Night and Fog (1956)

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

Director:

Alain Resnais

Writer:

Jean Cayrol (commentary)

Stars:

Michel Bouquet, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Uncredited cast:
Michel Bouquet	...	Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Reinhard Heydrich	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Heinrich Himmler	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Adolf Hitler	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Julius Streicher	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)

Storyline

One of the most vivid depictions of the horrors of Nazi Concentration Camps. Filmed in 1955 at several concentration camps in Poland, the film combines new color and black and white footage with black and white newsreels, footage shot by the victorious allies, and stills, to tell the story not only of the camps, but to portray the horror of man's brutal inhumanity.

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Plot Keywords:

nazi | concentration camp | jew | europe | death camp | 

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Genres:

Documentary | Short | History | War

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

January 1956 (France)

Also Known As:

Night and Fog

Filming Locations:

Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, Oswiecim, Malopolskie, Poland

Company Credits

Production Co:

Argos Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

32 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The then Federal German government intervened successfully to prevent the film being shown at the Cannes Film Festival on the grounds that the festival's regulations prevented any film being shown that would cause offense to any participating nation. Ironically, the director of the Berlin Film Festival lobbied hard for the film to be shown at his festival.

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Goofs

A few shots of the concentration camps are combinations of different concentration camps and sometimes do not show the locations suggested.

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Quotes

Récitant/Narrator: With our sincere gaze we survey these ruins, as if the old monster lay crushed forever beneath the rubble. We pretend to take up hope again as the image recedes into the past, as if we were cured once and for all of the scourge of the camps. We pretend it happened all at once, at a given time and place. We turn a blind eye to what surrounds us and a deaf ear to humanity's never-ending cry.

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Alternate Versions

Before its original release, there was a still of a French gendarme (policeman) watching a roundup at Pithiviers. He is easily recognizable by the characteristic French "kepi." Wanting to deny complicity, French censors insisted this shot not be allowed, so for its original release, the image was altered so that a wooden beam covered the gendarme and his kepi. In 1997 or 98, the original version of the film was re-released in France, finally revealing the gendarme. The original American release of the film did not translate all the dialogue for the subtitles, in particular leaving out one of the two references to Jews: "Annette, from Bordeaux." Subsequent releases restored the original text: "Annette, a Jew from Bordeaux."

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Connections

Referenced in Nihon no yoru to kiri (1960)

User Reviews

To the point- absolutely affecting documentary

Alain Resnais' overwhelming short piece on the horrors of the holocaust pretty much had me shaking by the end of the film. All of the footage- even the color footage viewing into the emptiness of the camps- brings the audience to feel a mass of emotions. More than anything, however, the narration is what hits the nail on the head. While it's only half an hour long, rather brief compared to it's dramatized contemporaries like Schindler's List and The Pianist, or the massive documentaries like Sorrow and the Pity or Shoa, I'd think that it should be required viewing for any mature minded person (not for children, it's too disturbing from my perspective) interested in truly comprehending what was really going on in those god-awful years in Europe. A+