A War Begins

The WW2 Documentaries of Herbert Kline

Mar 10–24, 2022

Online

Lights Out in Europe. 1940. USA. Directed by Herbert Kline

Virtual Cinema screenings are available exclusively to MoMA members. Not a member? Join today and start streaming.

Herbert Kline’s two extraordinary World War II documentaries, about an authoritarian state rapidly devouring its smaller neighbors, remain shockingly resonant today. Made on the ground in Czechoslovakia and Poland, respectively, as the Nazi campaign unfolded, Crisis: A Film of the Nazi Way (1939) and Lights Out in Europe (1940) evoke the coming of war with an almost unbearable immediacy, from summer camps for political refugees in the Sudetenland to German troops pouring across the Polish border.

Long available only in incomplete 16mm prints, both films have been fully restored by The Museum of Modern Art and are presented here in pristine visual quality.

Organized by Dave Kehr, Curator, Department of Film.

  • This film series is part of Virtual Cinema.

    Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.

    Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by Debra and Leon D. Black and by Steven Tisch, with major contributions from The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art, the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Karen and Gary Winnick, and The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston.

    Events

    Licensing

    If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

    MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research-and-learning/circulating-film.

    If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

    Feedback

    This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].