Night Will Fall

2014
8| 1h15m| NR| en
Details

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

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Reviews

GamerTab That was an excellent one.
Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.
Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
franscott-07097 This has made me think of something that never occurred to me watching other documentaries of the holocaust. These tragic victims were disposed of without ceremony or dignity; each was an individual and when we think of the unthinkable events of this time the numbers of victims are too enormous to encompass, I mourn them all and yet as one person I cannot do enough to honour to six million. Could there be some way that we could have a worldwide movement to have individuals adopt one victim - if possible to know their birthday and date of death, to undertake to honour that one person in whatever way they might honour a friend or relative who had died. As one reviewer said this is about Jewish people but also intellectuals, homosexuals, gypsies - if six million people across the world were all honouring and remembering one of the victims, as time passes might we not do more to prevent night from falling again.
HEFILM A fascinating film. A horrifying film. To be clear this is not the documentary about SS concentration camps that was left unfinished, and suppressed after the war. That film can be seen elsewhere. To be clear, having seen that film, this documentary does leave out just a few key elements. The original film goes out of it's way to say these camps were not only for Jews and lists all the nationalities and religions that came to be killed here. So to say that film is about the Holocaust is not entirely true and is specifically not the point of the original film.What this film does is set the discovery of the camps and the aftermath into context both large--the governments involved, and small--the military camera crews and even some camp survivors who are seen both now and in the vintage footage. A real feat to find these people so many years later.Sure you may think you've seen this all before, both in fiction films and in various documentary ones. But this still packs a punch, perhaps even more so since you will think you already know all there is to know. I've spent a lot of my life studying WW2 and I was still blown away by this film. I'm also a Hitchcock fan, and his name is being used to "sell" this film and the restoration and completion of the original documentary.A point made in this excellent film is that the intention was to make a documentary that was a warning that unless what happened in Germany is seen and understood that 'night will fall' again and these type of large scale inhumanity will re-occur. Of course you can argue that does in fact happen.This film shows footage not used in the original documentary and is as much about those who made the film as it is about everything else. Interestingly it talks about Hitchcock's input to help make the film convincing. The horrors of reality being so unreal that they might seem created for effect. You can also see in some of the dead faces some dead faces that will appear in Hitchcock's own fiction films after this one.This film also contrasts the film which was suppressed with the film that did get finished and released--that version being supervised by Billy Wilder. The makers of this film obviously preferring Hitchcock's version.And fans of both great directors will see their hand in how they shaped material shot by others. The camp footage was shot by army camera men without a director being there.The graphic concentration camp footage is very graphic but focuses on the horrible expressions on the faces of the dead that is what makes it overwhelming and gripping.Very little music is used, the voice over work is first rate as is haunting sound effects work. Part of what Night Will Fall does, by being a behind the scenes making of film is help to show just how real and unstaged these horrors of war were. It is hard to watch this film and come away thinking somehow all this was made up just for the sake of the Jews. In fact its impossible to believe that after you see this film.Once more let me say this is not the so called Hitchcock film, though portions of that are shown within this film. That you have to seek out elsewhere and see for what it is, it has different things to show and say. This is almost an extended preview and background that helps viewing that film.
ppasake1 I am the daughter and granddaughter of German Jews who got out just before Kristalnacht. I am also the relative of many many who were not as fortunate. My great-aunts and great-uncles along with unborn generations perished. Little to nothing is known about their fates; where or how they died and where they were interred.In high school, I saw a French documentary that showed me, for the first time, images I had never even imagined. Horror I could not believe. I remember my classmates getting up at the end of the film and walking out of the room seemingly unfazed. I couldn't move.Night Will Fall should be seen in every classroom on earth at least once. You cannot be too young or too old to understand the immense nature of mass insanity and those who stand idly by.I will never forget and, in fact, am galvanized in my belief that we are too quick to assume evil will not touch us.An absolute must see film. You will want to discuss this in depth with children before you let them watch and after.NEVER AGAIN.
Fool in the Fields 'German Concentration Camp Factual Survey' was a powerful Holocaust documentary that spent decades in limbo for very dubious reasons. Filmed at the end of World War II, it was only recently completed in a full-length restoration by London's Imperial War Museum. The project has long been part of forgotten movie history, partly because directing legends Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder were both involved in creating it.The completed documentary adds Brett Ratner and Stephen Frears as producers. The director is André Singer, whose own production credits include multiple Werner Herzog projects and 'The Act of Killing'.In the spring of 1945, with victory in sight, Allied forces encountered the full horror of the Nazi concentration camps as gained more and more ground. The liberation of slave labor and extermination camps including Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald were recorded by traumatized military film crews from the UK, the US and Russia. The horrifying images they collected of corpses and mass graves shocked the world.Under the command of British director Sidney Bernstein, the footage was shipped back to London as raw material for a film designed to inform about the cruelty of the Nazi regime, especially among ordinary Germans who still claimed ignorance of mass murder next door. Bernstein assembled a team including writer and future government minister Richard Crossman. Hitchcock also took a break from his Hollywood career to offer suggestions on style of the film. Billy Wilder edited some of the footage into a 22-minute newsreel-style short for U.S. audiences, called 'Death Mills'. But by the fall of 1945, as the political situation changed in the eyes of the British government, Bernstein's work-in-progress was quietly shelved by the UK government. Though clips from Bernstein's incomplete documentary were permitted to be shown during the Nuremberg trials, it remained unfinished for almost 70 years.The documentation 'Night Will Fall' fills in the back story of the film, from its battlefield origins to its restoration process. Singer and his team blend archive footage and contemporary interviews with elderly military veterans, members of the original film crews, historians and Holocaust survivors, including Branko Lustig, producer of Schindler's List. Wilder appears briefly in library clips. Hitchcock makes does his to be expected cameo. The documentary was already part of Berlinales' 2014 "Work in progress" - section.As an important historical and educational document, 'Night Will Fall' is unquestionably a must see. A little more investigation into the backstage machinations that forced the shelving of the original footage would also have been welcome but nevertheless the film is filled with shocking truth that always is in danger to be ignored.