hdelihle .l .l - representingtheholocaust

,hdelihle Shadows
Film and tlte llolocaust
Third tdition
rl
.l
.l
.l
.l
.l
Annette lnsdorf
a
r-ãa rP
tr'
l :...
'i ¡ ¡'t
,
I
I
I
I
¡
¡
t
C¡,rvrnmDGE
PR-ESS
UNIYERSITY
I
I
t
I
rl
271
The lronic Touch
way of her access. She and her family
archives consistently places obstacles in the
-
loyal parents, husband, an
d to sPeak at
' Sånja writes the book
a Jewish
nced
the local university. There,
or
Juckenack'
he
-...hu.tt during fuorld War II. Because the charges. At the end' Sonja is honored
he sues her for defamation. Later, he drops
She violently refuses' screaming
with the offer of a bust of her image in thã town hall.
a tree (earlier associated with
in
hide
,".r.r, away to
that she won't be coopted,
1t
The lronic Iotlch
prayer as well as soliditY)'
"nd
' îrr. opening of rhe Nasty Girl sets up the film's self-consciousness through an
¿Chi.rãr.
an old German
intricate
boxes" structure: (1) Men drink beer and sing
folksongthatwasappropriatedbytheNazis.Thisfragmentturnsouttobepartof
context' (2) The qpical disclaimer of
a later scene, and is disturbing in its lack of
ral result of remembering.
r as remember - 1o analyze
onfront the audience with
n number of recent films
have succeeded in creating fertile discomfort through the use of dark humor, from
Michael Verhoeven's The Nasty Girl and My Mother's Courøgeto such controversial
"comedies" as Genghis Cohn. Others, such as Tiain of Lrfr, Lrf, Is Beautiful" and
Jakob the Liar, use humor as a balm and buffer, with comic heroes whose ruses are
tantamount to resrstance.
The Nasty Girl (Das Schreckliche Madchen, 1990) is based on the real experiences
of Anja Rosmus, born in 1960 in the Bavarian town of Passau. She won the Scholl
Prize, an annual award in honor of Hans and Sophie Scholl - martyrs of the resistance
movement about which Verhoeven earlier made The White Rose - for her work as
a historian unearthing the Nazi past of her hometown. On the night of the awards,
she was seated at the same table as Verhoeven; within two years, he had directed a
fictionalized version ofher stor¡ starring Lena Stolze (who played Sophie Scholl in
borh The'Nhite Rose and Percy Adlon's The Last Five Days!). The Nasty Girlwon the
prize for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival - and the New York Film Critics
Award for Best Foreign Fitm - not simply because of the compelling story or the
fine acting, but for the ironic style with which Verhoeven chose to tell it. Muyb.
the distancing devices of Brechtian self-consciousness are necessary, given that the
originai town of Passau was where Eichmann married, where Himmler grew up, and
where Hitler lived for a while as a boy.
Sonja (Stolze) tells her story to a German TV creq chronicling her evolution
from a bright twelve-year-old daughter of two teachers, to a troublemaker in her
town of Pfilzig because she wants to write an essa¡ "My Hometown during the Third
Reich." She at first thinks it will be about the resistance of the church, but her research
shows the opposite, and alienates her from the hypocritical Bavarian townspeople.
In the black-and-white past, she first kisses her teacher Matin (Robert Giggenbach)
under a tree. He returns two years later (in color) and they soon marry. Sonja has
already won an essay contest, leading to prestige and a trip to Paris, and now wants to
write a new essay. But the older peopìe simply don't want to talk to her about the Nazi
past. She sues the town to get access to files, but even after she wins, the head of the
"coincidental" adds an ironic touch'
all resemblance to real people"or events being
..pi" Nibelungen" is equally ironic, given the discrepf:; R p.intea quotatio; fr-r,
about warriors. (4) Lena
àí.y U.*..r, ihe opening beer guzzlers and the Norse sagas
rgh above the street (as she will symsPeaks not from the end Point ofthe
chael Verhoeven, " I wanted to show
T
I
I
I
) Graffrti are being washed offa building'
1945? where are you now?" as organ
before
but we can still read "where were you
music rises and the credits unfold'
WhenSophieaddressestheaudienceandshowsslides,theydonotworkright,
of technology
interrupting her. we are thus made aware of the presence
s style often
f orriUiiit¡ i"frich Verhoeven
åt tfr. U.gin.ting, she then talks directþ
- including
tuking place. This is heighteîed by the sÀ
levels on which storltelling
as a
disruptive
narration
the many
ation
-
is
color' and
the
placing
back-projection,
uses
Verhoeven
firru[i ìo a bright p"l.ã.. Moreover,
"points up
this
remarked,
Wilson
David
As
image.
actors before a þreviously frlmed
forgetting."2
the artifice with which the town has åmouflaged its
Inoneofthefilm'smoststrikingscenes'thefamilyseatedintheirlivingroom
seemstobemovinghorizontallythroughthebustlingbutoblivioustown,asifthe
over the marketplace.) The
walls had disappeaiedl (The set was mãving on a track
"I wanted
director acknowledged that his style was intentionally antirealistic:
some
'reality."'
whereas
not
is
showing
I'm
what
that
the audience to be reminded
devices' David Denby was
viewers might be irritated by the obtrusiveness of these
effect'forces us to
right to point out that "sucú use ofthe anti-realistic'alienation
see
deceit."3
the material as a parable of German defensiveness and
appreciate the potencan
one
doctor,
medical
a
as
Given verhoevens training
tially "theraPeutic" effects
metaphor likening the dan
nored pops uP somewhere
to behave - "Resistance is very un-Germ
clever and gutsY rej
magazine,"ittakes
,L
Arcl but she's
really
e
d ín Time
Ïl::l:l
mYsterY'
218
wðrld war
nts' which are an important
country'
t
Anja Rosmus went on to complete a master's degree in sociology, German litera_
ture, and art. Her 1993 book, wíntergreen: suppressed Murderers,was a real dismem_
berment of the Bavarian past. As the washington poslreported in 1993:..Rosmus
wields history like an ax. The storybook town of passau. . . is chopped to flinders.
