Marcel Ophüls

Biography

Marcel Ophuls (German: [ˈɔfʏls]; born 1 November 1927) was a German-French documentary film maker and former actor, best known for his films The Sorrow and the Pity and Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie. Ophuls was born in Frankfurt, Germany, the son of Hildegard Wall and the director Max Ophüls. His family left Germany in 1933 following the coming to power of the Nazi Party and settled in Paris, France. Following the invasion of France by Germany in May 1940 they were forced to flee to the Vichy zone, remaining in hiding for over a year before crossing the Pyrenees into Spain in order to travel to the United States, arriving there in December 1941. Marcel attended Hollywood High School, then Occidental College, Los Angeles. He spent a brief period serving in a U.S. Army theatrical unit in Japan in 1946, then studied at the University of California, Berkeley. Ophuls became a naturalized citizen of France in 1938, and of the United States in 1950. When the family returned to Paris in 1950 Marcel became an assistant to Julien Duvivier and Anatole Litvak, and worked on John Huston's Moulin Rouge (1952) and his father's Lola Montès (1955). Through François Truffaut, …

Directed

1. Love at Twenty (1962) — Director
2. Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988) — Director
3. Banana Peel (1963) — Director
4. The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) — Director
5. The Memory of Justice (1976) — Director
6. Make Your Bets Ladies (1965) — Director
7. The Troubles We've Seen (1994) — Director
8. Ain't Misbehavin (2013) — Director
9. November Days (1991) — Director
10. Munich (1962) — Director
11. Inside Story (1974) — Director
12. Munich, or Peace in Our Time (1967) — Director
13. The Harvest of My Lai (1970) — Director
14. A Sense of Loss (1973) — Director
15. Zwei ganze Tage (1970) — Director
16. Matisse ou Le talent de bonheur (1960) — Director
17. Clavigo (1970) — Director
18. Yorktown: The Meaning of a Victory (1982) — Director
19. Kortnergeschichten (1980) — Director
20. Festspiele (1982) — Director
21. Das Pflichtmandat (1958) — Director
22. Max par Marcel: Lola Montès (2009) — Director
23. À la recherche de mon Amérique (1971) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988) — Self
2. The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) — Self - Interviewer
3. Egon Schiele: Excess and Punishment (1980) — Dr. Stovel
4. Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah (2015) — Self
5. François Truffaut: Stolen Portraits (1993) — Self (archive footage)
6. Liberty Belle (1983) — German teacher
7. Ain't Misbehavin (2013) — Self
8. November Days (1991) — Self - Interviewer
9. The Troubles We've Seen (1994) — Self
10. The Sorrow and the Pity: The Film That Shocked France (2024) — Self (archive footage) - Director ("Le Chagrin et la Pitié")
11. Marcel Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard: The Meeting in St-Gervais (2011) — Self
12. Spécial cinéma (1974) — Self
13. Das schöne irre Judenmädchen (1984) — Medardus
14. Cinéastes de notre temps : Max Ophuls ou la ronde (1965) — Self
15. Marcel Ophuls: The Memory Hunter (2004) — Self
16. Festspiele (1982) — Clown
17. A Journey Through Le Plaisir (2002) — himself
18. Max par Marcel: Lola Montès (2009) — Self
19. A Deal Made in a Turkish Bath (2017) — Self
20. Grimme Award (1964) — Self
21. Wortwechsel (1982) — Self
22. Zeil um Zehn (1990) — Self