Self
From testimonies and medical explanations, an evocation of the last fifty years, seen through the different illnesses of the main heads of state in the world. The state of health of the men in power who have made the history of the last half-century has often been deficient at critical moments of decisions that affected millions of people. The dramatic consequences of Chamberlain's illness in front of Hitler in Munich, Roosevelt's illness in front of Stalin in Yalta.
Director
From testimonies and medical explanations, an evocation of the last fifty years, seen through the different illnesses of the main heads of state in the world. The state of health of the men in power who have made the history of the last half-century has often been deficient at critical moments of decisions that affected millions of people. The dramatic consequences of Chamberlain's illness in front of Hitler in Munich, Roosevelt's illness in front of Stalin in Yalta.
Editor
From 1940 to 1944, France's Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany. Marcel Ophüls mixes archival footage with 1969 interviews of a German officer and of collaborators and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand. They comment on the nature, details and reasons for the collaboration, from anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and fear of Bolsheviks, to simple caution. Part one, "The Collapse," includes an extended interview with Pierre Mendès-France, jailed for anti-Vichy action and later France's Prime Minister. At the heart of part two, "The Choice," is an interview with Christian de la Mazière, one of 7,000 French youth to fight on the eastern front wearing German uniforms.
