Lifestyle

Marcel Ophuls, who chronicled 20th century conflict and atrocities, dies at 97

Published

7 months ago

May 26, 2025

Marcel Ophuls, who chronicled 20th century conflict and atrocities, dies at 97

Marcel Ophuls believed subjectivity was key to filmmaking and saw documentaries as an antidote to the news. He’s pictured above on May 5, 1987.

Chip Hires/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

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Chip Hires/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Marcel Ophuls believed subjectivity was key to filmmaking and saw documentaries as an antidote to the news. He’s pictured above on May 5, 1987.

Chip Hires/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Filmmaker Marcel Ophuls has died at the age of 97. Recognized as one of the great documentarians of his era, he died on Saturday, as confirmed by his grandson, Andréas-Benjamin Seyfert.

Ophuls demanded — and commanded — his audience’s attention, in 4 plus hour documentaries like The Sorrow and The Pity and Hôtel Terminus.

Ophuls knew that by creating hours-long documentaries, he ran the danger of “not only seeming pretentious, but being pretentious.” But, as he told NPR in 1978, “there’s a relationship between attention span and morality. I think that, if you shorten people’s attention span a great deal, you are left with only the attraction of power.”

Ophuls was born in Germany and his family fled to France to escape the Nazis. They eventually ended up in Hollywood, where his father, the famed director Max Ophuls, found work. His son started out making fiction films, too, but went on to become one of the foremost chroniclers of the atrocities of the 20th century.

The Sorrow and The Pity is Ophuls’ 1969 epic about the Nazi occupation of France. He interviewed former Nazis, French officials who collaborated, members of the Resistance, and average people who simply found ways to get by. Throughout the film, Ophuls appears on camera—patiently drawing confessions from his subjects. The film faced criticism in France for its depiction of the country’s war efforts.

The Sorrow and The Pity became an art house hit, says Patricia Aufderheide, who teaches communications at American University in Washington, D.C. — and it helped create a new kind of documentary.

“It’s a kind of filmmaking where the filmmaker is very present as an investigator into something about the human condition,” she says.

Ophuls told NPR in 1992 that documentaries function as an antidote to news. Subjectivity is key, he said; the goal is “to juxtapose events and people in such a way that individual destinies and collective destinies make us think and reflect about our own roles in life.”

Ophuls was good at putting old Nazis and retired U.S. intelligence workers at their ease, as he does in his 1988 film Hôtel Terminus, about Klaus Barbie — a notorious Nazi — and the Americans who later protected him. When the film crew arrived to set up for interviews, Ophuls stayed in the back of the room, letting the crew chat up the subject.

Judy Karp, the filmmaker’s U.S. sound recordist, says Ophuls would adapt to make the interviewee comfortable. “He would come in as the person that he needed to be in order to get the story out of them and to get the information that he wanted,” Karp says. “He was never false — but it’s like we never knew which Marcel was going to be there.”

For Hôtel Terminus, which won the best documentary feature Oscar in 1988, Ophuls interviewed French writer and philosopher René Tavernier, who lived through the period the film covers. His son, acclaimed director Bertrand Tavernier, described Ophuls as one of the greatest of all filmmakers, not just documentarians.

“He knew that documentary sometimes has to be built as a fiction film,” Tavernier told NPR in an interview before his own passing in 2021. “You have to have interesting characters. You have to have an interesting angle. You have to work on dramatization, progression. At the same time, he was never manipulating the audience.”

His stories were true, but Ophuls thought of himself as an entertainer nonetheless. In 1978, he told NPR that his greatest hero in show business — and yes, he considered himself in show business — was Fred Astaire. The dancer’s “control and structure and balance is so dignified, and so rarified,” he said.

In 1992, he told NPR that his mission was to make the world a better place through his work, going beyond entertainment. “That’s what we live for, isn’t it?” he said. “To try to make it better.”

Lifestyle

What worked — and what didn’t — in the ‘Stranger Things’ finale

Published

8 hours ago

January 4, 2026

Press Room

What worked — and what didn’t — in the ‘Stranger Things’ finale

Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield.

Netflix

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Netflix

Yes, there are spoilers ahead for the final episode of Stranger Things.

On New Year’s Eve, the very popular Netflix show Stranger Things came to an end after five seasons and almost 10 years. With actors who started as tweens now in their 20s, it was probably inevitable that the tale of a bunch of kids who fought monsters would wind down. In the two-plus-hour finale, there was a lot of preparation, then there was a final battle, and then there was a roughly 40-minute epilogue catching up with our heroes 18 months later. And how well did it all work? Let’s talk about it.

Worked: The final battle

The strongest part of the finale was the battle itself, set in the Abyss, in which the crew battled Vecna, who was inside the Mind Flayer, which is, roughly speaking, a giant spider. This meant that inside, Eleven could go one-on-one with Vecna (also known as Henry, or One, or Mr. Whatsit) while outside, her friends used their flamethrowers and guns and flares and slingshots and whatnot to take down the Mind Flayer. (You could tell that Nancy was going to be the badass of the fight as soon as you saw not only her big gun, but also her hair, which strongly evoked Ripley in the Alien movies.) And of course, Joyce took off Vecna’s head with an axe while everybody remembered all the people Vecna has killed who they cared about. Pretty good fight!

