TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST THROUGH FILM

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TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST THROUGH FILM

• Eleanor Andrews
• University of Wolverhampton

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Teaching about the Holocaust

• Advance knowledge about this unprecedented
  destruction
• Preserve the memory of those who suffered
• Encourage educators and students to reflect upon
  the moral and spiritual questions raised by the
  events of the Holocaust and as they apply in
  todays world
• ITF website

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Using Film

• Film gives us plenitude without specificity. Its
  descriptive offerings are at once visually rich
  and verbally impoverished. literary narrative
  can be precise, but always within a narrow scope
  
• Chatman 1990 39-40, Original italics

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Facts and Figures

• To date 400 films on the Holocaust
• 40 are feature films
• 60 are cinema and television documentaries

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The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Vittorio De
Sica, 1970)
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The Night Porter (Liliana Cavani, 1974)

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Schindlers List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
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Propaganda

• Triumph of the Will
• Leni Riefenstahl, 1935

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Propaganda

• Jud Süß (Jew Süss) Veit Harlan, 1940
• Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew)
• Fritz Hippler, 1940

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Holocaust Films - Problems

• On the surface, realism is a reasonable
  requirement for art that deals with history,
  especially with an event as extreme as the
  Holocaust. The imperative never to forget, made
  more urgent by the growing problems of Holocaust
  denial and Holocaust minimization, requires that
  alterations to Holocaust art be carefully
  scrutinized to ensure that they do not propagate
  injurious ideas
• Gefen Bar-on, 2005 180

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Holocaust Films - Problems

• If the purpose of Holocaust witness is dynamic
  transmission the passing on of the testimony in
  a way that invests its receivers with the moral
  obligation to convey their knowledge to others
  then the narrative must remain open to constant
  elaboration, adaptation, and re-articulation in
  ways that will recommend it to new generations of
  listeners
• Millicent Marcus, 2002 269

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Shoah Claude Lanzmann 1985

• Survivor
• Bystander
• Perpetrator

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Night and Fog Alain Resnais, 1955
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The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) George Stevens
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Nackt unter Wölfen - Naked Among Wolves (1963)
dir. Frank Beyer
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Hitlerjunge Salomon Europa Europa (1990) dir.
Agnieszka Holland
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Schindlers List (1993) Steven Spielberg
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Schindlers List (1993) Steven Spielberg

• It cant quite match the searing authenticity of
  a true documentary like Shoah or Alain Resnaiss
  Night and Fog, and it cant completely win us
  over with its artistry, as Louis Malle does in
  the lower-key Au Revoir les Enfants. But what it
  can do, it does superlatively well. ... As a
  contribution to popular culture, it can only do
  good. Holocaust denial may or may not be a major
  problem in future, but Holocaust ignorance,
  Holocaust forgetfulness, and Holocaust
  indifference are bound to be, and Schindlers
  List is likely to do as much as any single work
  can to dispel them.
• John Gross (1994) The New York Review of Books

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Triumph of the Spirit (1989) Robert M. Young
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Bent (1997) Sean Mathias
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The Grey Zone (2001) Tim Blake Nelson
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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Mark Herman
(2008).
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Life is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997)
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Life is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997)

• What are the main themes of Life is Beautiful?
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• How are the family / women / the Nazis
  represented in La vita è bella?
•  
• How does Benigni succeed in dealing comically
  with such a serious subject?

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Life is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997)

•  How does he point out the fallacies of the
  anti-Semitic regime?
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• Examine the function of the character Dr.
  Lessing.
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• What is the purpose of the voice-over?

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Life is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997)

• How are the real horrors of the camp understood
  by the audience?
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• Comment on Benignis use of language in the film.
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• Comment on the use of patterns and repetitions in
  this film. How do the jokes work?

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Life is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997)

• Where is the turning point of the film? How do
  we see this? How does the first half of the film
  differ visually from the second half?
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• Examine the relationship between Guido and
  Giosuè.
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• How is life in the concentration camp portrayed?
  
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• Is the tone of the film pessimistic or optimistic
  and why do you think this?