JMSC0044 Documentary Film Appreciation

Chan Lei Lei, Cherry

Title : 2nd Critical Essay: Compare and Contrast

Documentary: Morris Errol’s The Fog of War and Ophuls Marcel’s The Sorrow and the Pity

The Fog of War and The Sorrow and the Pity investigate similar subject -war, which is a
part of human history. In The Fog of War, Morris’s interview with the U.S.’s former Secretary
of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, contributed a sizable part of the documentary. Morris
touched the bombing of Tokyo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War and World War II by
presenting McNamara’s perspective. On the other hand, The Sorrow and the Pity contains
plenty of interviews people from different backgrounds in both Germany and France about
their opinions on German occupation of France during World War II. We can regard the two
as “historical documentary” that investigated historical events. For instance, one of the
limitations of a historical documentary is that filmmakers can only access to the residue left
after the incident had passed. Therefore, these documentaries are good examples for studying
how archival footages and other techniques are used to fill up the content. In the following
paragraphs, I will compare and contrast the two documentaries’ presentation mode, interview
method, footage treatment, narrative structure and music.

It is conventional to use expository approach for historical documentary. The expository

mode addresses the viewer directly, with titles or voices that propose a perspective, advance
an argument, or recount history (Nichols 105). However, Morris and Ophuls used
participatory mode instead. No or little voice-of-God commentary was found in both
documentaries. The documentaries are narrated by the interviewees and the archival footages.
Participatory mode emphasizes the interaction between filmmaker and subject. It “takes place
by means of interviews or other forms of even more direct involvement, often coupled with
archival footage to examine historical issues (Nichols 34).” In both documentaries, we can
hear off-screen sound applied by the filmmakers who are asking questions to the subjects. The
filmmakers did not try to hide their presences to the audiences. They were aware that the
reality was constructed through filming and editing. In the beginning of “The Fog of War”, it
shows us with McNamara asking Morris about the sound level and the trace of editing is
clearly shown by the jump shots and dip to black transition. It reminds the audience that it is
the process of filming. In this case, the participatory mode is merged with reflexive mode.

Due to the limitation of historical documentary, Morris and Ophuls both juxtapose post-
war interviews with wartime footages. Interviews become one of the main parts in their
documentaries. The Fog of War only contains single interview with McNamara. Morris shoots
it from different angles, screen compositions and head sizes, like medium shot, close up shot
and extremely close up shot giving a variety of images for the interview. During the interview,
the camera moved slightly across the diagonal backdrop. Although the movement was
difficult to realize, it comforted the audiences’ eyes. On the contrary, The Sorrow and the Pity
shows different parties’ points of view on the German occupation of France. Ophuls
interviewed German solider, France bourgeois, teachers, journalists, Jews, officials and other
else who have experienced the occupation. It is seemingly more objective then the former
one. Ophuls also shoots in different angles and head sizes. He sometimes zoomed the camera
to the subjects’ eyes or hands for catching the emotional detail of the subjects. He zoomed to
the hands of Mme Solange, a beautician who is grasping her cloth which may show her
anxiety. Another example shows the camera was zoomed to the hands of Denis Rake, British

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JMSC0044 Documentary Film Appreciation
Chan Lei Lei, Cherry

Secret Agent in occupied France, who was playing with his cat. This shows the unusual
personality of the subject. Ophuls also shoots the interview within a car or from the back of
the interviewees along the way they walked. He always interviews several people in a shot,
even the whole family. He captured the reactions of other members who sitting next to the
subject. The subjects reappeared in different sections back and forth. Moreover, in The Fog of
War, McNamara was made to look directly to the camera while in The Sorrow and the Pity,
the interviewees were not looking into the camera but looking to someone interviewing them
outside the scene. The former creates identification to the subject when audience is more
attached to the subject’s point of view when they can clearly view the subject’s eyes and
emotion. However, the latter put certain distance from the subjects to the viewers stressing
the objectification.

Both documentaries couple footages to the interviews in order to tell the story. Morris
allowed McNamara to speak for himself and used clips of past TV programme (CBS report),
sound recordings, newspapers, and comic pictures to introduce McNamara and the war from
others’ depictions but never uses voice over. There is a sequence that magazine front page,
sentences of newspapers consequently pop-up accompanying with a lively music. This
sequence shows the appearances and emphasizes the descriptions of McNamara from media
which is effective to show the common representation of McNamara. Other cut away shots,
like the moving typing machine, gives the sound and rhythm to the documentary, the
demonstrative shots of a man looking into a magnified glass and a skull falling down the stair,
turning sound recorder and domino kicking off give filmic effects and symbolic meaning to
the documentary. Some of the footages were made into slow motion in order to match the
film’s rhythm. There were two significant shots of montage add artistic value to the
documentary. The montage included transparent layers of street scenes overlapping; some are
in slow motion while some are in fast motion. The montages show the crowds of Asians and
Americans overlapping. It shows the tension of people during war. Morris’s treatment of
archival footages, creative demonstrative scenes and cut away shots and music contribute to
the success of the film. Ophuls adopts footages from many sorts, like clips of films,
advertisements, news reports to show the situation and address the problems occurred in
German occupation. He does not like Morris using many filmic techniques, but it is
interesting that he uses many sources from popular culture, for example he uses the
advertisement of chemical paint which can disguise silk stocking to address the problem of
high commodity price. He uses the songs to mock French authority. This intertextuality makes
the film more fruitful.

Different from The Fog of War, The Sorrow and the Pity is not chronologically narrated
along the time while The Fog of War is chronologically narrated along McNamara’s career
life. Both of the documentary seem asking a same question: who should be responsible for the
wars. The beginning of The Fog of War shows McNamara standing on the stage as the
Secretary of Defense presenting to a group of people, while at the end of the documentary, it
shows the back of old McNamara walking away from the camera. It contrasts one’s golden
period and his downturn. The documentary filmmaker seems put sympathy to the situation of
McNamara who needs to fulfill president will on war. It is irony for McNamara saying that
“who won the war is who end the war”, “at the end of the exploration, we will return to the
beginning”. The Sorrow and the Pity starts and ends with the interviews the two families from

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JMSC0044 Documentary Film Appreciation
Chan Lei Lei, Cherry

Germany and France and a singer addressing to the propaganda which stressing the point of
view of the filmmaker.