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Night and Fog (film)
Encyclopedia
Night and Fog is a 1955
French
documentary
short film. Directed by Alain Resnais
, it was made ten years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps
. The documentary features the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek
while describing the lives of prisoners in the camps. Night and Fog was made in collaboration by two survivors of the Holocaust. The script was written by Jean Cayrol
. The music of the soundtrack was composed by Hanns Eisler
.
Resnais was originally hesitant about making the film and refused the offer to make it until Cayrol was contracted to write the script. The film was shot entirely in the year 1955 and is composed of contemporary shots of the camps and stock footage. Resnais and Cayrol found the film very difficult to make due to its graphic nature and subject matter. The film faced difficulties with French censors unhappy with a shot of a French police officer in the film, and with the German embassy in France, which attempted to halt the film's release at the Cannes Film Festival
. Night and Fog was released to very positive acclaim and still receives very high praise today. It was then re-shown in 1990, to remind the people of the 'horrors of war'.
describes the rise of Nazi ideology. The film continues with comparisons of the life of the Schutzstaffel
to the starving prisoners in the camps. Bouquet then addresses the sadism inflicted upon the doomed inmates, including torture, scientific and medical 'experiments', executions, and prostitution. The next subject is shown completely in black and white and depicts images of gas chambers and piles of bodies. The final topic of the film depicts the liberation of the country, the discovery of the horror of the camps, and the questioning of who was responsible for them.
released a book about eyewitness reports of deportation of the Jews. In November 1954, an exhibition of themes from the book was shown at Institut Pédagogique National in Paris. The historians Henri Michel
and Olga Wormser proposed making a film in the context of their joint work in organizing this official exhibition to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of France. The first public notice of their project was given during a radio broadcast on November 10, 1954, the opening day of the exhibition.
Film producers Anatole Dauman
, Samy Halfton and Philippe Lifchitz were invited to this exhibit and felt that a film should be made on the subject. Anatole Dauman
, originally from Warsaw
, who undertook the production for Argos Films and arranged for co-financing by Films Polski, the Polish state production company. Dauman approached filmmaker Alain Resnais
who had experience with documentary films since 1948. Resnais turned down the offer for over a week, feeling that only someone with first hand experience of concentration camps should attempt the subject matter.
Resnais eventually agreed providing that poet and novelist Jean Cayrol
, who had been a concentration camp prisoner would collaborate on the project. Resnais officially signed his contract for the film on May 24, 1955. Cayrol had written in 1946 about his experience as a survivor of Mauthausen
in Poèmes de la nuit et brouillard, which gave the documentary its title. For Resnais, the film was meant to showcase a warning that the horrors of Nazism may be repeated during the Algerian War where torture and internment were already under way.
The film was commissioned by two organizations: the Comité d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, a government commission assigned the tasks of assembling documentary material on, and of launching historical inquiries and studies of, the period of the French occupation from 1940 to 1945. The other commissioner was and the Réseau du souvenir, an association devoted to the memory of those deported to camps. A pre-production meeting was held on May 28, 1955, during the course of which it was decided "to explain clearly how the concentration-camp system (its economic aspect) flowed automatically from fascism". The film's working title
, Resistance and Deportation, was also changed to the French translation of the German term Nacht und Nebel
(Night and Fog), which described handling of World War II
prisoners according to a decree promulgated by Himmler on December 7, 1941. This provided that those resisting the Reich
, arrested in their own countries, but not promptly executed, would be deported to camps in such a way that they would vanish without a trace, "into the night and fog". The title takes on yet another level of meaning a quarter of the way through the film, when Hanns Eisler
's chilling score that has accompanied images of deportation is disrupted, as the train arrives at Auschwitz
. The narrator observes that during the train ride "death makes its first choice" and "a second is made upon arrival in the night and fog." The visuals cut
to a shot of trains arriving in night and fog, which has become a metaphor for the mystery of their situation.
