Night and Fog (1956 film): Difference between revisions

Night and Fog
Night and Fog
Directed by	Alain Resnais
Written by	Jean Cayrol
Produced by	Anatole Dauman
Narrated by	Michel Bouquet
Cinematography	Ghislain Cloquet; Sacha Vierny
Edited by	Jasmine Chasney; Henri Colpi
Music by	Hanns Eisler
Release dates	1955;
Running time	32 min
Language	French

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Night and Fog (French: Nuit et brouillard, from the German Nacht und Nebel) is a 1955 documentary film about the Nazi concentration camps.

Production

The film was directed by Alain Resnais and written by Jean Cayrol, who had published a collection of poems, Poèmes de la nuit et brouillard (1945), which evoked his experience as a survivor of Mauthausen.

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, 1940-1945
the Réseau du souvenir, an association devoted to the memory of those deported to camps.

The historians Henri Michel and Olga Wormser-Migot proposed this in the context of their joint work in organizing an official exhibition to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of France, and objects from the exhibition were subsequently used in the film. The first public notice of their project was given during a radio broadcast on November 10, 1954, the opening day of the exhibition. One of the exhibition visitors was 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.

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. Further, this particular shot is one that is unforgettable.

The film draws on several sources:

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' "clear-up" operations
new colour and black-and-white footage recorded 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.^[1] While Night and Fog states that the Nazis made soap from the corpses, this claim is today seen as false.

Awards

Prix Jean Vigo 1956

References

^ The footage of dead victims was shot by the allies as they made the concentration camp staff carry the bodies for burial in mass graves. The particular shots used in Night and Fog were shot at Auschwitz and are part of the film presentation which is shown nearly continuously at the Auschwitz Museum.

External links

Night and Fog at IMDb
Criterion Collection essay by Phillip Lopate
Criterion Collection essay by Peter Cowie
Available online at Google
http://parolesdesjours.free.fr/nuit.htm stills from the film
http://www.diffusion.ens.fr/index.php?res=conf&idconf=1633 lecture in French by Sylvie Lindeperg

[1] The footage of dead victims was shot by the allies as they made the concentration camp staff carry the bodies for burial in mass graves. The particular shots used in Night and Fog were shot at Auschwitz and are part of the film presentation which is shown nearly continuously at the Auschwitz Museum.

[1]

@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 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 [[Nazi Germany|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 concentration camp|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 (filmmaking)|cut]] to a shot of trains arriving in night and fog, which has become a metaphor for the mystery of their situation.
+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 concentration camp|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 (filmmaking)|cut]] to a shot of trains arriving in night and fog, which has become a metaphor for the mystery of their situation. Further, this particular shot is one that is unforgettable.
 The film draws on several sources: