Night and Fog (1955) Nuit et brouillard (original title)

Director:

Alain Resnais

Writer:

Jean Cayrol (commentary)
(more)

Release Date:

1955 (France)

Genre:

Documentary | Short | History | War

Plot:

The history of Nazi Germany's death camps of the Final Solution and the hellish world of dehumanization and death contained inside.

Plot Keywords:

Concentration Camp | Nazi | Death Camp | Poland | Holocaust

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Michel Bouquet	...	Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Reinhard Heydrich	...	Himself - Behind Hitler (archive footage) (uncredited)
Heinrich Himmler	...	Himself - with Hitler (archive footage) (uncredited)
Adolf Hitler	...	Himself - Views Parade (archive footage) (uncredited)
Julius Streicher	...	Himself - Makes Speech (archive footage) (uncredited)

Directed by
Alain Resnais

Writing credits
Jean Cayrol		(commentary)
Chris Marker		(script editor) uncredited

Produced by
Anatole Dauman	....	producer
Samy Halfon	....	producer
Philippe Lifchitz	....	producer

Original Music by
Hanns Eisler

Cinematography by
Ghislain Cloquet
Sacha Vierny

Film Editing by
Alain Resnais		(uncredited)

Production Management
Édouard Muszka	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
André Heinreich	....	assistant director
Jean-Charles Lauthe	....	assistant director
Chris Marker	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Jacqueline Chasney	....	sound recordist
Henri Colpi	....	sound recordist

Special Effects by
Henry Ferrand	....	special effects

Editorial Department
Anne Sarraute	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Georges Delerue	....	orchestrator

Other crew
Henri Michel	....	historical consultant
Olga Wormser	....	historical consultant
Alexander Alan	....	text: English version (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Argos Films

Distributors

• Aurora (2006) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Ripley's Home Video (2007) (Italy) (DVD)
• Umbrella Entertainment (2007) (Australia) (DVD)

Also Known As:

"Nuit et brouillard" - France (original title)

Runtime:

32 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | UK:15 | Brazil:18 | Iceland:16 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 | Australia:M | Italy:T | USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, Oswiecim, Malopolskie, Poland

Company:

Argos Films

Trivia:

At the 1954 exhibition at the Institut Pedagogique National, producer Anatole Dauman asked director Alain Resnais to direct a study of the Holocaust. But Resnais wasn't keen as he didn't want to express opinions on an event that he hadn't witnessed. His condition was that novelist Jean Cayrol agree to script the commentary. Cayrol, however, was even more reluctant to go near the project, given that he was a Holocaust survivor and didn't want to revisit some very painful memories. Resnais' collaborator Chris Marker was able to persuade him otherwise.

Quotes:

Récitant/Narrator:Those of us who pretend to believe that all this happened at a certain time and in a certain place, and those who refuse to see, who do not hear the cry to the end of time.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Chronicle of a Summer (1961)

More difficult to view than any other film I've ever watched.

I consider myself to have a fairly strong stomach- I've seen the results of traffic accidents and violent crimes, and like anyone else I have seen (via the TV) the horrors of war. But I was just totally unprepared for this. It was thirty harrowing minutes of a sight-seeing tour of hell.

It was so difficult for me to sit through that I was tempted to shut the DVD player off three times, but I told myself, "No, this is important. It has to be seen, if only as a reminder of what can happen when an inhuman world-view is fused to state-of-the-art technology." The Holocaust was far more (and worse) than simple mass-killing, awful as that is. It was a business decision, coolly and scientifically calculated, to destroy millions of innocents while reaping a profit from them- in death as well as in life.

The sight of the starved, broken bodies, the ghastly scenes taken in the medical labs in the death camps, the sight of little children being led by the hand to their last train ride. It is all so monstrous as to be indescribable.

I am glad I watched it. But I do not think that I'll be watching it ever again, and I give it a 10. It affected me that deeply.