From the September 29 to October 4, 1955, Resnais and his crew filmed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. From there, scenes were shot at Majdanek
from October 7 to the 10th. For the archival material, Resnais had to use black and white footage and did not receive any from English, German or French military sources. Some of the stock footage in the film is from Michel and Wormser's exhibit. Other stock footage is from the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdokumentatie from the Netherlands
, and from French television, Gaumont
, and the association of former deportees. Cayrol was aided by mutual friend and film maker Chris Marker
while writing the commentary that was spoken by actor Michel Bouquet
. After viewing the images in the editing room, Cayrol became sick to his stomach and was unable to write further. Marker's contribution was to adapt the written text to the rhythm of the images in the film. While editing the film, Resnais felt a feeling of general discomfort, stating that he "had scruples, knowing that making the film more beautiful would make it more moving - it upset me".
Composer Hanns Eisler
was invited to compose the music to Night and Fog by Argos Films on October 18, 1955 offering Eisler 200,000 franc
s and help in obtaining a visa to enter France. Eisler agreed to do it by telegram on October 25. The overture in the score had been written before Eisler was offered work on the film. It had originally been written for Bertold Brecht's play Winterschlacht. Eisler's inspiration for this piece was Horatio
's monologue from Hamlet
which Eisler had read in Karl Kraus
' Weltgericht.
The second act of censorship in the film was a huge scandal with the German embassy in France asking for the film to be withdrawn from the Cannes Film Festival
. The French press including reacted against the proposed withdrawal noting that Cayrol and Resnais were very cautious in defining the difference between the Nazi criminals and the German people. Articles were written in French magazines including Libération
and L'Humanité
protesting any censorship of the film at Cannes. One of the few writers who supported the withdrawal, Jean Dutourd
, felt that Auschwitz and other concentration camps should be forgotten.
, a French award for young filmmakers.
wrote in Cahiers du Cinéma
that the film was a powerful work comparable to work of artists Francisco Goya
and Franz Kafka
. French film critic and director François Truffaut
referred to Night and Fog as the greatest film ever made.
Modern reception has also been positive. The film ranking website Rotten Tomatoes
reported that 100% of critics had given the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 14.
Ironically, as Nitzan Lebovic pointed out, the film was not received as well in Israel; Resnais's universalist approach drew some criticism that reached the Israeli Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), immediately after its arrival, in 1956. A political debate opened around the film dividing supporters and opponents between religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sepharadi, right wing and left wing supporters, or--as Lebovic showed-- between center and radicals from both ends of the political map. A centrist demand to ban the film resulted with a small and a limited release until the end of the 1970s.
was desecrated and the body of a freshly buried man, Felix Germont, impaled on a stake. Response was strong to this act, including having Night and Fog broadcast on all three of the French national television channels at the same time. The film has been shown as a teaching tool in schools in France for the past fifteen years.
Alan Pakula studied "Night and Fog" when he was writing the film adaptation of "Sophie’s Choice," William Styron
's novel about a Polish-Catholic survivor of Auschwitz
A DVD
of Night and Fog was released by The Criterion Collection
on June 23, 2003. It restores the scene of the French officer that was censored in France on the film's initial release.
1955 in film
The year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....
French
Cinema of France
The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...
documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
short film. Directed by Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais is a French film director whose career has extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Nuit et Brouillard , an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.He began...
, it was made ten years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
. The documentary features the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
while describing the lives of prisoners in the camps. Night and Fog was made in collaboration by two survivors of the Holocaust. The script was written by Jean Cayrol
Jean Cayrol
Jean Cayrol was a French poet, publisher, and member of the Académie Goncourt. He is perhaps best known for writing the narration in Alain Resnais's 1955 documentary film, Night and Fog...
. The music of the soundtrack was composed by Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...
.
Resnais was originally hesitant about making the film and refused the offer to make it until Cayrol was contracted to write the script. The film was shot entirely in the year 1955 and is composed of contemporary shots of the camps and stock footage. Resnais and Cayrol found the film very difficult to make due to its graphic nature and subject matter. The film faced difficulties with French censors unhappy with a shot of a French police officer in the film, and with the German embassy in France, which attempted to halt the film's release at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
. Night and Fog was released to very positive acclaim and still receives very high praise today. It was then re-shown in 1990, to remind the people of the 'horrors of war'.
