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Night and Fog

The Night and Fog Decree issued by Nazi Germany on Dec 7th, 1941, began with this first directive, ôWithin the occupied territories, the adequate punishment for offenses committed against the German Stateàwhich endanger its security of a state of readiness is on principle the death penaltyö (Fray and Spar 1997, 1). A few years later, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, took a line of poetry from WagnerÆs Ring des Nibelungen, ôNacht und Nebelö, to use as the title of what became known as the Night and Fog Operations (Dumling 1998, 577). The title was to imply that acts of terror would occur as if they were invisible and without trace. Documentary filmmaker Alain Resnais (1955) took this title for his film, Night and Fog, the remembrance and suppression of the atrocities that took place in the Nazi death camps. The film uses the written memories of Holocaust survivor Jean Cayrol, narrated by Michel Bouquet, and intercuts black-and-white photos of the horrors of the concentration camp with color footage of the camps ten years after liberation.

The title for Night and Fog has a great deal to do with the theme of the unique film. According to Dumling (1998), the ôactual theme of the film is not the events themselves, but their remembrance and the process of retracing what had taken place so as to resist the prevailing tide of concealment, forgetfulness, and repressionö (577). The film does not portray the events of the death camps as a symbol of human endurance. Instead, ResnaisÆ film acts like a philosophical inquiry whose main question is whether the camps memorialize or trivialize the events. As Jardine (2004) notes in his review of the film, ôHis concern is with the inability of people to use this horror to learn something fundamental about the way people behave toward each others in this worldö (1).

Through the masterful use of film construction and cinematic techniques, Resnais underscores and expands these ...

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Night and Fog. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 05:06, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1710403.html