Product Details

• Actors: Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Julius Streicher, Adolf Hitler, Michel Bouquet
• Directors: Alain Resnais
• Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Language: French
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Homevision
• VHS Release Date: June 20, 2000
• Run Time: 32 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0780020227
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,224 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  #5 in	Video > Kids & Family > Educational > Social Issues
  #6 in	Video > Art House & International > European Cinema > France > French New Wave
  #9 in	Video > Documentary > Military & War > World War II

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Though only a short subject, this groundbreaking documentary remains one of the most influential and powerful explorations of the Holocaust ever made. Director Alain Resnais bluntly presents an indictment not only of the Nazis but of the world community, and the film is all the more remarkable for its harsh judgment considering the time in which it was made, less than a decade after the end of the war, when questions of responsibility were not yet being addressed. Juxtaposing archival clips from the concentration camps across Germany and Poland with the present-day denials of the camps' existence, the film seeks to once and for all expose the horrifying truth of the Final Solution, as well as to address the continuing anti-Semitism and bigotry that existed long after the war's end. An invaluable resource and testament to history, this film was a profound influence on all films to address issues of the Holocaust, from Judgment at Nuremberg and Shoah to Schindler's List. Night and Fog remains an essential and indispensable document of the 20th century. --Robert Lane

Product Description

Hailed as one of the world's greatest documentaries, Night and Fog is the definitive film on Nazi concentration camps and a devastating record of man's inhumanity to man. Like a master conductor, director Alain Resnais (Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad) weaves contemporary images of the abandoned camp at Auschwitz with newsreel footage of the atrocities that occurred there. Juxtaposing color and black-and-white film, Night and Fog brings the horror of the Holocaust to the present. An elegy on memory and immeasurable sorrow, this tightly structured half-hour film foreshadows Resnais' remarkable feature films. Upon its release, Francois Truffaut called it the greatest film ever made.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

113 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Pure Distillation of the Images of the Holocaust, July 26, 2000

By	Deborah Hampton (Hixson, TN USA) - See all my reviews

I first saw "Night and Fog" in a 16mm format when I was a senior in high school in 1970. So powerful and devastating was the imagery of this extraordinary short documentary, that it took me another 30 years to be able to watch other films on the Holocaust, such as "Schindler's List." When I saw "Night and Fog," I said to myself, "No other film needs to be made about the Holocaust. This is the definitive film." The stark, black and white images are devastating and powerful. In reading about the availability the film on video, I was astonished to see that the film had been made in 1955, so soon after the war. In the ensuing 45 years, it has lost none of its potency. For me, this is still the film that set the standard for all subsequent work on the Holocaust. Resnais' treatment of this subject will still burn the images right onto your retina.

I have since seen other films depicting the Holocaust, including "Schindler's List" and "Life is Beautiful," both of which were excellent. But "Night and Fog" is still the one work that will shake you to your marrow. I visited the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem in the late 70's, and the emotional experience was identical to and of the same wrenching caliber as watching "Night and Fog."

Truth is truth. We need to look at it, even when it would be more comfortable to turn away. Thank God someone like Resnais had the courage to tell the truth of the Holocaust in a ruthless and inescapable way that holds us all accountable. "Night and Fog" should give us all the courage to call evil by its name out loud when we see it, and to stand together to stop it.

This should be required viewing for everyone.

82 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just about the Holocaust, July 8, 2003

By	K. Garner "233rdc" (the midwest) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Night and Fog - Criterion Collection (DVD)

Alain Resnais's short, lasting a mere 31 minutes, is justifably famous as the first film to explore the Holocaust after the Second World War (it was released in 1955). More than just a depiction of the events, the film primarily concerned with the filmmaker's inability to convey the historical reality of the event. The colorful scenes Resnais shot of the abandoned camps are contrasted with horrific black-and-white images of Nazi brutality - decapitated skulls gathered in a bucket, a mountain of womens' hair, the living skeletons of the newly-liberated camps - and Resnais asks himself (and us): how can we possibly comprehend, in the safety of being a spectator, the immeasurable inhumanity and suffering of this event? What would it profit us or history as a whole even if we could? Would it really prevent human atrocities from recurring?

The film is best seen as a philosophical exploration rather than a history lesson - indeed, if you don't know at least the key events of the Nazi Regime, you'll find Resnais' elisions confusing. It is still a potent and unsettling film and, within its mere 31 minutes, opened up questions about artistic responsibility and representation that persist today about the Holocaust and other filmed depictions of human atrocities.

53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The single most compelling holocaust film ever made, February 18, 1999

By	[e-mail] (John Chludzinski) (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

I first saw this film in a high school history class 20 years ago, before the subject was at all topical or widely-studied. "Night and Fog" I felt was the perfect title - "Night" because it was the darkest period in human history, and "Fog" because it showed us how the rest of the world was blinded to the abject horror of the concentration camps. Later movies and documentaries have never come close to the impact of this film for the reason that the directors have not had the stomach Alain had to use the actual Nazi footage from dachau, bergen belsen and other locations. That is what makes this film so shocking - it's real, not dramatized. No film library of WW2 is complete without it.