Synopsis
Night and Fog is a documentary that alternates between past and present and features both black and white and color footage. The first part of Night and Fog shows remnants of Auschwitz while the narrator Michel BouquetMichel Bouquet
Michel Bouquet is a French film actor. He has appeared in over 90 films since 1947. He was born in Paris, France.-Selected filmography:* La petite chambre * Le Promeneur du Champ de Mars...
describes the rise of Nazi ideology. The film continues with comparisons of the life of the Schutzstaffel
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
to the starving prisoners in the camps. Bouquet then addresses the sadism inflicted upon the doomed inmates, including torture, scientific and medical 'experiments', executions, and prostitution. The next subject is shown completely in black and white and depicts images of gas chambers and piles of bodies. The final topic of the film depicts the liberation of the country, the discovery of the horror of the camps, and the questioning of who was responsible for them.
Development
In 1954, the French publishing group HachetteHachette (publishing)
Hachette Livre, , is a French publisher, the flagship imprint of Lagardère Publishing. It was founded in 1826 by Louis Hachette as a bookshop and publishing company. Hachette has its headquarters in the 15th arrondissement of Paris....
released a book about eyewitness reports of deportation of the Jews. In November 1954, an exhibition of themes from the book was shown at Institut Pédagogique National in Paris. The historians Henri Michel
Henri Michel (historian)
Henri Michel is a French historian, who studied the Second World War. He created the Comité d'Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale and the Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale....
and Olga Wormser proposed making a film in the context of their joint work in organizing this official exhibition to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of France. The first public notice of their project was given during a radio broadcast on November 10, 1954, the opening day of the exhibition.
Film producers Anatole Dauman
Anatole Dauman
Anatole Dauman was a French film producer. He produced films by Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Bresson, Wim Wenders, Nagisa Oshima, Andrei Tarkovsky, Chris Marker, Volker Schlöndorff, Walerian Borowczyk, and Alain Resnais....
, Samy Halfton and Philippe Lifchitz were invited to this exhibit and felt that a film should be made on the subject. Anatole Dauman
Anatole Dauman
Anatole Dauman was a French film producer. He produced films by Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Bresson, Wim Wenders, Nagisa Oshima, Andrei Tarkovsky, Chris Marker, Volker Schlöndorff, Walerian Borowczyk, and Alain Resnais....
, originally from Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, who undertook the production for Argos Films and arranged for co-financing by Films Polski, the Polish state production company. Dauman approached filmmaker Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais is a French film director whose career has extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Nuit et Brouillard , an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.He began...
who had experience with documentary films since 1948. Resnais turned down the offer for over a week, feeling that only someone with first hand experience of concentration camps should attempt the subject matter.
Resnais eventually agreed providing that poet and novelist Jean Cayrol
Jean Cayrol
Jean Cayrol was a French poet, publisher, and member of the Académie Goncourt. He is perhaps best known for writing the narration in Alain Resnais's 1955 documentary film, Night and Fog...
, who had been a concentration camp prisoner would collaborate on the project. Resnais officially signed his contract for the film on May 24, 1955. Cayrol had written in 1946 about his experience as a survivor of Mauthausen
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...
in Poèmes de la nuit et brouillard, which gave the documentary its title. For Resnais, the film was meant to showcase a warning that the horrors of Nazism may be repeated during the Algerian War where torture and internment were already under way.
The film was commissioned by two organizations: the Comité d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, a government commission assigned the tasks of assembling documentary material on, and of launching historical inquiries and studies of, the period of the French occupation from 1940 to 1945. The other commissioner was and the Réseau du souvenir, an association devoted to the memory of those deported to camps. A pre-production meeting was held on May 28, 1955, during the course of which it was decided "to explain clearly how the concentration-camp system (its economic aspect) flowed automatically from fascism". The film's working title
Working title
A working title, sometimes called a production title, is the temporary name of a product or project used during its development, usually used in filmmaking, television production, novel, video game, or music album.-Purpose:...
, Resistance and Deportation, was also changed to the French translation of the German term Nacht und Nebel
Nacht und Nebel
Nacht und Nebel was a directive of Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 signed and implemented by Armed Forces High Command Chief Wilhelm Keitel, resulting in the kidnapping and forced disappearance of many political activists and resistance 'helpers' throughout Nazi Germany's occupied...
(Night and Fog), which described handling of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
prisoners according to a decree promulgated by Himmler on December 7, 1941. This provided that those resisting the Reich
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, arrested in their own countries, but not promptly executed, would be deported to camps in such a way that they would vanish without a trace, "into the night and fog". The title takes on yet another level of meaning a quarter of the way through the film, when Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...
