‘Pity’ Recounts Occupation of France

Considered one of the greatest films ever made, director Marcel Ophuls’ epic “The Sorrow and the Pity” comes to television for the first time today at 5 p.m. on Turner Classic Movies.

Initially produced for French television, this nearly 4 1/2-hour documentary chronicles the German occupation of France in World War II. Nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary, it has been called “a piece of bravura filmmaking that transcends the specifics of its subject” by Times film critic Kenneth Turan.

Ophuls, the son of acclaimed director Max Ophuls, interweaves German and Allied propaganda films with interviews of farmers, politicians, resistance fighters and war veterans who recall astonishing developments of the years 1940-44 as engineered by Hitler and his adjutants.

Early on in “Sorrow,” which airs with English subtitles, a farmer from the small French town of Clermont-Ferrand reflects on his thoughts during the occupation. “Surviving. That’s it. You had to think about yourself first. And think about others after.”

Recounting the subsequent armistice between the two countries and question of collaboration, another man says, “If the French can no longer fight, that’s one thing. But if they make it easy for the enemy, that’s another.”

Ophuls’ work was honored with a special award by the National Society of Film Critics, which called it “a film of extraordinary public interest and distinction.” The film will be presented by Woody Allen, who included a clip of it in his romantic comedy “Annie Hall.”