Marcel Ophuls, Oscar-winning director of 'The Sorrow and the Pity', dies aged 97

Published on 26/05/2025 - 12:00 GMT+2

Marcel Ophuls, nan acclaimed French-German documentary filmmaker whose probing explorations of history and representation helped shaped nan genre for decades, has died astatine nan property of 97.

His grandson, Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert, confirmed that he "died peacefully" connected Saturday.

Ophuls' life and profession attraction was shaped enormously by his ain acquisition of warfare and exile. Born successful Frankfurt successful 1927 to German-Jewish parents - character Hilde Wall and celebrated head Max Ophuls - he was conscionable six years aged erstwhile nan family were forced to fly owed to nan emergence of nan Nazi regime successful 1933.

They recovered impermanent refuge successful France, only to beryllium forced distant again successful 1940 arsenic German forces precocious crossed Europe. They escaped crossed nan Pyrenees into Spain, and yet reached nan United States successful December 1941.

After finishing assemblage successful Los Angeles, Ophuls served successful a U.S. Army theatrical portion successful occupied Japan successful 1946. In 1950, he returned to France and began his movie profession arsenic an adjunct to renowned board Julien Duvivier and Anatole Litvak. After early forays into fiction, including nan 1964 comedy-thriller deed Banana Peel starring Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Paul Belmondo, Ophuls turned to documentaries.

The documentary banned successful France for much than a decade

Ophuls’ astir renowned work, The Sorrow and nan Pity (1969), was a groundbreaking documentary that questioned France’s postwar communicative of noble resistance. Across 4 hours, nan movie focuses connected nan municipality of Clermont-Ferrand and pulls together a postulation of interviews pinch Resistance fighters, collaborators, Nazi officers, and seemingly mean citizens to expose an uneasy truth: that complicity pinch nan occupiers had permeated each level of French society, from section hairdressers to aristocrats.

The rustle to nationalist self-image was truthful profound that French tv banned nan documentary for much than a decade, refusing to aerial it until 1981.

While making pioneering waves successful humanities documentary circles, nan movie besides near its people connected popular culture. In Annie Hall, Woody Allen famously uses nan movie arsenic an improbable first-date movie.

Ophuls continued to tackle nan shadows of nan 20th century. In 1988, he won nan Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, a chilling investigation into nan Nazi warfare criminal known arsenic nan "Butcher of Lyon."

In later years, he remained outspoken connected governmental issues, turning his attraction to nan Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2014, he began crowdfunding Unpleasant Truths, a documentary co-directed pinch Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan that sought to research nan Israeli business of Palestinian territories and nan emergence of antisemitism and Islamophobia successful Europe.

Initially conceived arsenic a collaboration pinch French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard - who later withdrew but appears concisely successful nan movie - nan task was yet stalled by financial and ineligible complications and remains unfinished.