's chilling score that has accompanied images of deportation is disrupted, as the train arrives at Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
. The narrator observes that during the train ride "death makes its first choice" and "a second is made upon arrival in the night and fog." The visuals cut
Cut (filmmaking)
In the post-production process of film editing and video editing, a cut is an abrupt, but usually trivial film transition from one sequence to another. It is synonymous with the term edit, though "edit" can imply any number of transitions or effects. The cut, dissolve and wipe serve as the three...
to a shot of trains arriving in night and fog, which has become a metaphor for the mystery of their situation.
Filming and scoring
The film draws on several sources including, black-and-white still images from various archives, excerpts from older black-and-white films from French, Soviet, and Polish newsreels, footage shot by detainees of the Westerbork internment camp in the Netherlands, or by the Allies' "clean-up" operations and new colour and black-and-white footage filmed at concentration camps in 1955. Resnais uses these to contrast the desolate tranquility of several concentration camps—Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Struthof, and Mathausen—with the horrific events that occurred there during World War II, to muse on the diffusion of guilt, and to pose the question of responsibility. The film also deals briefly with the prisoners' conditions, and shows disturbing footage of prisoners and dead victims in the camps. While Night and Fog states that the Nazis made soap from the corpses, giving the possible impression that this was done regularly, this claim is nowadays considered as untrue, with the exception of possible isolated cases. Researching the film was difficult for Resnais who would have nightmares from filming and found himself waking up screaming in the night. These nightmares passed as Resnais began filming in Auschwitz.From the September 29 to October 4, 1955, Resnais and his crew filmed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. From there, scenes were shot at Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
from October 7 to the 10th. For the archival material, Resnais had to use black and white footage and did not receive any from English, German or French military sources. Some of the stock footage in the film is from Michel and Wormser's exhibit. Other stock footage is from the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdokumentatie from the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, and from French television, Gaumont
Gaumont Film Company
Gaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....
, and the association of former deportees. Cayrol was aided by mutual friend and film maker Chris Marker
Chris Marker
Chris Marker is a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are La jetée , A Grin Without a Cat , Sans Soleil and AK , an essay film on the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa...
while writing the commentary that was spoken by actor Michel Bouquet
Michel Bouquet
Michel Bouquet is a French film actor. He has appeared in over 90 films since 1947. He was born in Paris, France.-Selected filmography:* La petite chambre * Le Promeneur du Champ de Mars...
. After viewing the images in the editing room, Cayrol became sick to his stomach and was unable to write further. Marker's contribution was to adapt the written text to the rhythm of the images in the film. While editing the film, Resnais felt a feeling of general discomfort, stating that he "had scruples, knowing that making the film more beautiful would make it more moving - it upset me".
Composer Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...
was invited to compose the music to Night and Fog by Argos Films on October 18, 1955 offering Eisler 200,000 franc
Franc
The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...
s and help in obtaining a visa to enter France. Eisler agreed to do it by telegram on October 25. The overture in the score had been written before Eisler was offered work on the film. It had originally been written for Bertold Brecht's play Winterschlacht. Eisler's inspiration for this piece was Horatio
Horatio (character)
Horatio is a character from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. A friend of Prince Hamlet from Wittenberg University, Horatio's origins are unknown, though he is evidently poor and was present on the battlefield when Hamlet's father defeated 'the ambitious Norway'...
's monologue from Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
which Eisler had read in Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...
' Weltgericht.
Post-production and censorship
After the film was complete, producer Dauman told Resnais that he was "delighted to have produced the film", but that he guaranteed that "It will never see a theatrical release". In December 1955, French censors wanted some scenes cut from Night and Fog. The end of the film shows scenes of bodies being bulldozed into mass graves. These were considered too violent to be allowed in the film. Another point of contention was that Resnais had included photographs of French officers guarding a detention center, operated by the Vichy government and located in central France, where Jews were gathered before Deportation. This scene prompted a call demanding that the shot be cut because it "might be offensive in the eyes of the present-day military". Resnais resisted this censorship, insisting that images of collaboration were important for the public to see. When Resnais refused to cut the scene with the officer, the censors pressured that they would cut off the last ten minutes of his film. Finally, to compromise, Resnais stated that obscuring the scene wouldn't change the meaning of the film to him, and he painted a beam that obscured the kepi the officer was wearing. In exchange, Resnais would be allowed to show the bodies at the end of the film, which was restored to its original form for a 2003 DVD release.The second act of censorship in the film was a huge scandal with the German embassy in France asking for the film to be withdrawn from the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
. The French press including reacted against the proposed withdrawal noting that Cayrol and Resnais were very cautious in defining the difference between the Nazi criminals and the German people. Articles were written in French magazines including Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
and L'Humanité
L'Humanité
L'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
protesting any censorship of the film at Cannes. One of the few writers who supported the withdrawal, Jean Dutourd
Jean Dutourd
Jean Gwenaël Dutourd was a French novelist. His mother died when he was seven years old. At the age of twenty, he was taken prisoner fifteen days after Germany's invasion of France in World War II...
