| The 10 Essential World War II Documentaries |
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 | By
Al Weisel
CDNOW Senior Editor, Movies
During World War II the documentary film came into its own
as a genre. It became a laboratory for experimentation in new
cinematic techniques as filmmakers for the Allies and Axis
powers discovered how powerful movies could be both to reveal
and manipulate the truth.
Many of Hollywood's greatest directors were recruited to
make documentary films for the Allies, including John Ford
(Battle
of Midway, available on Colors
of War), John Huston (Report From the
Aleutians, also available on Colors
of War; Battle of San Pietro, also available on
Treasures
of American Film Archives), William Wyler (The
Fighting Lady), and George Stevens.
Some of the most pioneering documentaries were made by the
British, where the British Documentary Film Movement offered
an alternative to Hollywood manipulation of the truth. Some of
the classics of this era include Target for Tonight,
Diary For Timothy, and Listen to Britain; and Burma Victory.
Long after the war has ended it continues to be a topic for
documentary filmmakers. Steven Spielberg has made particular
efforts to document the Holocaust in such films as The
Last Days, Lost
Children of Berlin, and Survivors
of the Holocaust. For some of the best fictional
movies about the war, visit The 10
Essential World War II Films.
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| 1. World at War (1974) |
 Who can forget the opening of each episode of this
famous documentary series with its photographs engulfed in
flames, the stirring, mournful music by Carl Davis, and the
mellifluous tones of narrator Laurence Olivier? The World
At War is not only the most detailed and extensive
documentary about the war, it is one of television's finest
and most fondly remembered moments. This impeccably produced
and scrupulously accurate series encompasses the entire
history of the war in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters
from its root causes to its aftermath. It's not to be missed
by anyone who wants to understand the war.
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| 2. Shoah (1985) |
 This nine-and-a-half-hour long documentary directed by
Claude Lanzmann is the definitive examination of the most
horrific event of the 20th century, the Holocaust. The
attention to detail in the film is as thorough, systematic,
and ruthless as the Nazis were themselves. Lanzmann uses
scores of interviews with both victims and perpetrators to
unshrinkingly examine every aspect of the Nazi's crimes. As
detail is piled on upon detail, the result is remarkably
chilling and never less than riveting despite its
length.
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| 3. Sorrow and the Pity
(1971) |
 In
this controversial documentary director Marcel Ophuls examines
how the people of one French town behaved during the Nazi
occupation of France. He unflinchingly looks at both
collaborators and resistance fighters, using interviews with
participants to create a detailed, and often horrifying,
portrait of what ordinary people did during this telling
moment in history. For his honesty he was vilified in France,
though the documentary is recognized around the world as one
of the greatest examples of its genre. Ophuls went on to
direct the equally revelatory Hotel
Terminus about war criminal Klaus
Barbie.
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| 4. Why We Fight (1943-1945) |
 Director Frank Capra set out to inform ordinary
Americans what was at stake in the war. His seven-part series
still stands out as one of the best summaries of the reasons
behind the conflict and one of the most stirring and effective
uses of propaganda. Each episode looks at a different aspect
of the war, beginning with an examination of the causes that
led up to the war in Prelude to War and concluding with
the reasons for the United States' entry into the fight in the
final installment War Comes to America.
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| 5. Triumph of Will (1934) |
 This universally reviled documentary has some of the
most extraordinary imagery ever put on film. Director Leni
Riefenstahl's record of one of Hitler's Nuremberg rallies
stretched the boundaries of what documentary films could do
and remains a disturbing reminder of the power of cinema and
how easily it can be abused for nefarious
purposes.
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| 6. Night and Fog (1955) |
 This extraordinary short documentary alternates
between black-and-white newsreel footage of the horrors at
Auschwitz and color pictures of the site 10 years later to
create a compelling appeal to not let these atrocities be
forgotten. It's an emotional indictment of those who would
seek to deflect responsibility for what happened in a world
that had already slipped back into complacency. A few years
later Resnais would make another great film about the dangers
of repressing memories of the war, Hiroshima,
Mon Amour.
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| 7. George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin
(1994) |
 This documentary features color home movies shot by
director George Stevens, who was a member of the U.S.
military's film unit, from the invasion at Normandy to the
conquest of Berlin. The footage is like nothing you've ever
seen before of the war, encompassing everything from the
exhilaration of the liberation of Paris to the horrors
uncovered at Dachau. Unlike the black-and-white newsreels
heavily edited by wartime censors, this footage looks more
like the pictures broadcast on television from Vietnam in
their honest depiction of the death and devastation wrought by
the war.
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| 8. December 7th: The Pearl Harbor Story
(1943) |
 Co-directed by John Ford and Gregg Toland (Citizen
Kane's cinematographer), this documentary about the
bombing of Pearl Harbor won an Oscar after it was severely
re-edited by the War Department. The uncensored portion
features a realistic depiction of the attack and details the
salvage efforts, while the censored scenes, which have been
restored, include a fascinating opening sequence on the
civilian population of Hawaii, casting suspicion on Japanese
citizens (which is completely contradicted later in the film),
and a closing dialogue between the ghost of a serviceman
killed at Pearl Harbor and a deceased veteran of World War I.
It's an intriguing wartime artifact.
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| 9. Fires Were Started
(1943) |
 Directed by Humphrey Jennings, one of the foremost
directors of the British Documentary Film Movement, this
fascinating film uses fictional narrative techniques to tell the true story of 24 hours in the
lives of extraordinarily heroic ordinary Londoners bearing up
under the German bombing of the city. It uses actual people
playing themselves to dramatize what living through that time
was like, focusing on the daily routine of a group of firemen
who risked their lives nightly.
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| 10. Desert Victory |
 This extraordinary British documentary directed by Roy
Boulting uses actual combat footage to tell the story of the
defeat of the North African forces of Germany's General
Rommel. Several cameramen were killed or wounded while making
this film. It is full of remarkable moments including one
riveting nighttime sequence where the film goes black and
silent until the darkness is interrupted by the flash of
gunfire. It also includes a remarkably literate narration, an
art that seems to be lost among today's documentary
filmmakers.
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