The director of a box office hit film about Nazi collaboration and its Oscar-winning star have described criticisms they have whitewashed wartime atrocities as dishonest and \u201ca scandal\u201d.<\/p>\n
Xavier Giannoli and the actor Jean Dujardin were responding to a bitter row that has divided French historians over the film Les Rayons et les Ombres<\/a> (Rays and Shadows), which recounts the story of the wartime press baron Jean Luchaire.<\/p>\n Luchaire, who was a pacifist, became a Nazi collaborator during the Occupation of France<\/a> when he worked as commissioner for information and propaganda for the puppet Vichy regime. Luchaire was executed for treason in 1946.<\/p>\n Giannoli rejected accusations he had produced what one critic called \u201ca masterclass in historical gaslighting\u201d, insisting he had worked closely with historians to write the screenplay. He said critics attacks were \u201cfactually false\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cMy point of view is to tell the story of a collaborator in his world. The disgusting obscenity of people who were [partying] under the chandeliers eating caviar and petit fours during the Occupation,\u201d he told the current affairs and culture programme Quotidien<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jean Luchaire and his daughter Corinne, shortly after they were captured by allied troops in May 1945. Photograph: Mondadori Portfolio\/Mondadori\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Accused of negatively portraying the French resistance, the film-maker responded angrily: \u201cIt\u2019s a scandal! It\u2019s disgusting! It\u2019s profoundly dishonest!<\/p>\n \u201cThe film has opened a historical debate, but I didn\u2019t expect it to take such political proportions. The debate is polarising around today\u2019s political lines.\u201d<\/p>\n Luchaire was a French journalist and press baron who was appointed minister of information in the puppet government in Vichy led by Philippe P\u00e9tain.<\/p>\n In 1944, Les Nouveaux Temps, the newspaper he had founded four years earlier, disseminated Nazi propaganda calling for the \u201cextermination\u201d of the French resistance and carried articles attacking allied forces after D-day. During the Occupation he lived in luxury, dining at gastronomic restaurants and attending glittering parties.<\/p>\n Luchaire stands in the dock during his trial in Paris, January 1946. Photograph: AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The film is narrated from the perspective of Luchaire\u2019s daughter, Corinne, an actor once hailed as the \u201cnew Garbo\u201d, who is played by Nastya Golubeva. Corinne also collaborated and partied during the Occupation, and was jailed for the crime of \u201cnational indignity\u201d after the war. She died of tuberculosis in 1950.<\/p>\n Since its release in mid-March, Les Rayons et les Ombres has drawn more than 800,000 French cinemagoers. The movie\u2019s success has proved a surprise, not least because its length \u2013 more than three hours \u2013 means fewer screenings each day.<\/p>\n However, critics, including historians, have attacked the film, saying it downplays the role of the resistance and the fate of Parisian Jews who were rounded up and sent to Nazi death camps, and that it encourages viewers to empathise with Luchaire and his daughter.<\/p>\n In 1946, Luchaire\u2019s daughter Corinne stood trial in Paris for her association with Germans during the occupation of France. Photograph: AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n