Behind the town's white-washed facade she reveals aplacewhere eviithrived, where
hundreds of foreign children died in labor camps and orphanages,. . . where at least
1,700 prisoners of war were massacred in the closing days of
279
The lronic Touch
Third Edition Update
more European, German way
part ofthe history ofmy
in present-day tserlrn - to show
ons the frlm opens and closes
told from a modern German
PersPectlve.
characters who
Tabori's story a train frlled with
Indeed, verhoeven added to
ortray the
in
j
resemble frgures
German bourgeois
II.,'s
verhoeven continued to give cinematic life to wartime Germany and its legacy in
My Mother's courage ( 1996), the fictional reconstruction of a true story abóut the
deportation of a Hungarian-lewish woman. Together with The white Rose anò. The
Nasty GirI, it can be considered the third part of his trilogy confronting wartime
guilt
as well as postwar amnesia. Based on George Tabori's pla¡ first staged in
197g, the film
takes place during one summer day in 1944: EIsa tbori (pauline collins), a cheerful
Hungarian-lewish woman, is suddenly arrested and set on a path to Auschwitz.
using touches of rather black humor, My Mother's courage fulfills its title when
Elsa boldly convinces the supervising ss officer that she has a Red cross pass.
Miraculousl¡ she returns to Budapest in the train compartment of this officer, a vegetarian
who sees no irony in telling her he cannot stand the idea of a creature being hacked
to death.
ir'.*
rr,,,, t
ltand
Grosz
ned bY
unmasked
,i:åi;industry,
of the'the
r
vIPs took
military
gi-,ett the relativeiy slight-German
Nazis forceful initiative of the Hungarian
blacktrain
Hungarywas simply a Hun garianaffatr'The
industry
.n..""nå appalling participation of German
and criminal doctors'"
a title that Elsa Tabori's storr -_wfile
verhoeven makes it clear with
500'000
Occupation'
German
the
before
i" ff"ngary
aqpical: out of 760,000 itï'
were killed.
true
rs
MyMother'sCouragewasreleasedinNewYorkatthesametimeasAself-MadeHero'
With an acutely ironic and distancin g gaze,Verhoeven leads the viewer to reflect
on how history is represented. The multiple openings of My Mother,s courage are as
intricate as those of The Nasty Girl: onvideo, a German man denies that he ever took
part in the deportation of Hungarian fews (he will later appear as the SS officer);
George Tabori greets the audience with a smile, and his voice-over narration begins;
images of Germany's famed Babelsberg studio are accompanied by another male
voice - which turns out to be that of Josef Goebbels in a newsreel; and on the set
of
the film, Täbori's eightieth birthday is celebrated by cast and crew.
Lest a filmmaker himself feel guilty for reproducing or "using" the Holocaust to
make a fiction film, this self-conscious layering provides a frame and a reminder
that what is inside the frame is fabricated. "we have no right to assert that this is
Jacques
Audiard's
attest not onlY to
audiences, but to a historic
collabo
Nazis'Final Solution to French
the¡ovel by lean-François
Henry)
Le
(with
Alain
hand. In Audiard's u¿upi*ion
in World
the cirance to be a hero earlv
Deniau, Atbert (M"thiå'K;;;;;Ë;i""d
fabricating
others'
tf" i"" he appropriates-the true stories ofthe trust of those in
War II. At the end
äün:i-*,rte
"f
tntït"tft Resistance' He earns
new identity u' u t"t*Ut' ãf
rank of Lieutenant Colonel'
power and is promoted to the
a
Audiardoffersawryviewofjusthoweasyitwastornventapastintheconfusion
was
..This *"' *i*irre grear lie that gave birth to my generatron
of Ig44_1g45.
Festival'
Film
Tþlluride
resis"ter," h. ,uid aithe 1996
built up, num.ly F."rr..-u, u *u,
reconstruct lts
reality," said verhoeven during an intervieq "preciselybecause it is a true story. No, it
only a reflection. The dimensions of this horror, of this truth, are so unimaginable
that I could never'really' reproduce them. This is why I make it clear that it is a film,
ofzealous
Self-
"This is a countrythai"ntt n"t tt"rs
g""t lre.i.A
identity and its virtue "î"ì"ã "
is
'performance."'6
My Mother's courage - which won both the Bavarian Film prize in Germany
and a special award from the Jerusalem Film Festival contains visual allusions to
movies from chaplin's The Great Dictator to claude Lanzmann's shoah. verhoeven
thus acknowledges that his film is part of a now established international genre ..the
Holocaust film" - and that there are dangers inherent in a form like the ..dócudrama,',
which purports to re-create history. "cinema can only approximate reality,,' he
a
tradition that
U.gut;th M*ttî Opn"t't
Thi Sorrow
s
to
cinematic
an
:,1i:un
: it consists
of frlms
had more to
und ultiÁately expos-e how^victims:lÌ1i::
than from German ott"pllll-'
ø". a"* French denunciation or arrest
into the
Aubrac'probes even mo-re ¡alnfullf
Claude Berri's rsôi ;ouit' Lucie
Aubrøc
Lucie
-based'
But
heroes by one of'tn.i. own.
betrayal of French R.rirturr..
with
combined
braverv
woman's
líkelvly Mother's C";;;'"';;in: "": 'to.1o1o"t
"oldor
"melodramatic"
critics because of its
luck- was qrrestioned i'y some French
iu,r.,ti.,g nlmmakers - even after movies
fashioned,, f".*. whit.tw;;ä*;ïi*ti'
from France tttut
insisted.
t"pfott
rangingfromF,ut'çoi'Truffaut'sLastMetrololouisMalle'sGoodbye'Children-the
seems to lie in its irony'
*,t noropt*-"fp-t"*t' in the 1990s
firsthand' he
these directors k¡ew the period
Audiard *uirrtuirrJithut'*h...",
nor a reconmovie
Hero ís "neither a nostalgic
did not. co.rr.qrr..rif-e'iri¡ ¡r1r¿,
Gulf War'
the
was
film
do this
originality of
The more perfectly cinema is able to imitate realit¡ the more questionable I find it
particularly with this subject. I would rarher use drastic changes of sryle including
slapstick - and homage to films, so we all L-now, "this is cinema." while I admire the
intentions and effect of films such as schindler's List,I have to find my own way a
-
made me want to
struction. The decisiá evení that
-
J
Third Edition Update
and the manipulation of images around it." Like My Mother's Courage, A Self-Made
Hsro includes an eye-winking outer frame that distances the viewer: an older Albert
(|ean-Louis Trintignant) recounts the tale to the camera, and we see musicians playing. Subsequent shots ofthe orchestra self-consciously reveal that they are performing
thã soundtrack of the movie! Audiard thus fulfills an adage of fean-Luc Godard, "The
only reality in a film is the reality of its own making."
A related
-
but far more disturbing
-
cinematic image of French wartime behavior
can be found ín Dr. Petiot (1990), based on one of the most bizarre criminal cases of
the tr,ventieth century. Born in 1897, Dr. Marcel Petiot was both a kindly physician
iller, a member of the Resistance
and a psychopath,
a
D
elected mayor of his vi
t for his extreme behavior, he was
and Gestapo pawn.
in
scandals related to fraud, minor
school, he was frequently involved
robber¡ and patients who died after treatment.
