He [Eichmann] was not stupid. It was sheer thoughtlessness – something by no means identical with stupidity – that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. And if this is “banal” and even funny, if with the best will in the world one cannot extract any diabolical or demonic profundity from Eichmann, that is still far from calling it commonplace. It surely cannot be so common that a man facing death, and, moreover, standing beneath the gallows, should be able to think of nothing but what he has heard at funerals all his life, and that these “lofty words” should completely becloud the reality – of his own death. That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man – that was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem. But it was a lesson, neither an explanation of the phenomenon nor a theory about it.
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963/1964)
How was | able to survive in Auschwitz? My principle is: I come first, second and third. Then nothing, then again I; and then all the others.
Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (1986)
Just before Ophüls drops me off, I ask him, after all he has learned about the venality of nations, whether he is as patriotic as he was when he was a boy, fleeing through this same landscape. “No,” he says. “I’ve come to believe that patriotism is a lie, and anyone who is a patriot is a fool. Even though I’ve been a French citizen since 1938, most of them still think of me as a German Jew. An axe-grinding, obsessive German Jew who wants to bash France and go on and on about the treatment of Jews.” (The Guardian, 24/05/2004)
It is perhaps difficult to imagine today how Marcel Ophuls’ 1969 film, Le Chagrin et la Pitié [The Sorrow and the Pity] could call down upon itself such censor and condemnation on the occasion of its limited release in France, in 1971. Ten years would have to pass before the country’s state television would be authorised to screen what originally had been meant for television. In the words of the director of the ORTF of the time, Jean-Jacques de Bresson, “This film destroys the myths which the French people still need”. And the central myth, in this instance, was a Manichean myth of the French people united, as nation, in resistance against the German Nazi occupation. (Le Monde, 17/05/2025)
And yet the depth and intensity of Ophuls’ documentary – a film that sought to explore the responses of the French people to German occupation and their reasons for tending toward resistance or collaboration, focusing on the Auvergne region and the city of Clermont-Ferrand, through interviews with those who lived in the region at that time – continues to resonate beyond strictly French national concerns, because it bears witness to a palette of individual moral reactions and ethical postures before the violence of extreme nationalism, by conqueror and conquered, the ambiguity and banality of motives, the plurality of characters and, finally, the impossibility of collective moral superiority or guilt, that are revealed in very similar situation anywhere.
In Ophuls’ words: “For 40 years I’ve had to put up with all this bullshit about it being a prosecutorial film. It doesn’t attempt to prosecute the French. Who can say their nation would have behaved better in the same circumstances?” (The Guardian, 24/05/2004)
Among his documentary films, after The Sorrow and the Pity, we find TheHarvest of My Lai (1970), A Sense of Loss (1972) – on the Troubles in Northern Ireland –, The Memory of Justice (1973–76) – on the Nuremberg Trials, the Vietnam War, and the nature of war atrocities –, Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988), November Days (1990) – on the euphoria and uncertain future of German unification, Veillées d’armes (The Troubles We’ve Seen: A History of Journalism in Wartime) (1994), and an unfinished film, Unpleasant Truths – about the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, to be co-directed with Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan.
And throughout this impressive body of work, Ophuls’ films are powerfully political without falling into simplistic ideological arrogance. Ophuls is far too sensitive to and conscious of the fragility of human commitment to assume the role of incorruptible judge. Yet, from the plurality of those who speak, as selected and arranged by Ophuls, an ethical criticism of a situation does gain form, a criticism animated by the simple and profound desire for justice.
Marcel Ophuls died this last May 24th. And we continue to celebrate his art.
The nuance is what’s important. And to compare is not to equate. I don’t like narrow analogies. There are those people, you see- and they are often overtly and consciously political- who believe that truth is very simple. And they feel an urgent need to convey it to what they consider “the masses.” I’m not like that at all.
…
I believe that politics does enter into everything, but I don’t go along with what Sartre believes – or at least did believe one time that the artist has to be engagé. Yes, almost everything we do is political – not that we have to be thinking about politics when we eat and drink and make love – but… what I’m opposed to is this sweaty dedication.
“Ophuls: An Interview”, Authors: Michael Gallagher and Marcel Ophuls, Film Criticism, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Fall 1977), pp. 32-35
Suggested Readings:
The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) – Review by Pauline Kael: “Collaboration and Resistance”, New Yorker, 25/03/1972
“‘Racist, fascist bullshit’– Marcel Ophuls exposes Islamophobia in Israel”, Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, 11/12/2014
“Marcel Ophuls obituary”, The Guardian, 26/05/2025
Jonathan Kandell, “Marcel Ophuls, Myth-Shattering War Documentarian, Is Dead at 97”, The New York Times, 26/05/2025
For Marcel Ophuls (1927-1925)
He [Eichmann] was not stupid. It was sheer thoughtlessness – something by no means identical with stupidity – that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. And if this is “banal” and even funny, if with the best will in the world one cannot extract any diabolical or demonic profundity from Eichmann, that is still far from calling it commonplace. It surely cannot be so common that a man facing death, and, moreover, standing beneath the gallows, should be able to think of nothing but what he has heard at funerals all his life, and that these “lofty words” should completely becloud the reality – of his own death. That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man – that was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem. But it was a lesson, neither an explanation of the phenomenon nor a theory about it.