Did not work: Too much talking before the fight

As the group prepared to fight Vecna, we watched one scene where the music swelled as Hopper poured out his feelings to Eleven about how she deserved to live and shouldn’t sacrifice herself. Roughly 15 minutes later, the music swelled for a very similarly blocked and shot scene in which Eleven poured out her feelings to Hopper about why she wanted to sacrifice herself. Generally, two monologues are less interesting than a conversation would be. Elsewhere, Jonathan and Steve had a talk that didn’t add much, and Will and Mike had a talk that didn’t add much (after Will’s coming-out scene in the previous episode), both while preparing to fight a giant monster. It’s not that there’s a right or wrong length for a finale like this, but telling us things we already know tends to slow down the action for no reason. Not every dynamic needed a button on it.

Worked: Dungeons & Dragons bringing the group together

It was perhaps inevitable that we would end with a game of D&D, just as we began. But now, these kids are feeling the distance between who they are now and who they were when they used to play together. The fact that they still enjoy each other’s company so much, even when there are no world-shattering stakes, is what makes them seem the most at peace, more than a celebratory graduation. And passing the game off to Holly and her friends, including the now-included Derek, was a very nice touch.

Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley, and Joe Keery as Steve Harrington.

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Netflix

Did not work: Dr. Kay, played by Linda Hamilton

It seemed very exciting that Stranger Things was going to have Linda Hamilton, actual ’80s action icon, on hand this season playing Dr. Kay, the evil military scientist who wanted to capture and kill Eleven at any cost. But she got very little to do, and the resolution to her story was baffling. After the final battle, after the Upside Down is destroyed, she believes Eleven to be dead. But … then what happened? She let them all call taxis home, including Hopper, who killed a whole bunch of soldiers? Including all the kids who now know all about her and everything she did? All the kids who ventured into the Abyss are going to be left alone? Perfect logic is certainly not anybody’s expectation, but when you end a sequence with your entire group of heroes at the mercy of a band of violent goons, it would be nice to say something about how they ended up not at the mercy of said goons.

The first batch of episodes in Stranger Things' final season are out on Wednesday. Above: Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, and Noah Schnapp as Will Byers.

This computer illustration shows an Einstein-Rosen bridge, also known as a wormhole. Wormholes feature heavily in the fifth season of Netflix series Stranger Things, whose series finale airs Dec. 31.

Worked: Needle drops

Listen, it’s not easy to get one Prince song for your show, let alone two: “Purple Rain” and “When Doves Cry.” When the Duffer Brothers say they needed something epic, and these songs feel epic, they are not wrong. There continues to be a heft to the Purple Rain album that helps to lend some heft to a story like this, particularly given the period setting. “Landslide” was a little cheesy as the lead-in to the epilogue, but … the epilogue was honestly pretty cheesy, so perhaps that’s appropriate.

Did not work: The non-ending

As to whether Eleven really died or is really just backpacking in a foreign country where no one can find her, the Duffer Brothers, who created the show, have been very clear that the ending is left up to you. You can think she’s dead, or you can think she’s alive; they have intentionally not given the answer. It’s possible to write ambiguous endings that work really well, but this one felt like a cop-out, an attempt to have it both ways. There’s also a real danger in expanding characters’ supernatural powers to the point where they can make anything seem like anything, so maybe much of what you saw never happened. After all, if you don’t know that did happen, how much else might not have happened?

This piece also appears in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.

Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Lifestyle

The Best of BoF 2025: Conglomerates, Controversy and Consolidation

Published

9 hours ago

January 4, 2026

Press Room

The Best of BoF 2025: Conglomerates, Controversy and Consolidation

The beauty industry’s M&A machine roared back into action in 2025, with no shortage of blockbuster sales and surprise consolidation. It was also a year with no shortage of flashpoint moments or controversial characters, reflecting the wider fractious social media and political climate.

Lifestyle

Sunday Puzzle: P-A-R-T-Y words and names

Published

6 days ago

December 28, 2025

Press Room

Sunday Puzzle: P-A-R-T-Y words and names

On-air challenge

Today I’ve brought a game of ‘Categories’ based on the word “party.” For each category I give, you tell me something in it starting with each of the letters, P-A-R-T-Y. For example, if the category were “Four-Letter Boys’ Names” you might say Paul, Adam, Ross, Tony, and Yuri. Any answer that works is OK, and you can give answers in any order.

1. Colors

2. Major League Baseball Teams

3. Foreign Rivers

4. Foods for a Thanksgiving Meal

Last week’s challenge

I was at a library. On the shelf was a volume whose spine said “OUT TO SEA.” When I opened the volume, I found the contents has nothing to do with sailing or the sea in any sense. It wasn’t a book of fiction either. What was in the volume?

Challenge answer

It was a volume of an encyclopedia with entries from OUT- to SEA-.

Winner

Mark Karp of Marlboro Township, N.J.

This week’s challenge

This week’s challenge comes from Joseph Young, of St. Cloud, Minn. Think of a two-syllable word in four letters. Add two letters in front and one letter behind to make a one-syllable word in seven letters. What words are these?

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Wednesday, December 31 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.