“The Documentary Cinema of Marcel Ophuls
By María Elena de las Carreras Faculty Center, UCLA June 1, 2017
Presenta on for
“Shadows of the 20th Century: Ophuls Film Fes val"
Organized by the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies
UCLA, June 1-8, 2017
Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset observed that
“Yo soy yo y mis circunstancias” - I am myself and my circumstances
Who is Marcel Ophuls and what are the circumstances of his life? Marcel Ophuls - A life in a few slides • Born in Frankfurt in 1927 • Son of Max Ophuls & Hilde Wall, stage director & actress • Family le Berlin in 1933 when Hitler came to power • Lived in France un l 1941 • Lived in Los Angeles un l 1950: Hollywood High School, GI in Japan, Occidental College • Se led in Paris: studied Philosophy & worked as an assistant on various films, including Lola Montès (1955) Max Ophuls with James Mason & Barbara Bel Geddes on the set of Caught (1949)
First steps in film & television
• 1956-59: Works for German television sta on SWR
• 1960: Directs first documentary short Ma sse ou le talent du bonheur • 1962-64: Directs a short & two feature films “München” episode of L’amour à vingt ans Peau de banane/Banana Peel Faîtes vos jeux, mesdames
Change of professional course in 1966 ---
Moves to television news
Television Journalism
• 1966 – 68: Works for ORTF, French public television, repor ng & direc ng news features
Directs the television documentary Munich ou la paix pour cent ans (1967) for producers of news magazine program Zoom, André Harris & Alan de Sédouy
Fired for striking against ORTF, during the events of May 1968
From TV journalist to documentary filmmaker
• 1968-71: Works for NDR, German television sta on in Hamburg
• 1969: Directs & produces with André Harris & Alain de Sédouys Le chagrin et la pi é/The Sorrow and the Pity, about France under German occupa on in WWII
• 1970: Writes & directs two television documentaries The Harvest of My Lai & America Revisited
The 1970s: Between television & documentary features
• 1972: Directs television documentary A Sense of Loss, about the civil war in Northern Ireland • 1973-74: Visi ng Professor, Princeton University
• 1975-78: Staff producer at CBS News & ABC News
• 1976: Wrote & directed The Memory of Jus ce, for producers Max Palevsky & Hamilton Fish, about the Nuremberg Trials
More television work in the 1980s
• 1980: Directs the documentary Kortnergeschichte for German television
• 1982: Directs documentary Yorktown, le sens d’une victoire, for French television
• 1985: Directs the documentary Les Tombes du Président for French television Yorktown, le sens d’une victoire (1985) From late 1980s to 1990s
Writes & directs three documentaries:
• 1988: Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, about the crimes of a Gestapo officer in France, during WWII
• 1991: Novembertage/November Days, about the fall of the Berlin Wall and its implica ons
• 1994: La veillée d' armes/The Troubles We’ve Seen, about journalists in war me Sarajevo
First person documentaries
• 2009: Writes and directs Max by Marcel, about his father
• 2013: Illustrates his autobiography, Mémoires d’un fils à papa (2013) with Un voyageur/ Ain’t Misbehavin’, a documentary in the form of a trip to important places in his life
• 2014: “Unpleasant truths/Des vérités désagréables”, about the Israeli Pales nian conflict – documentary in progress
Marcel Ophuls and his circumstances
• German Jewish roots in Mi eleuropa - cosmopolitanism, fin-de-siècle culture, secularism
• Encounter with the US in a forma ve stage in life - American values embedded in its popular culture, a way to live and think
• At home in three languages, anchored by a strong sense of iden ty, history & poli cal ideas
• Desire, opportunity and talent for a career in show business
These circumstances have translated into a remarkable body of work
• Marathon historical epics about Europe in the 20th century, including The Sorrow and the Pity The Memory of Jus ce Hotel Terminus
• His documentaries ini ally pioneered a new type of historical reportage that consistently evolved into documentary essays about historical and poli cal events, and their legacy, both moral & intellectual • An Ophuls documentary is centered on issues of individual & communal guilt, truth, complicity, heroism, the suppression of memory, the reckoning the present must make with the past
• The Holocaust is the linchpin of these documentaries – directly or indirectly
• His work has influenced Claude Lanzmann, Michael Moore, Ken Burns, & most recently Ezra Edelman (O.J. Made in America)
• Ul mately, Ophuls’ best films are about preven ng the erosion of historical memory.
• They explore, through interviews or his own thinking, the problem of jus ce in a world in which no one is free to cast the first stone
• You leave an Ophuls’ film with more ques ons than answers, & an understanding of the complexi es & ambigui es of human behavior (of people & their circumstances)
• In Hotel Terminus, November Days and The Troubles We’ve Seen, Ophuls adds a sense of spectacle that again reorients the historical epic
• Working from an European humanist tradi on – Ophuls looks at these tragic events from an ironic distance when dealing with evil & indifference, & profound compassion for those that are good & simple The Grave brothers, the humble heroes of The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) Albert Speer, le , a Hitchcockian villain in The Memory of Jus ce (1976) Dissec ng an Ophuls documentary
The filmmaker has noted: “Je suis un cinéaste de fic on frustré” - A frustrated director of fic on films
- This helps explain the use of drama c strategies undergirding his documentaries: - Interviews - Edi ng
Constructing the story– “le récit”:
• The no on of ‘portmanteau’ (coat hanger), or base idea, to build the documentary
• The role of archival research in reconstruc ng primarily the “experience” of the past, not “knowledge” about it
This is a key difference with the historical documentary made un l Munich & The Sorrow and the Pity. Watch either of them back to back with Night & Fog (1956) or Mourir à Madrid (1963), & the contrast is striking
• The role of interviews is twofold: to remember the past, but also to reveal character & mentality (the characters’ ideas & beliefs shape their percep on & memory of the past )
Masterful interviews: Marius Klein in The Sorrow & the Pity, Markus Wolf & Egon Krenz in November Days
• Egon Krenz in November Days (1991) • A “découpage” of the interviews subs tutes for a tradi onal script. It becomes the guide to the edi ng process
• Edi ng is used as a mul purpose dialec cal tool: to juxtapose contradictory tes monies to intersperse film clips to create ironic distance to connect the past & the present intellectually or emo onally to supplant commentary
“Le montage fondé sur la contradic on" Edi ng November Days with long- me collaborator Sophie Brunet Frederick Wiseman & Marcel Ophuls, Ain’t Misbehavin’ (2013) Ophuls’ essen al documentaries
• 1969 The Sorrow and the Pity • 1972 A Sense of Loss • 1976 The Memory of Jus ce • 1988 Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie • 1991 November Days • 1994 The Troubles We’ve Seen: A History of Journalism in War me • 2013 Ain’t Misbehavin’ Essen al Readings by/on Marcel Ophuls
• Lowy, Vincent. Marcel Ophuls (2008)
• Ophuls, Marcel. Mémoires d’un fils à papa (2013)
• Rubin Suleiman, Susan. “History, Memory, and Moral Judgment in Documentary Film”. In The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times (2008)