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963/1964)
How was | able to survive in Auschwitz? My principle is: I come first, second and third. Then nothing, then again I; and then all the others.
Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (1986)
Just before Ophüls drops me off, I ask him, after all he has learned about the venality of nations, whether he is as patriotic as he was when he was a boy, fleeing through this same landscape. “No,” he says. “I’ve come to believe that patriotism is a lie, and anyone who is a patriot is a fool. Even though I’ve been a French citizen since 1938, most of them still think of me as a German Jew. An axe-grinding, obsessive German Jew who wants to bash France and go on and on about the treatment of Jews.” (The Guardian, 24/05/2004)
It is perhaps difficult to imagine today how Marcel Ophuls’ 1969 film, Le Chagrin et la Pitié [The Sorrow and the Pity] could call down upon itself such censor and condemnation on the occasion of its limited release in France, in 1971. Ten years would have to pass before the country’s state television would be authorised to screen what originally had been meant for television. In the words of the director of the ORTF of the time, Jean-Jacques de Bresson, “This film destroys the myths which the French people still need”. And the central myth, in this instance, was a Manichean myth of the French people united, as nation, in resistance against the German Nazi occupation. (Le Monde, 17/05/2025)
And yet the depth and intensity of Ophuls’ documentary – a film that sought to explore the responses of the French people to German occupation and their reasons for tending toward resistance or collaboration, focusing on the Auvergne region and the city of Clermont-Ferrand, through interviews with those who lived in the region at that time – continues to resonate beyond strictly French national concerns, because it bears witness to a palette of individual moral reactions and ethical postures before the violence of extreme nationalism, by conqueror and conquered, the ambiguity and banality of motives, the plurality of characters and, finally, the impossibility of collective moral superiority or guilt, that are revealed in very similar situation anywhere.
In Ophuls’ words: “For 40 years I’ve had to put up with all this bullshit about it being a prosecutorial film. It doesn’t attempt to prosecute the French. Who can say their nation would have behaved better in the same circumstances?” (The Guardian, 24/05/2004)
Among his documentary films, after The Sorrow and the Pity, we find The Harvest of My Lai (1970), A Sense of Loss (1972) – on the Troubles in Northern Ireland –, The Memory of Justice (1973–76) – on the Nuremberg Trials, the Vietnam War, and the nature of war atrocities –, Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988), November Days (1990) – on the euphoria and uncertain future of German unification, Veillées d’armes (The Troubles We’ve Seen: A History of Journalism in Wartime) (1994), and an unfinished film, Unpleasant Truths – about the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, to be co-directed with Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan.
And throughout this impressive body of work, Ophuls’ films are powerfully political without falling into simplistic ideological arrogance. Ophuls is far too sensitive to and conscious of the fragility of human commitment to assume the role of incorruptible judge. Yet, from the plurality of those who speak, as selected and arranged by Ophuls, an ethical criticism of a situation does gain form, a criticism animated by the simple and profound desire for justice.
Marcel Ophuls died this last May 24th. And we continue to celebrate his art.
The nuance is what’s important. And to compare is not to equate. I don’t like narrow analogies. There are those people, you see- and they are often overtly and consciously political- who believe that truth is very simple. And they feel an urgent need to convey it to what they consider “the masses.” I’m not like that at all.
…
I believe that politics does enter into everything, but I don’t go along with what Sartre believes – or at least did believe one time that the artist has to be engagé. Yes, almost everything we do is political – not that we have to be thinking about politics when we eat and drink and make love – but… what I’m opposed to is this sweaty dedication.
“Ophuls: An Interview”, Authors: Michael Gallagher and Marcel Ophuls, Film Criticism, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Fall 1977), pp. 32-35
Suggested Readings:
The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) – Review by Pauline Kael: “Collaboration and Resistance”, New Yorker, 25/03/1972
“‘Racist, fascist bullshit’– Marcel Ophuls exposes Islamophobia in Israel”, Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, 11/12/2014
“Marcel Ophuls obituary”, The Guardian, 26/05/2025
Jonathan Kandell, “Marcel Ophuls, Myth-Shattering War Documentarian, Is Dead at 97”, The New York Times, 26/05/2025