He moved to Paris where, in the early 1940s, he helped Iews who were fleeing to
more hospitabie countries. But, as Christian de Chalonge's re-creation reveals, Petiot
(brilliantly piayed by Michel Serrault) created his own crematorium in his basement
furnace. Albeit on a small scale, and with no attempt at ideological justification, he
was also killing Jews.
Petiot was arrested by the Gestapo, tortured, and imprisoned for eight months
alongside Resistance members. He absorbed the sentiments of the resisters, and upon
his release in lanuary 1944, assumed a new identity. He so convincinglybecame a
patriotic leader that he was given the post of Captain of the First Regiment. His
mission? To find and interrogate collaborators - including a certain Dr. Petiot. At
his trial, Resistance heroes came forward to testiflz to his courage and dignity' Petiot
wrote a book in prison - Love Conquered - copies of which he autographed during
his trial.
From this material, de Chalonge spent six years developing Dr. Petiotwith coscreenwriter Dominique Garnier and Serrault (best known for his hilarious performance in Lø Cage aux Folles) . They structured the script in three parts - a day and
night in 1942, twenty-four hours in 1943, and three days in 1944 - using a heightened
poetic style that recalls German Expressionism. The film opens with newsreels of the
Paris Exhibition that teaches how to identifr iews. Together with the doctor, we are in
a movie theater, and then a German vampire fiim begins. Petiot stands up so that his
shadow on the right balances that of the Dracula figure on the left. By paying homage
to Nosferatu, Murnau's classic vampire frlm, de Chalonge achieves two effects: he
self-consciously reminds us that we too are watching a film (as will be the case lvhen
Petiot is discovered in a movie theater, symmetricall¡ at the end), and he sets up a
man whose darker identity emerges at
parallel between the v
wanted the whole first part to have an
night. As the director
with a gradual increase in color, leading
atmosphere of nightm
up to an explosion of blue, white and red at the liberation of Paris. We're here to
amplify fact through poetic transposition. Surreal expressionism reveals more truth
than direct recital of fact."
Michel Serrault
as
Dr. Petiot. PHoro couRrËsY
oF ÀRIES FIL\ls
282
The lronic
Third Edition Update
While seemingly loved by his patients, wife, and son, Petiot is a strange and
brusque doctor, listening via secret microphones to patients talking in the waiting room, or diagnosing without a full examination. He appears to be a generous,
risk-taking Resistance hero who helps Jews to be smuggled across the border. But
after he vaccinates his patient Nathan - who thinks he is headed for Argentina Nathan's trip is merely to the doctor's furnace. (The filmmakers actually met people
who knew Petiot: some said, "He saved my life"; others claimed that members of
their family were his victims.) Petiot is quite manic, throwing hidden money in the
air, driving his bicycle and cart at night - looking like a bat - and working for the
French Gestapo. Although clearly not a Nazi, he destroys mainly Jews; at the same
time, he is kind to a sick little girl and refuses to take money from her parents.
A fire in his "crematorium" leads police to discover the corpses. Petiot escapes
and, by 1944, has adopted the name of Dr. Valery and is working for the Resistance.
He writes a letter to the press, which is published in the newspapers, leading to his
arrest. End credits tell us that he was guillotined in May 1946. His last words, "I'm
a voyagen who takes his baggage with him," leaves the mystery of his motivation at
the heart of the film - not unlike Iago's refusal to speak at the end of Othello. A truly
self-made hero, Dr. Petiot remains a disturbing enigma.
The coexistence in one man of demonic power, manic humo¡ and paradoxical
congeniality links Dr. Petiot with the character of Adolf Hitler devised by Armin
Mueller-Stahl for his film Conversation with the Beast (1996). Directed by the
renowned German actor from a script he cowrote with American screenwriter
Tom Abrams, this English-language black comedy posits that Hitler did not die
in 1945. Rather, as played by Mueller-Stahl in his directorial debut, he lives on: the
vain, capricious old codger is now a hundred and three years old but looks seventF
(a pactwiththe devil?). Webster (Bob Balaban), anAmerican ]ewishhistorian, arrives
from the U.S.A. to ascertain if this is really Hitler o6 more likel¡ Andreas Kronstaedt,
an actor who impersonated him.
He is greeted by Hitler's beautiful wife, Hortense (Katharina Bohm), supposedly
decades younger. Hitler tells him that Goebbels had
engaged six doubles - one for each day of the week besides Sundays - to impersonate
him for purposes of security and public appearances! And he insists that it was
Andreas who killed himself in the Führer's place because he was playing him on that
day ofthe weekl Flashbacks in black-and-white include an outrageous wedding party
after the war: all the doubles are in attendance and get into a childish fight. We also see
how Hitler tried to tell others that he was the real thing, but was never taken seriouslynot by the West, nor by the East, neither by the Americans nor by the Russians.
Webster believes he has found proof that this is Hitler after tracking down (in
Paris) a sixty-eight-year-old deaf-mute who is allegedly Hitler's son. On the tenth
day of the interviews, Webster decides to kill Hitler, who seems indeed to be yearning
in vain for death. Although Webster has a hard time summoning the nerve, he
.We
never see if he really dies. But, as Hitler had
flnally shoots Hitler in the heart.
said earlier: "if you kill one person, they put you in jail. Kill fifty million, and you
are immortal." (At a Washington Iewish Film Festival panel on December 8, 1986,
Mueller-Stahl acknowledged that the script began with this sentence.) The film thus
raises provocative questions: could Hitler still be alive? or merely his spirit? If this is
in her sixties but looking four
Touch
2tl¡l
would one have to
Hitler, can one have sympathy for the character? If he were alive,
kill him because justice is too slow?
