Nuit et brouillard (1955)

Director:

Alain Resnais

Writer:

Jean Cayrol (commentary)
(more)

Release Date:

1955 (France)

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 | Jewish

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Michel Bouquet	...	Narrator (voice) (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)

Directed by
Alain Resnais

Writing credits
Jean Cayrol		(commentary)
Chris Marker		(script editor) uncredited

Produced by
Anatole Dauman	....	producer
Samy Halfon	....	producer
Philippe Lifchitz	....	producer

Original Music by
Hanns Eisler

Cinematography by
Ghislain Cloquet
Sacha Vierny

Film Editing by
Alain Resnais		(uncredited)

Production Management
Édouard Muszka	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
André Heinreich	....	assistant director
Jean-Charles Lauthe	....	assistant director
Chris Marker	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Jacqueline Chasney	....	sound recordist
Henri Colpi	....	sound recordist

Special Effects by
Henry Ferrand	....	special effects

Editorial Department
Anne Sarraute	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Georges Delerue	....	orchestrator

Other crew
Henri Michel	....	historical consultant
Olga Wormser	....	historical consultant
Alexander Alan	....	text: English version (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Argos Films

Distributors

• Aurora (2006) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Ripley's Home Video (2007) (Italy) (DVD)
• Umbrella Entertainment (2007) (Australia) (DVD)

Also Known As:

"Night and Fog" - International (English title), USA (imdb display title)
"Noche y niebla" - Argentina, Spain
"Nacht und Nebel" - West Germany
"Nat og tåge" - Denmark (imdb display title)
"Natt och dimma" - Finland (Swedish title)
"Noc i mgla" - Poland (imdb display title)
"Noite e Neblina" - Brazil
"Notte e nebbia" - Italy
"Nyhta kai katahnia" - Greece (transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title)
"Sötétség és köd" - Hungary (imdb display title)
"Yö ja usva" - Finland

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

Filming Locations:

Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, Oswiecim, Malopolskie, Poland

Company:

Argos Films

Trivia:

Francois Truffaut considered this 33 minute documentary to be the greatest film ever made.

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 Chronique d'un été (Paris 1960) (1961)

Devastating in its impact

Called the "greatest film of all time" by director Francois Truffaut, the documentary Night and Fog by Alain Resnais shows the holocaust tragedy in all its horror. Though the film is only thirty minutes in length, it is devastating in its impact so approach with caution. Night and Fog refers to the arrival of prisoners in Auschwitz under the cover of darkness and also the ultimate failure of the Nazis at Nuremberg to take responsibility for it. Written by Jean Cayrol, a holocaust survivor, and poetically narrated by Michel Bouquet, its gruesome images seem like a surreal nightmare. The purpose of the 30-minute documentary is to document for future generations what actually took place in the camps since this was a time when officialdom was reluctant to talk about what happened and the full extent of the horror was not generally known.

Another purpose is to show the ultimate failure of the Nazis at Nuremburg to take responsibility for it. It would have been welcome to also depict the complicity of others: big business, the other victims of the Nazi's, similar atrocities such as the My Lai massacre, ethnic cleansing, genocide, state violence and so forth but this was not possible given the length of the film and its purpose. Today, when there is so much holocaust denial, people need to be reminded not that the Nazis were demons but of the consequences of unchecked state power without an ethical base.

The film opens in 1955 with an image of a barren field of grass with lush romantic music in the background. The scene then abruptly shifts to wartime. We are in Auschwitz and the prisoners are arriving. We are shown scenes shot after liberation that are so shocking that they have never been made public outside of this film. Resnais does not spare us: the hair shaved off the heads of women piled high on the floor, bodies -- men -women - children -- are tossed in a garbage pit like so much rubbish, their fat used to make soap. The film only lasts a short time, but the images remain indelible. Unwillingness to acknowledge responsibility is depicted in brief scenes of the Nuremberg Trials. As we witness the conscious distortion of the past still going on today, we are left numb.