For years Woody Allen has entertained us with some of the most thought provoking, angst ridden comedies ever created. Now his name is listed prominently at the top of the DVD edition of the Milestone Collection of The Sorrow and the Pity (Le Chagrin et la Pitié), the four-hour documentary about the French Occupation that Allen’s character kept dragging Annie Hall to see. Without Allen’s prominent use of the film it’s unlikely that we would now have a new version complete with subtitles for the first time, and I am sure that I would not have purchased a copy.

For appetizers the documentary helps me appreciate Allen’s humorous quip about the French Resistance being really brave to listen to Maurice Chevalier’s singing so much since the film depicts the famous French crooner entertaining the troops. It also gives Chevalier some screen time at the end to explain his role during the Occupation. Additionally, the film gives me a deeper understanding of the politics behind Casablanca since Occupied France and Free France play such a prominent part in this great classic.

But the main overall achievement of Marcel Ophüls’ ambitious documentary is to give us primary source material from people who directly experienced the Occupation and make us wonder what we would do ourselves in such a situation. As Annie Hall wonders, "sometimes I ask myself how I'd stand up under torture." French history revisionists would like us to believe that the French people as a whole were very heroic and resisted the Germans en masse. Nothing could be further from the truth. Turns out that they act like . . . people.

Even though The Sorrow and the Pity came out 25 years after the end of WWII, French authorities banned television showings of the film because it doesn’t portray the people in mythological heroic terms. Instead, Ophüls’ seeks a balanced true tale of the Occupation by interviewing Resistance fighters, collaborators, veterans, government officials, and regular people who lived in and around the village of Clermont-Ferrand.

The four-hour film can be split into two separate movies, yet neither is complete without the other. The first half focuses primarily on pre-War France and on the fall of France while the second half deals with the Occupation along with the French Resistance. It’s one thing to read about such events in historical accounts, but Ophüls’ presents actual faces and conversations with real people who went through this period along with numerous clips of relevant archival footage.

How could Hitler possibly overrun France so quickly, and how could his anti-Jewish sentiments go so unchecked? The encyclopedic documentary gives us numerous clues that can be studied further. For one thing, French people were so afraid of Bolshevism that they ignored the Fascists who overtook Spain in its Civil War, and some youthful teen rebels were looking for an alternative to the status quo in French government. Since Bolshevism scared them, some of them turned to the only other choice that offered reform—Fascism. Ophüls interviews one person who made such a choice—one he is no longer proud of, but was made even though he was aware of the anti-Semitic dogma the German Nazis were preaching.

Anti-Semitism had been nearly as entrenched in French thinking as it had in Germany, so slander and propaganda against the Jews merely confirmed deeply-rooted feelings that many French people already harbored. One of the most shocking archive footage excerpts comes from German propaganda film Le Juif Suss that blatantly depicts Jewish people as sub-human vermin. The film received wide play in Occupied France.

On a more personal level, note the case of a shopkeeper named Klein, who ran an ad in the newspaper declaring that he was not a Jew. It’s easy to criticize him in hindsight, but with a name like Klein he feared that his shop would be avoided, boycotted, or shut down; or at the worst he could be deported, as had other Jewish merchants. He displays no special feelings for the plight of the Jews (even 25 years later), but is convinced that he had no other reasonable choice. He had to survive. Many others maintain the same attitude, including the Jewish survivors of the concentration camps.

Having seen how badly appeasement worked for Chamberlain, the idea of signing an Armistice with Germany and establishing the German puppet Pétain government in Vichy now seems foolhardy. But the most absurd detail revealed in the first half of the film is the idea that a women’s club came up with to beautify the Maginot Line with planted rose bushes. Such folly simply doesn’t make most history texts.

For true heroic tales, you must turn to the second half of the film to hear stories of the Resistance. But again you’ll be surprised by many of the tales. What we do know from published accounts is that General de Gaulle leads the troops of Free France by defying the official decree of the French government. But what about the troops and people who remain loyal to the Pétain government? There's even a high ranking French official who is quoted over the radio as saying, "I hope Germany wins."

Given the results of history, France would prefer that we focus on the heroism of the French Resistance. Surely these brave souls were highly regarded by their countrymen. Yet one of them describes his fellow rebels differently, contrasting the people who adapt with those who are natural resistors:

"But we were failures and I was one of those failures. We had quixotic feelings that are so typical of failures."