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Alain Resnais' Night and FogThe Documentary Film as Narrator and Prosecutor
Resnais' film Night and Fog is a striking cinematic trial of Germany's concentration camps. But it's not only a condemnation of the camps but also of the viewers as well.
Night and Fog (1955), a foreign documentary directed by french filmmaker Alan Resnais falls very strongly into what Eric Barnouw's text, Documentary: A History of the non-fiction Film, refers to as "prosecutor." The film focuses on the concentration camps that were being operated during WWII. The film is blatantly a condemnation of what took place within these camps but it operates in a very unique manner. Narrator as ProsecutorResnais uses a very simple technique to bring strong contrast to the viewer, one that forces them to think strongly about the images being shown. There are frequent cuts back and forth between archive footage of the camps when they were fully operational and current day footage as they would be seen today. By showing the brutality of the camps then and the tranquality of the space now the viewer is struck with contradictions. How can it be that something so horrible could have happened in a place so peaceful? The film shows a color scene of a camp that is overrun with weeds and lack of attention, then almost immediately a scene in black and white of humans, barely even skeletons, staring out through a barbed wire fence. This juxstaposition of pictures is overlayed with what Barnouw's text calls "a quietly reflective, powerful commentary." The narrative leads through the past and present scenes as if one were on a guided tour in a zoo. The viewer is shown shower rooms where the prisoners were to go and wash while over this the narration explains that there was no water to come through these pipes. The narration looms over again as pictures show the massive ovens where countless victims were incenerated. From Concentration Camps to the ViewersResnais approach to this film is overtly subjective and the personal emotion he put into this film is hard to miss. The narration mixed with his use of strongly graphic archival footage is a testament to this. Even more though the film seems to contain a message concerning humans now even more than then. By showing the present day scenes of past massacres the viewer is being told that the same thing may happen again. Even though it may seem that all of this murder has been left behind, is that really the case? Barnouw quotes the narrator as saying "...those of us who pretend to believe that all this happened only once, at a certain time and in a certain place, and those who refuse to see, who do not heed the cry to the end of time." This film is a stong example of the "prosecutor" documentary, but the viewpoint is unique. It doesn't just take the atrocities of the camps as its subject; it looks at everyone, viewers included. They are all being prosecuted in this film. SourcesBarnouw, Eric. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film, Oxford University Press. 1993
The copyright of the article Alain Resnais' Night and Fog in Foreign Documentaries is owned by Phillip Taylor Hart. Permission to republish Alain Resnais' Night and Fog in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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