The Sorrow and the Pity
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Movie Reviews of The Sorrow and the Pity
Movie Review: Greatest Documentary Ever per IMDB
Summary: 5 Stars
While I had dreaded watching because of the 4+ hour sitting time, actually I found The Sorrow and the Pity to go by quite quickly. The Image Entertainment DVD, like the film, is divided into two parts each just over two hours long. You can easily watch one part in the morning and a second in the afternoon. The film shows WWII in France thru the lives of the regular people it affected, a style which probably influenced the makers of the Vietnam documentary Hearts and Minds a few years later. Like most documentaries, the director certainly seems to take sides in this story: he appears to be exposing the "collaborators". But given that, I still feel he gave a balanced presentation of events.
A few provocative thoughts came to mind whilst watching this film. Ophuls paints an air of shame over the collaborators, but he provides no insight into why they chose not to fight. I would suggest two factors that caused such widespread support amongst the French for Petain and non-violence. The first was the utter moral depravity of the Great War, fought just over 25 years prior. In that war, from a population of 40 million, the French suffered over 1 million dead, 4 million wounded (1.5 million of those permanently maimed); about a 75% casualty rate, all in a war which their leaders promised would "be over before Christmas" (it lasted over four full years and destroyed much of the nation's infrastructure as well). If you need some background on this, I strongly suggest you watch Stanley Kubrick's great film "Paths of Glory" (1957). Petain was a hero of the Great War and knew firsthand the costs associated with fighting Germany again. Secondly, there was a great malaise amongst the people in 1930s France related to the depression and corruption. A quick survey of l'Age d'Or 1930s French cinema taps into this right away. Check out Marcel Carne's "Port of Shadows" (1938) or Jean Renoir's "Rules of the Game" (actually banned by the 3rd Republic in 1939). Given this background, why would the French want to go to war again to defend a corrupt government which had them mired in poverty? Petain offered Frenchmen an option that did not lead to the immediate destruction of their nation, even if it meant some indignities in the short term. After all, wasn't their entrance into the EU a very similar venture? Does the Euro (run from the German Bundesbank) make them less French? Less patriotic?
In Ophuls defense, he does a fair job of showing the roots of the "resistance": many of them were vandals and brutes, and almost all of them were communists. French resistance fighters dropped bombs on their own country to aid the English. During the early years of the occupation, German soldiers were shown to be orderly and respectful to the local population. And once the resistance had "liberated" France (after destroying much of it), it found time to murder thousands of people (some of them actually guilty of what they were accused of), and punish and torture many thousands more. All in all, Le Chagrin et la Pitie was a very provocative film, and an invaluable addition to the historic record of a war which marked the height of the Calamity of 20th Century. Highly recommended.
Movie Review: Watch, Listen, Learn, and Think
Summary: 5 Stars
Like many other Americans, I had a skewed view of French participation in WWII. I mean, the prevailing wisdom is that they fought (badly) a short time, surrendered ignominiously, and then wanted a huge chunk of the glory and German territory to occupy after the English and the Americans saved them from the Nazis. But after watching The Sorrow and The Pity, I came away with a different view.
On the eve of WWII, France was a country beset by weak political leadership and growing tensions between left and right. The Socialist government of Leon Blum was widely reviled and after its collapse the country drifted from one domestic crisis to another as war clouds gathered ominously to the east. On paper, France was well-prepared for war with the numerically fewer and militarily less advanced German army. The German high command did not think the war would be easy and many doubted that France could be beaten. But it was. As it turned out, German ideology, discipline, and training trumped French overconfidence and disunity.
The Sorrow and the Pity shows the tragedy of defeat and the disarray into which France fell in its aftermath. WWI hero Petain took command in the part of France the Germans did not occupy and made Vichy its capital. He made many errors, but in retrospect you have to say he tried to keep the Germans at bay as much as possible. Think how the war may have turned out had the Germans occupied the country entirely!
In a series of interviews interspersed with period film footage we see the occupation through the eyes of both the occupier and the occupied. We hear stories of bravery and cowardice, tragedy and triumph, loyalty and treachery. Deep thinkers might be left musing about what might have happened in their own countries under similar circumstances. Importantly, we get two views of Laval and Petain instead of just the usual dismissal of them both as traitors.
The Sorrow and the Pity should give all of us pause. Watch, listen, learn and think about what your own reactions might be if your country were occupied. Would you use occupation as a cover to settle personal vendettas? Would you keep your head down and try to go about your business unobtrusively? Would you passively resist? Or would you actively work for liberation? We all might imagine ourselves as doing the most heroic thing, but what would we really do? And would you rationalize whatever it was you ended up doing after it was all over? Millions of Germans and Frenchmen did!
I really recommend that anyone interested in obtaining a well-rounded view of WWII and the French role in it take the 4 hours+ and see The Sorrow and the Pity. Not only does the viewer learn a lot about that aspect of the war, but also about human nature. This is truly a gripping story from start to finish.
