Sorrow and the Pity, The

Synopsis: Documentary whcih covers the period between 1940 and 1944 during which France’s Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany. Includes archive footage, interviews from 1969 with a German officer and with collaborators and resistance fighters who comment on the nature, details and reasons for the collaboration, from anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and fear of Bolsheviks, to simple caution. Part one, ‘The Collapse’, includes an extended interview with Pierre Mendès-France, jailed for anti-Vichy action and later France’s Prime Minister. At the heart of part two, ‘The Choice’, is an interview with René de Chambrun, one of 7,000 French youths to fight on the eastern front wearing German uniforms. DVD extras for the edition released by Arrow in June 2017 include:
Interview with director Marcel Ophuls, filmed in 2004
'Le Nouveau Vendredi: The Sorrow and the Pity’, a 55-minute debate that followed the film’s belated 1981 French television premiere, in which Ophuls and historians Henri Amouroux and Alain Guérin discuss the film and the issues that it raises with an audience of students from Clermont-Ferrand.
Language: German (Standard)
Country: Germany
Year of release: 2017
Year of production: 1969
Notes: Blu-Ray edition also available
Subjects: French studies; History; Politics & government
Keywords: French Resistance; Nazi Germany; Vichy France; French collaboration

Name: Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR)
Notes: From 1945 to January 1956, the NDR was part of the Nordwestdeutsche Rundfunk (NWDR).

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British Universities Film & Video Council