Marcel Ophuls

Marcel Ophuls

Marcel Ophuls was born on November 1, 1927 in Frankfurt, Germany. Having become a French citizen in 1938, his father, filmmaker Max Ophuls, left France with his family during the Occupation to escape Nazi persecution.

That is why Marcel Ophuls spent a portion of his formative years in the United States and in Hollywood.

Having returned to finish his studies at the Sorbonne, he quickly took the long route to the Champs-Elysées, abandoning philosophy to become a film assistant in the fifties. John Huston, Julien Duvivier, and lastly his father — for the filming of LOLA MONTES, were among his bosses.

Passing up staging in favor of New Wave, he directed several fiction films, including PEAU DE BANANE, with Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Paul Belmondo in 1963.

His most famous film however is the documentary, THE SORROW AND THE PITY, which received world-wide acclaim. Having left to go work in Germany and the United States following the ORTF [French Television and Broadcasting Office] strike in 1968, Marcel Ophuls directed abroad a film on North Ireland, A SENSE OF LOSS, a five-hour film on the Nuremberg trials, THE MEMORY OF JUSTICE and a dozen other reports and dramas, from SACHA GUITRY to GOETHE, for several foreign television stations.

He also taught film at Princeton University.

Subscribe Share
Marcel Ophuls
  • Hotel Terminus - Part I

    Directed by Marcel Ophuls • Documentary • 1988 • 114 minutes

    "Making this film was like an intense fight for the survival of memory itself."—Marcel Ophuls

    A brilliant and epic Academy Award-winning examination of the Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie, the infamous "Butcher of Lyon", HOTEL TERMINUS: ...

  • Hotel Terminus - Part II

    Directed by Marcel Ophuls • Documentary • 1988 • 107 minutes

    "Making this film was like an intense fight for the survival of memory itself."—Marcel Ophuls

    A brilliant and epic Academy Award-winning examination of the Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie, the infamous "Butcher of Lyon", HOTEL TERMINUS: ...

  • Hotel Terminus - Part III

    Directed by Marcel Ophuls • Documentary • 1988 • 46 minutes

    "Making this film was like an intense fight for the survival of memory itself."—Marcel Ophuls

    A brilliant and epic Academy Award-winning examination of the Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie, the infamous "Butcher of Lyon", HOTEL TERMINUS: T...

  • Marcel Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard

    Directed by Frederic Choffat and Vincent Lowy • Documentary • With Marcel Ophuls, Jean-Luc Godard • 2010 • 44 minutes

    In 2009, in a small theater in Geneva, Switzerland, the film directors Marcel Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard met for an unusual, surprisngly intimate and sometimes contentious dialog...

  • The Troubles We've Seen Part 1

    Directed by Marcel Ophüls • Documentary • With Christiane Amanpour, Walter Cronkite, John Burns, Martha Gellhorn, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Slobodan Miloševic • 1994 • 230 minutes

    One of the most important films of director Marcel Ophüls' career is also his least seen, facing backlash time and time ag...

  • The Troubles We've Seen Part 2

    Directed by Marcel Ophüls • Documentary • With Christiane Amanpour, Walter Cronkite, John Burns, Martha Gellhorn, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Slobodan Miloševic • 1994 • 230 minutes

    One of the most important films of director Marcel Ophüls' career is also his least seen, facing backlash time and time ag...