quotes Chaplin: there are
Líke My Mother,s Cou,age, Conversation with theBeasf
To Be or Not to Bewhen doubles
references to The Greøt Diciator, and to Lubitsch s
words:
recite Hamlet's speech at the wedding' In Mueller-Stahl's
IfyouwatchBrecht'sArturo(JiorlubitschorChaplin,Hitlerisfunny.Wlneedour
III,
the character. we have al. the other "beasts" on frlm - Richard
distance to cteate
Napoleon,Frankenstein_butwealwaystlytoavoidthisbeast.Iwatchedhisspeeches:
ridiculously overdone'
if you turn offthe sound and take away the audience, it's so
seems
Having excelled at playing lews or men marked by war' Mueller-Stahl
has been
he
category'
former
the
In
Hitler'
t""y
like the päf.., actor-directo,lo
.n"*o.u^bl.i., AvøIon,shine,atdlnthePresenceofMíneEnemies;inthelattercapacit¡
in Axel corti's God
was the Archduke Ferdinand in colonel RedI, t}re deserter
he
Doesn,t Believe
and the Polish rescuer who lusts after the Jewish
role as Jessica Lange's
woman in his care in Aígry Harvest.And who can forget his
costa-Gavras's drama
father in The Music Boß. ít *u, pr..ir"ly when he was making
in us Anymore,
world war II that
about the discovery of his character's criminal behavior during
began writing his directorial debut'
Fulford wrote persuasively
Even before seeing conversatíon with the Beøst,Robert
on frlm the calamity
ínfhe Toronto Gtobeif n.,gusf2l,I996'." tueller-Stahl embodies
guilt-of the whole German
of central Europe in this lentury. He carries the pain and
history on his narrow
world behind his china-blue eyes, the burden of a monstrous
25yeats eloquently represents
shoulders. The leading German frlm actor of the past
a culture drenched in guilt and regret'"
In Washington,
Mueller-Stahl's approach is as ãurious as it is thought-provoking,
he elaborated vpon Conversation with the Beast:
he
but a monster. What is Hitler without power? A sill¡
It was Hitler's wish to become either a painter or
óthers.
to
hurt
childish man trying
Hitler wasn t
a human being
anactor.Unfortunatel¡hebecameapolitician.Iwouldhavepreferredthathebean
actor.IwastryingtoshoottheideaofHitler,atleast_inadesperateattempttoget
there'
rid of Hitler. Of course you can t get rid of him' He'll always be
GhostlycontinuityisalsoathemeinthewickedlyfunnyGenghß.Cghn.whereHitler
isinvokedduringthecreditsequenceasapupPetinthehandsofaJewishcomedian.
in 1993 for the BBC'
Directed by Elijah Moshinsþ (a director of numerous operas)
cohn, a novel by
Genghß
price
of
is adapted from The Dance
the script úy sianley
LindsaY), the Police chief
Cohn (AntonY Sher), the
ile investigating a series of
surely turns Schatz into
but
slowly
ic, who
choppedJiver-lovingJew.Ashisbehaviorbecomesincreasingly
,., tti, ;oU, not to mention his identity' By the end' Genghis Cohn
stor¡
ás
we see how the ghost of Cohn takes over the increasingly
receptive Schatz.
C o ur age,Moshinsky
Much like Verhoeven in both The N asty Girl a¡d My Mother,s
treatment
effectivelysardonic
forhis
us
juxtaposes five different openings thatprepare
284
The lronic louch
Third Edition Update
of serious themes. As we hear "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen," Cohn performs on a Berlin
stage in 1933: his Hitler puppet with a Yiddish accent not only reduces the Führer
to fewish "shtick" but foreshadows two later scenes of Schatz's deterioration. The
themes of spectacle and identity transfer are developed in the second scene, with
Cohn's routine as a rabbi on a 1936 vienna stage. under his costume is another that
of a Nazi with a swastika. As in the first ventriloquism scene, Genghis Cohnseems to
ask, who is in control here? with images of both the |ew and Hitlei sharing rhe same
comedian's bod¡ the film lays the ground for the introduction of Schatz.
In the third scene, the tone changes: from the upbeat yiddish tune and brightly lit
stages, we move to a dark and silent nightclub. This is 1939 warsaw, and the camera
is behind cohn onstage as he says, "I frnally died in. . ." cut to the comedian in a
concentration camp uniform, getting offa truck. At the Nazi order to shoot, he yells,
"Kich mir in tuches!" (Yiddish for "Kiss my ass") before the machine guns kill him.
The cut to a very different spectacle - a high-angle shot of a swimming pool in which
precision dancers perform-is jarring. we are suddenlyin 1958 Bavaria, where police
chief Schatz is being lauded for maintaining the lowest crime rate in the state.
The Baroness Frieda (Diana Rigg) invites him to her elegant home, where another
spectacle provides uncomfortable humor: when he opens her dead husband's closet,
bright lights around an SS uniform express schatz's awe. As he dons the boots of
this Nazi war hero, triumphant trumpets sound. Encouraged by Frieda to try on the
uniform - and to ravish her - he is abruptly stopped by. . . cohn in the mirror! He
runs out into the street, still wearing the SS uniform - fly open and looking like the
Hitler dummy of the opening scene.
The second sighting of Cohn is equally ambiguous, as Schatz glimpses him
through the glass of his goldfish bowl. A¡d even the third time
in Schatz's glasses - the visual distortions su
-
cohn reflected
not "really',
there. But when Cohn says, "ever since that
'- referring
to when Schatz ordered his death in Dachau
to stay. And
Schatz's investigation of a serial killer who attacks during orgasm leads him to tell his
men, "People are too scared to shtup" (Yiddish slang for intercourse), without cohn
even being visible.
These scenes might be merely amusing were it not for the exploration of guilt,
redemption, and identity transfer that Genghis cohn offers. This is, afrer all, a
Bavarian town like that of Th e Nasty Girl:beneath the bucolic surface are killers not
simply the serial murderer but an ex-Nazi "mass murderer" who escaped proseculion for war crimes. schatz conjures up cohn precisely when donning an SS uniform.
while the ghost initially frightens him, Schatz grows quite affectionate with his new
:ompanion. He becomes so fond of Jewish delicacies that when Frieda visits him, he
;erves chopped liver, and utters the Yiddish toast, "Lchaim." By the time cohn takes
him to a synagogue to say Kaddish (the prayer for the dead), the Hebrew words seem
;o emerge from Schatz unprompted. If the words were within him to begin with, has
Sohn led him to repentance?
After being glimpsed in the Jewish house of worship, Schatz is deemed unbalrnced, and he is forced to be examined by a female psychiatrist. Although she cannot
;ee Cohn, the audience is hilariously aware that he is "pulling the strings,', making
lchatz into the "Hitler dummy" of the fllm's opening scene. And by the time schatz
;ings "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" for heç we know he won't be police chief for long. His
including a Jewish star painted in red on the wall - and Schatz
aPPears in a new
.na,,rp running a kosher foãd stand. C
'
ghost in his home'
.rr".rs fif.. fruger, who shot him in Dach
e Cohn s presence'
They go to Scñatz's stand: the former polir
(presumably by neo-Nazis), he
Urrt .Jrr.rot see him. When Schatz is then beaten up
the very Person he tried to
s"ys, "ri.h mir in tuches," having - in a sense - become
house is destroyed
-
n walking on a busy street in the Present
earing his concentration camp uniform'
shocked' His voice-over ruminates' "It's
front of Burberry's fashionable window
..It couldnt happen again, could it?" without answering these questions, the fi'lm
termed Jewish' Given
works with and because of a resilient irony that could be
-
-
your yellow
"we've heard enough of
schatz,s earlier dismissal addressed to cohn,
appropriate to 1993 than to
stars, ovens - it,s all becoming a cliché" (a line more
|958),GenghisCohnpresents=anewtakeontheHolocaust,withapsychological
with the Beast suggests that the
revenge thai is both sweet and bit ter.If Conversation
that the fewish spirit
world"can never get rid of Hitler, Moshinsþ's frlm demonstrates
cannot be killed either.