, felt that Auschwitz and other concentration camps should be forgotten.
Release
A local association of deported prisoners insisted the film be shown at Cannes, threatening to occupy the screening room in their camp uniforms unless the festival showed the film. On 26 April 1956 the film was announced to be shown out of competition at Cannes. Night and Fog was shown in commercial theaters in Paris, in May 1956. The film was awarded the Jean Vigo PrizePrix Jean Vigo
The Prix Jean Vigo is an award in the Cinema of France given annually since 1951 to a French film director in homage to Jean Vigo. It was founded by French writer Claude...
, a French award for young filmmakers.
Critical reception
The film received very high acclaim in France on its initial release. Jacques Doniol-ValcrozeJacques Doniol-Valcroze
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze was a French actor, critic, screenwriter, and director...
wrote in Cahiers du Cinéma
Cahiers du cinéma
Cahiers du Cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma involving members of two Paris film clubs — Objectif 49 and...
that the film was a powerful work comparable to work of artists Francisco Goya
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...
and Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
. French film critic and director François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
referred to Night and Fog as the greatest film ever made.
Modern reception has also been positive. The film ranking website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 100% of critics had given the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 14.
Ironically, as Nitzan Lebovic pointed out, the film was not received as well in Israel; Resnais's universalist approach drew some criticism that reached the Israeli Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), immediately after its arrival, in 1956. A political debate opened around the film dividing supporters and opponents between religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sepharadi, right wing and left wing supporters, or--as Lebovic showed-- between center and radicals from both ends of the political map. A centrist demand to ban the film resulted with a small and a limited release until the end of the 1970s.
Home media
Night and Fog was shown on French television as early as April 26, 1959. On May 10th, 1990 a Jewish cemetery at CarpentrasCarpentras
Carpentras is a commune in the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It stands on the banks of the Auzon...
was desecrated and the body of a freshly buried man, Felix Germont, impaled on a stake. Response was strong to this act, including having Night and Fog broadcast on all three of the French national television channels at the same time. The film has been shown as a teaching tool in schools in France for the past fifteen years.
Alan Pakula studied "Night and Fog" when he was writing the film adaptation of "Sophie’s Choice," William Styron
William Styron
William Clark Styron, Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.For much of his career, Styron was best known for his novels, which included...
's novel about a Polish-Catholic survivor of Auschwitz
A DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
of Night and Fog was released by The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions...
on June 23, 2003. It restores the scene of the French officer that was censored in France on the film's initial release.
Further reading
- Richard Raskin, Alain Resnais's Nuit et Brouillard: On the Making, Reception and Functions of a Major Documentary Film, Including a New Interview with Alain Resnais and the Original Shooting Script Foreword by Sascha Vierny." Aarhus University Press, 1987. ISBN 87-7288-100-3.
- Andrew Hebard, "Disruptive Histories: Toward a Radical Politics of Remembrance in Alain Resnais's Night and Fog" New German Critique, No. 71, Memories of Germany (Spring - Summer, 1997), pp. 87–113. (JSTOR)
- Christian Delage et Vincent Guigueno, Les contraintes d'une expérience collective : Nuit et Brouillard, L'Historien et le film, Paris, Gallimard, 2004, p. 59-78.
- Sylvie Lindeperg, Nuit et brouillard' un film dans l'histoire Odile Jacob, 2007. ISBN 978-2-7381-1864-4.
- Nitzan Lebovic, "An Absence with Traces: The Reception of Nuit et Brouillard in Israel," in Ewout van der Knaap, Uncovering the Holocaust: The International Reception of Night and Fog. Wallflower Press, 2006, pp.86- 105.