Movie Review: Scalding Remembrance of French Betrayal
Summary: 5 Stars
I was a little daunted at watching "The Sorrow and the Pity" because it is four hours long, and in Annie Hall Woody Allen presents this movie as a sort of dour duty that you have to sit through to prove your own ethical hardiness. It turns out that this landmark documentary is as gripping and riveting as any fine fictional film, because it handles its thorny issues with great skill and is as carefully crafted and filmed as a Hollywood thriller. I wonder how much Ken Burns was influenced by it, because it seems to be a sort of forerunner of his work; that is, documentaries that are planned and executed as art, not just as regurgitation of stale facts.
Ophuls talks to many French and Germans who lived during the time, and who either resisted the Nazis or gave into them. (It's a little aggravating that on the DVD there are no titles to identify who is speaking; you have to piece together who said what from a close reading of the closing credits.) People were more innocent 30 years ago about appearing before a camera and they maybe weren't as aware of just how revealing about themselves it could be. Thus you get interview subjects like Laval's nephew, and the former German officer at his child's wedding, and the aristocrat who joined the Waffen SS, who inadvertently disclose their opportunism or self-deception or venality or cowardice. The clips from now rarely seen propaganda films that Ophuls uses are mesmerizing. During the scenes from the anti-Semitic "Jud Suss" you get a feeling of palpable evil as you view just how the Nazis prepared their subjects for the coming holocaust.
Ophuls presents Vichy as a colossal moral failure by the French people, a collapse of character that haunts them to this very day. (Ophuls couldn't get French financing for the film, and then state-run French television refused to show it.) He shatters forever the myth that all the French were in the Resistance. "Sorrow" and "pity" are the very words one uses to define "tragedy"; "tragedy" is the word you must use to describe the French experience of World War II. This film is a solemn reminder of the dangers of appeasing or collaborating with fascism, and it's more relevant than ever.
Movie Review: Very moving documenary
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the most moving documentary I have seen. It transports the viewer back to World War II France and conveys the courage, cowardice and hatred arrising from events most of us will thankfully never have to live through. This film helps the viewer understand (or gain an insight)into life in occupied France.
I was born in 1968 - well after the end of WWII. Like most English people I hold the view that we either kicked French ass, or saved their skin depending on the particular conflict (we'll forget about the Norman invasion and Joan of Arc). However, given total collapse, would the UK or US be any different? Some people would collaborate (for ideological or financial reasons, perhaps for survival or out of ignorance), the majority would do nothing and the minority would resist. Would it be so different for any other country? One area the film touches on is the French treatment of Jews - it would appear the French were just as inhernly anti-semitic as the Germans. Anti semitism in france appears to be systemic (e.g. WWI ?Dreyfus affair).
One disturbing aspect of the film was the punishment of young women who slept with the Germans. The most minor acts of collaboration were treated the most harshly. The war in france during the occupation bordered on cival war between factions of the resistance (FFI, Gaulist) and Nazi groups (Millice). A situation amounting to anarchy existed for a short period after the liberation.
Sorrow and pity sum up what I felt for many of the individuals concerned. It presents a dilema I hope I am never faced with - we don't know how we would react both as nations or individuals unless placed in those circumstances. Probaly the closest the UK came was the Channel Islands, occupied from 40-45. The only part of the US that has lived under military occupation, since the revolution, is the South after the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 - neither example is comprable to the total defeat of France in WWII. The doucmentary brings home the shades of grey in war. No conflict is balck or white, however much we wish it were. Otherwise 'normal' people do bad things - this film illustrates the moral ambiguity war imposes.
Easy to understand why France wants to forget this period.
Movie Review: More relevant now than ever before.
Summary: 5 Stars
In the years since I became aware of this movie in Annie Hall, I fruitlessly searched theatres and rental shops for a copy. I finally purchased one and I can state unequivocably that it was one of the best purchases I ever made. In light of France's current(2003) behavior in the UN concerning Iraq, I found the film very enlightening--in spite of the shotcomings that have come to light in the years since its release. The movie provides valuable insights into the French character that many suspect but this is the first time that I have heard them from the mouths of the French themselves. Santayana said that those who do not know history are destined to French--ashamed of their past and in serious denial--have excised much of their history and revised the balance to fit their world view. Those who doubt that this is true should read the novels of Regine Deforges. Certainly there was a resistance--but the Vichy and the efforts and results of the French collaborators cannot be minimalized--nor the cruel streak that underlies both sides then, and I am certain, is there today. (Witness the French behavior during their nuclear bomb tests and how they handled Green peace protests.) This is a movie that should be required viewing--for everyone, not just the French or the Americans. It clearly illustrates the dangers of compromise and cannot recommend this movie enough. Allen did a wonderful job restoring the film--the subtitles on the dvd are clear and easily readable. The French-English translation is excellent--very comprehensive. I originally intended to purchase, view and resell. This is a part of my permanent library and I am 'forcing' friends and aquaintences to view it as well--and none of them have complained afterwards.