TheveryfactthatGenghisCohnbeginsinaself-consciousandstylizedmanner
can be taken at face value'
renders the film a cineåatic cartooriin which nothing
ThisnarrativeframingiscomparabletotvvosubsequentñImsofthelgg0sthatposit
antidote to Nazi dehumanization. To differing ðegrees, Trøin
.Jewish resiliency as an
(La vita è beua, Iraly, |997)
of Life (Train de yie' France' 1 99 8 ) anð' Life Is Beautiful
(Roberto
,í....¿ in using humor as a weapon, botir within and beyond the stories. devices
dista-ncing
with
Benigni's oscai-winning internaiional success also opens
Train of
which?nsure that we do not take scenes as "reality'') But
,rr.h"", slapstick,
Life
-
ðir ectedbY
Romanian-born
effective had it begun with a great
Shlomo (Lionel Abelanski) narrates a
incredible things happen' In
real, therebybegging our suspension of disbelief when
take his advice: they
the face of imminent deportåtion, ingenious |ewish neighbors
(really
Mordechai the
"Nazi"
general
build their own train, make costumei for the
Woodworker,playedbyFrenchactorRufus)aswellastheGermansoldierstheywill
real Nazis arrive, they are
impe.ro.rut.. Àtfroogú ,n.y manage to disappear before the
who want to blow
members
C..*""i but by ttre Resistance
not only byth.
a German roadblock up their "..r.*y'; train. Least pla
wise rabbi (Clement
d'
which turns out to comPriseòof
freedom in Russia'
ach
Harari) takes the Gypsiås along in the t
from behind
narrating
is
Shlomo
Only in the last shoi of the fili do we see that
-åu..d,
barbed wire, in a concentratron camP uniform'
Theatre, said that
Mihaileanu, who was once u *.Åb.. of the Bucharest Yiddish
seeingschindler,sListhadagreateffectonhim:"ontheonehand,Iwasverymoved
feel that we can no longer
by it,'; the press kit recalls. 'Rt ttre same time, I began to
in the context of tears and
solely
wa¡
keep telling the story of the Shoah in the same
subject' I wanted to telì
the
not
but
horror. . . . My theorywas to change the language
286
The lronic Ïouch
Third Edition Update
the tragedy through the most |ewish language there is - the tradition of bittersweet
comedy. It was a desire to go beyond the Shoah - not to deny or forget the dead, but
to re-create their lives in a new and vivid way''
The Klezmer-inspired score by Goran Bregovic succeeds in capturing the prewar
vitality of shtetl life, and kain of Life (which won the Audience Award at the 1999
Sundance Film Festival) is clearþ sympathetic to the Jewish characters. It is most
effective when Mordechai - having assumed the identity of a Nazi - takes his role
as general too seriously. But the frlm is marred by caricatures like Yossi (Michel
Muller), who goes from being the rabbi's assistant (and a "mama's boy") to a pedantic
Communist.
The script for Train of Lifewas allegedly sent to Roberto Benigni, who was offered the
role of Shlomo. But even if it inspired asp ects of Life Is Beautiful,the results of the two
frlms are exceedinglydifferent. Life Is Beautifulisnot,strictlyspeaking, a movie about
the Holocaust. Winner of the Grand JuryPrizeat the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, and
the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film as well as for Best Actor, Benignit fable is
about love, and the extremes to which a brave and clever fellow will go for amore.But
because the second half of the film takes place in an unnamed concentration camp
during World War II - after a very funny first half - it provoked controversy.
During the frrst hour, Guido (played by Benigni), an Italian lew living in 1939,
will do an¡hing to be near the beautiful schoolteacher, Dora (Nicoletta Braschi),
including taking risks and braving ridicule. Midway through the frlm - coscripted
by Benigni and Vicenzo Cerami - they are happily married, but the Holocaust has
reached Tuscany: our comic hero and his son, Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini), are taken
to a concentration camp, where Guido will do an¡hing to protect his child. This
includes a "fantastical" element: when a German soldier asks for a translator, Guido
comes forward (even though he doesn t speak German). As the Nazi barks orders
and instills fear, Guido farcically translates the orders into a game so that his son will
not be frightened.
Indeed, from the very beginning, Benigni is careful to establish that his film is a
fairy tale rather than realism. The voice-over narration introduces a "fable," and the
slapstick of the first hour is obviously movie magic. We meet Guido in a car whose
brakes fail as he approaches a crowd waiting for Fascist ofÊcials: his raised arm to
warn them about the brakes is misunderstood, as they respond with the Fascist salute!
His clownish personality proceeds to render Life Is Beautiful a comedy. Politics are
reduced to jokes in the first half, as when Guido asks a man about his political beliefs then retracts the question upon hearing that the guy named his children Benito and
Adolfo. Similarly, he impersonates a Fascist minister at a school: considering the
scrawny and buffoonish body Guido reveals as he strips to his underwear, his speech
about his "Aryan" body parts is hilarious.
The hints of political danger remain in the background. Being Iewish, Guidot
Uncle Eliseo (Giustino Durano) is roughed up by "barbarians," to which he elegantly
replies, "Silence is the most powerful cry." At the engagement party of Dora and
Guido's wealthy nemesis - where Guido is a waiter - black shirts are visible, and the
word "|ewish' is painted on Eliseo's horse. To the horror of Dora's mother (Marisa
Paredes), the beautiful young fiancée jumps onto the horse with Guido and rides off.
Arr ellipsis brings us to wartime ltaly: Dora and Guido have a son, who is confused by
concentration camp into a game to
Guido (Roberto Benigni) turns the a¡rival at an unnamed
PHoTo:
Protect his son (Giorgio Cantarini).
RESERVED.
RIGHTS
sERGlo sTRlzzl. coURTESY oF MIRAMAX FILMS. ALL
288
The lronic Touch
Third Edition Update
of all time in the United States (since surpas
Life Is Beautiful could be seen in English
muted: for example, while carrying his sleeping bo¡ Guido approaches an indistinct
pile of corpses in the fog. Since the skeletal bodies are clearþ painted, the image is
blatantly unreal, reminding us that we are watching a stylized representation rather
Among other
Jonathan Nichols as Guido)'
introduction to the Holocaust for childre
than "reality."
