Another opportunity to see this remarkable film adapted by Marcel Ophuls from his original production Le Chagrin et ta Pitie which tells the human story of France under the Occupation. Occupiers and occupied, collaborators and resistance fighters, politicians, generals, peasants and private soldiers recount their experiences with astonishing frankness, unfolding a picture of events that is very far from the popular image of this critical phase of the war years.
A vivid, poignant, true account-far removed from the fiction which has so long coloured our image of life under the Nazis (James Thomas - Daily Express)
Contributors include:
From Britain:
Lord Avon - as Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for War
Maurice J. Buckmaster, Chief of F section of SOE
Major-Gen Sir Edward Spears, Head of the British Mission to General de Gaulle From France:
Pierre Mendes-France, member of the Free French Air Squadron
Georges Bidault, President of the Conseil National de la Resistance
Jacques Duclos, former Chief of the clandestine Communist Part
Christian de la Maziere, volunteer in the French Division of the Waffen SS
Emile Coulaudon, former Chief of the Auvergne Maquis
From Germany:
Captain Helmuth Tausend, Wehrmacht Captain
Dr Paul Schmidt, Hitler's chief interpreter
General Walter Warlimont, Deputy Chief of Operations Staff, Wehrmacht
and the people of Clermont-Ferrand and nearby
Film introduced by Robin Scott Controller BBC2
English version prepared by Marcel Ophuls in collaboration with the BBC
[Repeat]