Nuit et brouillard (1955)

Director:

Alain Resnais

Writer:

Jean Cayrol (writer)

Release Date:

21 October 1960 (Finland)

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 | Violence

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Michel Bouquet	...	Récitant / Narrator (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)

Also Known As:

Night and Fog

Runtime:

32 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Brazil:18 | Iceland:16 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 | Australia:M | Italy:T | Finland:K-16 | UK:15

Company:

Argos Films

Trivia:

Jean Cayrol found the project immensely distressing to work on, given the fact that he had been a concentration camp inmate. How he got round it was not to provide text, segment by segment, to Resnais who would normally have edited the images around it. Instead, Cayrol wrote an initial text based on his recollections of Resnais' first cut. Resnais' assistant Chris Marker then reordered the script to match the sequence of shots and returned the restructured script to Cayrol who then rewrote the script.

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 Nihon no yoru to kiri (1960)

An Argentine teacher that projected this film during the military dictatorship.

This extraordinary film was, of course prohibited during the years that Argentina was ruled by the military dictatorship. Only one man, dared to show it in the middle of mass genocide. This teacher, Manlio Pereira, was the director of the only private film school during the late ´70s. Obviously the school received strange invasions of military spies, but Pereira not only continued to show this masterpiece, but also made a great ceremony out of it, speaking loudly and profoundly of what nazism meant, what were it terribly effects, and why Argentina has falled again in the taste for this awfull criminal behaviour. It is a shame that not always such outstanding names like these are remembered for this little great things.