English removes the film even furth
Numerous critics chafed at the
Nevertheless, the character of Lessing (Horst Bucholz), a Nazi physician, seems all
too accurate. This dapper doctor is introduced in the Grand Hotel, where Guido is his
crowd pleaser. Thane Rosenbaum' for
23, l9g8,"Life Is Beøutiful maY be Yet
exploiting the images and symbols of
favorite waiter because they share a passion for riddles. ("Once I say your name, you
disappear" turns out to be "Silence.") When he is dispatched to Berlin, he says Guido
is the most "ingenious" waiter, and Guido calls him the most "cultured" customer.
This will be turned on its head a few years later, when Lessing is assigned as doctor
in the very camp where our hero is imprisoned. He gets Guido a position as a waiter
for the Nazis. But just as he (and we) think the physician will tell him how to escape,
the "cultured" Lessing merely obsesses about a riddle. His inability to see things in
balance suggests the myopia that allowed educated Germans to become Nazi doctors.
Guido is finally shot, off-screen, but Giosue has learned well from his father how
to hide. When the camp is liberated, he is rescued by an American, rides in a tank
(which is what Guido had promised as the prize in their elaborate game), finds Dora,
and yells, "\Me won!" She assumes this refers to the war, but he means the game,
culminating in the tank. (For cynics who attacked the film, it also presciently refers
to the Oscars that would follow.)
Benigni is not the first filmmaker to juxtapose humor and Holocaust horro¡ nor
the first to elicit controversy. Already in The Great Dictator (1940),Lubitscht To Be or
Notto Be(1942), and LinaWertmüller's SeyenBeauties(1975), black comedywas used
as a weapon against Nazism as well as indifference. Chaplin played two parts - the
ranting Nazi and the victimized fewish barber - giving Hitler, Mussolini, and other
mad megalomaniacs a comic kick. Benigni told me during an interview in Cannes
that The Great Dictator was his great inspiration, and that the number on Guido's
camp uniform is the same one that Chaplin's barber wore. As in To Be or Not to Be,
þing - or improvisation - becomes the means to survival. For example, when Giosue
accidentally blurts out " grazie" (thank you in Italian) among the German children
being served in the camp, Guido quickly teaches all the kids to say the word grazie
out loud. As in Seven Beauties-whichwas shot by the renowned cinematographer of
Life Is Beautiful Tonino delli Colli - the Italian protagonist is a clever clown: the very
ingenuity that Guido employed to win Dora is what keeps his son alive in the camp.
Life Is Beautifulbegan as a motion picture and turned into a phenomenon for two
main reasons: the aggressive marketing campaign of Miramax, its American distributor; and the criticism it provoked from some intelligent critics. As with Schindler's
List a few years earlier, commercial success and a string of major awards rendered
Benigni's effort suspect among intellectuals. Its multiple Oscar nominations coincided, uncoincidentall¡ with the nominations accumulated by Shakespeøre in Love,
also a Miramax release. When the latter won Best Film (over Saving Private þan) as well as Best Actress for Gwyneth Paltrow - it was clear that Miramax's massive
advertising campaign had paid off. To see Paltrow and Benigni (the frrst actor since
Sophia Loren in Two Womento win the Oscar in a foreign-language film) "crowned"
together indicated marketing muscle.
The phenomenon grew when Miramax decided to create and release a dubbed
version of Life Is Beautiful in 1999. After becoming the most successful foreign film
289
depends on atrocity for e
about death, and, in their aftermath' me
(p' 1
used as a soundstage for slapstick'
the Mayor's Prize althe Jerusalem Film
..iltrrr. that
Theodor Adorno, "No PoetrY after Au
an
memoirs from the survivors tltemselves
out of the ashes of Auschwitz, and to atte
His moral outrage was matched by that
February
importan
Allowed"
about the reality of racial laws and Nazi
"survivors" at the end of the film are Do
Iewish.
in Cinema:
Hoberman, speaking at "The Holocaust
of the Ci
Center
sentation'- a confãrence át the Graduate
inappr
and
"narcissistic"
l99g called the film
J.
in March
-
frame of reference.
Liþ Is Beøutiful, however, is not set
Frei" sign. The Nazis created a sPectrum
extermination. Benigni's father, for exam
exterminatio
that was not designed for
ii" Albania when Italy stopped fighting' So when Germans
(non-Jewish) futn", *ut
i"ttt*ltbotgen' a camp that had no
found Italian soldiers, they brought them to
gas chambers or crematoria'".
'
stories at night of the camP:
Life Is Beautiful was also
with Milan s Center for Contemporary
about this era, when eight thousand It
.4"
(if un
turned out to be strfüngly similar
(NewYork) of March 26,l999,anat
ered archival records of the American
The lronic
Third Edition Update
the story of )oseph Schleifstein." Born in 1941, |oseph was sent with his parents to
Buchenwald inL943: "In the general confusion of lining up . . . )oseph's father found
a large sack and, with a stern warning to keep absolutely quiet, placed his 2ll2-yearold child in it. . . . foseph remained in Buchenwald - hidden from the Nazis with the
help of his father and two German anti-fascists - until the camp was liberated by
the U.S. Army on April 12, 1945, according to the fiIe." (|oseph was subsequently
reunited with his motler, who survived Bergen-Belsen.)
Thewhereabouts ofloseph Schleifstein were unknown when the article appeared.
One month later, the headline on the cover of the April 23, Lggg, issue was, "Life Is
BeautifuI Child Breaks 50-Year Silence." Schleifstein had been located for an interview
by The Jewßh Weelç and recalled details of Buchenwald more incredible than what
Benigni devised. According to the article, he was "initially hidden by his father. But
eventuall¡ he said, the Nazi guards learned of his presence and used him to take
roll call in the morning. 'I remember saluting them,'he said. 'I became the Germans'
mascot and would sa¡ "AIl prisoners accounted for." . . . I guess they didn t feel a need
to kill me.'. . . But when there were formal inspections by visiting Nazi officials, he
said he was hidden." A-fter the war, schleifstein kept his wartime experiences a secret
from his two children: "'The perception of people who went through the Holocaust
was that they were damaged stuff" he explained. 'I didn't want that stigma.' "
This second article by stewart Ain also quoted the book Hitler's Death cømpsby
Konnilyn G. Feig, which mentions not only a boys' choir at Buchenwald, but how
"in the final weeks of the war, a 4-year-old bo¡ Stefan lerzy Zweig, was smuggled
into the camp in his father's rucksack. During inspections, the boy was gagged and
tucked beneath the floorboards. Zweig later immigrated to Israel and in 1964 was an
all-star player on the Israeli national handball team." while stories such as Zweig's and
Schleifstein's are obviously rare among the innumerable Jewish children slaughtered
by the Nazis, they provide a bit of support for defenders of Life Is Beøutiful.
