11111111111111111111111 At The Movies `The Sorrow And The Pity' Marcel Ophurs masterwork about the issues of collaboration and resistance comes to the big screen in the original French-language version. Buy one dinner entrée at regular price, get the second for Annie: All right, what do you want to do? Alvy: I don't know now. You want to go to another movie? Let's go see "The Sorrow and the Pity." Annie: Oh, come on. You've seen it. IM not in the mood to see a four-hour documentary on Nazis. — From 'Annie Hall," a film by Woody Allen Gaulle's "official version" of World War II, which proposed that France had nobly resisted the occupation, revealing it to be a willfully misleading nostalgia. With the goal of re-educating France about its participa- tion in the occupation, The Sorrow and the Pity was imme- diately received as a major cinematic and journalistic achievement. Nevertheless, when the American rights lapsed and the owners of the film had gone bankrupt, this important film went out of distribution in 1987 and has remained virtually inaccessible until now. This year, Woody Allen presents to the American public Equal or lesser value. Monday through Thursday 4 p.m. - 9 p.m. only. Not ifalid with any other offer. Must present ad when ordering dinner. Southfield location only. 29244 Northwestern Highway (248) 351-2925 1110111111111111M1111 AUDREY BECKER Special to the Jewish News Mr hen Marcel Ophuls' The Sorrow and the Pity was released in America in 1971, it generated widespread acclaim. The documen- tary, subtitled "Chronicle of a French City under the Occupation," pieces together a fractured narrative of the Nazi occupation of France during the Second World War. Considered one of the most influential documentaries ever made, director Ophuls — a German Jew by birth but officially a French citizen — intended the film to counter- act misinformed patriotism. The film explodes Charles de Behind The Scenes DETROIT JEWISH NEWS JN w ALOE ittAri . 9/1 2000 82 INTERNATIONAL NEWS PLUS 372 Oullette Avenue • Windsor, Canada For the first time since 1987, and for the first time ever in the original French, The Sorrow and the Pity, Marcel Ophuls' seminal documen- tary about France under Nazi occu- pation, has come to the United States, where it will be screened next weekend at the Detroit Film Theatre. Since the 1971 release, there have been hundreds of Holocaust-themed feature films and documentaries, but Ophuls' 4 1/2-hour epic about ordi- a re-released version of the documentary. Gone is the English over-dubbing that compromised the impact and integrity of the first American release. In its place is the original French language version with English subtitles. Edited from more than 60 hours of interviews, the 4 1/2- hour documentary explores a grand spectrum of com- plicated and perplexing responses to the Nazi occu- pation — apathy, complacency, hostility. And, per- haps most disturbingly: complicity. According to author/biologist Dr. Claude Levy, one of the many subjects interviewed by Ophuls, "France is the only country in all Europe whose government collaborated .... Audrey Becker is a Detroit-based critic. nary people making extraordinary choices remains classic. And though Schindler List has proven that such films may find a vast commercial audience, those who brought The Sorrow and the Pity back to the screen insist they did it for love. The re-issue began a couple of years ago, with the visit of another great, if controversial, documentarian to Los Angeles: Leni Riefenstahl. Hitler's old filmmaker was receiving the lifetime achievement award from Cinecon; one member who irately left the organiza- tion, in the well-publicized fray, was Dennis Doros of Milestone Films. The art-film distributor thought about all the German filmmakers who had chosen to leave Nazi Germany, unlike Riefenstahl. He thought about The Sorrow and the Pity, the film about personal choice that had changed his life when he first viewed it in college. A re-issue seemed more pertinent than ever, he theorized. Easier said than done. Doros had already tried, for a decade, to obtain the rights, which had been tied up