under the most extreme circumstances. Ophuls constantly invites us to put ourselves in the position of each one of these people and ask: what would I have done in the same circumstances?
-- Jim Daley
The Sorrow and the Pity
(Chagrin et la pitie, Le)
1971, 265 min
Directed by Marcel Ophuls
$45 DVD
$85 VHS
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