The question at the base of the debate is whether humor can coexist with a
cinematic representation of the Holocaust. (Theatrical representation was given
widespread critical and box-ofÊce approval wh en The Producers a musical comedy
based on Mel Brooks's fi.lm - opened on Broadway in 2001.) A persuasively affirmative answer was ofÊered by the critic Colin MacCabe in the British periodical Sighr
and Soundof. February 1999:
comedy is the genre that celebrates the social. Tiaditionall¡ comedies end witì a
marriage' confirming the power of society to reproduce itself. Tiagedy is the domain
of the individual, traditionally ending with the death of the hero who can t conform
to the demands of the community. Liþ Is Beautiful takes for its subject matter the
Holocaust - the attemPt to build a new social order on the systematic extermination
of an entire race. The horror of the camps defies all genres. In a world where murder
is an instrument of state policy, all notions ofthe individual or the social are negated.
Benignit magnificent frlm attempts the impossible: to make a comedy out of the
Holocaust, to find an affirmation of society in the death of all social relations.
To the extent that humor can heighten our understanding of the human condition, its prohibition in art seems senseless. Black comed¡ for example, has been an antidote to systematic insanityin greatworks ofliterature and film. As Edward Rothstein
wrote in the Nøw YorkTimesof.October 18, 1998 -praisrngLifelsBeautiful-"Humor
louch
most unmay be, in its essence, anti-fascistiq It takes what is most self-important'
it into absurdity. Fascism meets its match
¡eídingandmostunforgiving, anddissolves
i' f"r..l . . . For doesrlt fáscisà itself seem like a form ofhlpnotic enchantment, bindparticularþ
ing a nation to join in its singular horrors?" (There is indeed something
Itiian
dell'arte'
about Bánigni's methõds, reachingbackto the tradition ofcommedia
he survived in a manne¡ ¡emarkably similar to the little
foseph Schleifstein in Buchenw¿ld, where
DISTRIBUTION coMMITTEE
boy n Life Is BeautifuL yuoto couRrESY OF THE AMERIC.{N JEWISH JOINr
ARCHIVES.
292
Third Edition Update
MacCabe alludes to this in calling the actor-director "the supreme European clown
of his generation," while Rothstein reminds us that in the Italian commedia dell'arte,
the buffoon often faces death.)
I
I
The extraordinaryinternational popularity of LifeIs Beautifulmeans that audienceswhich might otherwise not have been aware ofthe Nazi persecution of Italian Jewryembraced an appealing iewish hero who inspires respect rather than merely pity. It
may have smoothed the way for the release of a Hollywood film in September 1999
(one month after the dubbed version of Life Is Beautiful): Jøkob the Liar invited,
inevitable - and often unflattering - comparison with Benignit benignly made fable.
In this remake of the East German film of 1974 - both based on the novel by ]urek
Becker, who died in 1997 - we once again find the improvisational comic skills of a
jewish protagonist used to both save a child and lighten the movie's tone. The lies
of Jakob (Robin Williams, also the executive producer of Jakob the Liør) are not just
for Lina, the little girl he has found and hidden in his room, but for an entire Polish
ghetto in 1944.
This version is directed by Peter Kassovitz, who had been a fewish child in Nazioccupied Budapest. He and his parents survived, and emigrated to France during the
1956 Hungarian Revolution. Although Kassovitz is based in Paris, and the ñlm was
shot in Poland and Hungar¡ Jakob the Liør has a distinctly "Hollywood" tone. fakob
accidentally hears a broadcast about the Russian advance on a German ofÊcert radio.
Then, to stop his friend Kowalski (Bob Balaban) from hanging himself, he claims
to have a radio himself (a crime punishable by death). He tells the young boxer
Misha (Liev Schreiber) the same thing, to stop him from assaulting a German. Word
spreads, and suddenly Iakob is a hero of hope. Only Professor Kirschbaum (Armin
Mueller-Stahl, who appeared in the original German film) is on to him; nevertheless,
he helps preserve the illusion because the suicide rate in the ghetto has dwindled to
zefQ.
Whereas the original lakob, der Lugner questions the protagonist's lies because
they prevent the Jews from organizing and resisting, the American version simplifies
by making his lies the impetus for resistance. And whereas the original Jakob is not
killed onscreen, Williams's character is more like Benignit - shot as a resister because
he refuses to announce that there was no radio. Most problematic is the ending,
reminiscent of the coda in Korczak instead of the freeze-frames on each |ew in the
transport four'din Jakob, der Lugner, the remake literalizes one of Jakob's fantasies rescue by a Russian tank, accompanied byAmerican swing music. This ending invites
a kind of revisionist hope, suggesting that Hollywood is |akob, preferring illusion to
the depiction ofgritty reality.
Like all good fairy tales, these films are symbolic rather than literal, allowing our
imaginations to confront dark forces as well as love. Ultimatel¡ the lies of Iakob and
Guido may be as much for themselves as for the children they are protecting: they
too desperately need to escape Nazi dehumanization by putting on a happy face. The
audience is led to identify, not onlywith the desire to protect a child, but with Jakob
and Guido's ability to enter and sustain a grand illusion - which is, after all, what a
viewer does in a movie theater.
tysfunctiolt as üistortion: Ïhe
[lolocatlst Survivor oll Screen
afld stage
ional survivor is pervasive, long-standing'
deranged Vietnam War veteran onscreen'
pictures. The survivor's damage has been
'::îî:l;äïj,,?iläïî,ililiJ"};"i
In two films
the images were more subtle - and perhaps, therefore, more insidious.
produced
plays
two
as
well
as
releasediuring 1996, Shine and Thi Substance of Fire,
survivors
Holocaust
the
that year in NÀn¡ York - OId Wicked Songs and The Shawlare either tyrannical, suicidal, or mentally unhinged'
Helfgott' and
Shine, fheflustralian drama that recounts the true story of David
a father
pla¡
share
acclaimed
The substønce of Fire,adapted from fon Robin Baitz's
and Isaac
figure who is 'âamaged goods." Peter Helþtt (Armin Mueller-Stahl)
as
dictators
depicted
are
and
Cäldhart (Ron Rifkin) crãate dysfunctional families,
dramatically
b9
may
image
This
unable to really hear what their sons are saying'
true to a
more viable than presenting "normalry" or adaptation - and is perhaps
a
distortion.
ultimately
is
small segment of the survivor population - but
Shiiq ðirected by Scott Ui.kt fro* an original screenplay Uy IT Sardi' is a
child prodigy, to
deeply moving frlm biography, tracing David Helfgott's life from
when David
1980s,
the
earþ
in
begins
institutionalirãd ,..l.rr.]to brilliant pianist. It
stumbles
Actor)
Best
for
Award
(Geoffrey Rush, who won a well-desãrved Academy
sequence'
credit
opening
the
from
into a wine bar on a rainy night. It is apparent
logorrhea with David's profile on the edge of the black screen, that he has a kind of
"oh' that humorously
breathlessly åpeated phrases,-witty fragments followed by an
well from behind his
very
reality
objective
goes do*n fivã notes - and doesn t seã
thick
glasses.
(Mueller-Stahl)
Flãshbacks reveal that he is the son of a Polish-Jewish immigrant
but Peter
competitions,
wins
David
children.
silent wife and four
who tyrannizes his
(NoahTäylor)
won tallowhimto acceptoffersto studyabroad. Byhislateteens, David
and is essentially
defies his father, goes to the Royal college of Music on a scholarship,
Parkes
Professor
by
trained
is
pianist
eccentric
disowned by Peter. In London, our
(sir John Gietgud) and decides to tackle the "Rach 3"
-
Rachmaninoff's toughest
d'ring the applause.
ii"... H..o-fletes the challenge triumphantly, onlyto collap5g
is
the chain-smoking,
he
later,
Years
Àfter the breakdown, he is institutionalized.
314
Notes to Pages
Notes to Pages 217-240
12. Ibid. The novice directors are even more gratified t}rat audiences are sensing connections
between the film and contemporary problems. "Among people who have se et As If It Were
Yesterday at festivals," Abramowicz recalled, "there was one woman from Buenos Aires,
for example. She said, 'This is what is happening with us now in Argentina. We have to
hide our friends, to organize, to falsifr documents.' We hope the fi.lm shows reactions
on a human level, using the Holocaust as a backdrop. lews died because they were fews,
because ofwhat they represented in society. But ultimatel¡ people are beckoned every
da¡ everywhere, for whatever reason, to combat persecution."
13. Pierre Sauvage, "Weapons of the Spirit: Alovney Home," The Hollywood Reporter,March
17,1987, Section
S,
241-278
375
18.|oanDupont,..RomanPolanskiand.Frartic]',NewYorkTimes(ArtsanòLeisure),March The
the títle
p.36. (Le feips du Ghetto ís distributed in the U'S'A' under
27,1988,
Witnesses.)
The Holocaust as Genre
Harper's Magazine' Augttst 1985'
1. Leslie Epstein, "Atrocity and lmagination,"
14
2.
Ibid., p. la.
3.
ä.gírLa Kr"."o
p'
16'
physicalRealiry (New York:
Theory of FiIm: The Redimption of
University Press, 19ó6' P. 305'
er,
oxford
p. 20.
14. Ibid., p. 21.
15. Author's interview with Katherine Smalle¡ fewish Museum, New York, November 13,
16
Rescuers in Fiction Films
and sometimes
grey tones, but never on the keylight side. we used silhouettes,
. ' ' Schindler's Listl' In Camerq
about
talks
"fanusz
Kaminski
In
go
black."
we let h.1¡ ã face
t. l.l*urrt.d
1988.
Summer 1994'P.22-
13
l.
From Judgment to lllumination
2.
This and other quotations are from authort interview with Peter Morle¡ London,
3.
is never mentioned in the frlm that Kitty is lewish. When I asked the director
he replied: "Kitty doesn t particularly identifr herself as being |ewish. I didn't want
to nail it to the bannerhead at the very beginning. I felt this film should be a new way of
perceiving Auschwitz, and there were more non-lews than fews killed. I didn t want this to
be another thing about lews and the Holocaust, but about people who were incarcerated
and incinerated there."
wh¡
3. JohnToland,"CanTVDramasConveytheHorrorsoftheHolocaust?" TVGuide,Febntary
13, t982.
4. This and other Ophuls quotations,
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
as well as quotations from Mme. Solange, Anthony
Eden, and Pierre Mendès-France, are from llAyant-Scène du Cinêma l27ll28 (IulySeptembe¡ 1972): 10, 14, 65.
Jacques SícIier, LaFrance dePëtain et son cinêma (Paris: HenriVeyrier, 1981), p. 251.
rbid.
Author's interview with Marcel Ophuls, Paris, |une 1981.
Terrence Des Pres, "War Crimes," Harper's, fanuary 1977,p.88.
Ophuls was nevertheless adamant when I suggested that the fllm is more illuminating
than judgmental: "There has to be judgment. There's nothing more shitty than the term
'non-judgmental.' What would be the use of trying to communicate the difficulty of
reaching judgment, if the working hlpothesis is that there is no necessity for it?"
This and later quotations are from Des Pres, "War Crimes," p. 89.
Author's interview with Marcel Ophuls, New York, October 2, 1988. All subsequent quotations are taken from either this meeting, a phone interview in Paris on fune I l, 1988, or
tJre New York Film Festival press conference held on October 3, 1988.
fames M. Markham, "Marcel Ophuls on Barbie: Reopening Wounds of War," New York
Times (Atts and Leisure), October 2, 1988, pp. 21, 27 .
A¡nette Insdorf, "Shoah: Testimony More Amazing Than Fiction," Los Angeles Times,
December 31, 1985, pp.7,9. Subsequent quotations are from this interview
Ophuls's rousing assessment of Lanzmanris "deceit" is worth quoting: "I can hardly find
the words to express how much I approve of this procedure, how much I sFmpathize with
it. This is not a matter of means and ends, this is a matter of moral prioritiesÌ' From Marcel
Ophuls, "Closely Watched Tiains," Alrl erican FiIm, November 1985, p. 22.
ls. Ibid., p. 20.
16. Ibid.,p.18.
17. Simone de Beauvoir, "The Memory of Horror," IlExpress, Aprl,28--29, 1985.
l"
quent quotations are
November 1980.
2. Curiousl¡ it
1 989' p' 6 1'
Schindler's Lisr, screenplay by Steven Zalllian' |uly
.Kor., BostonPhoeni, November 15, 1991. Subse..save
the
ihild,
Annette Insdorf,
17
The lronic Touch
from this article'
New York' October 8' 1990'
My unpublished interview with Michael Verhoeven'
p' 24'
Z. pávid Wilso n, Monthly FiIm Bulletin, ]anuary l99l'
p' 97 '
3. David Denb¡ New York Magazin¿, November 5' 1990'
15'
1990'p'
29'
October
4. Richard Corliss, Time Magøzine,
Nazi Pastl' Washington Post' 1993'
5. Rick Atkinson, "Bavaria'sTNasty Girl,' Clawing at the
Awa¡' New York Times (Ans artd
6. Annette Insdorf, "The Moral Minefield That won t Go
Leisure), August 3I' 1997.
1