Projecting The Holocaust Into The Present: The Changing Focus of Contemporary Holocaust Cinema

319 Pages·2005·42.804 MB·English

by  Lawrence Baron

- Projecting the Holocaust
into the Present

Proj ecting the Holocaust
into the Present
The Changing Focus of
Contemporary Holocaust Cinema
Lawrence Baron
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
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Brlmh Library Catalogul11g III Pubhc.mon InformJtioll A\<1llJbi<·
Library of Congress Cataloging_in_llublication Data
IlJron. LlI.\\·~nce.
PTOJl'ctmg the Holocaust 11110 1Ill" pn·~·nt' the chllngmg focus of COIIll"l11porar) 11010-
t.'.lUq cmenJ.1 I Lawn'nn' H.lron.
p. cm.
lnciudcs blbliographiol reference< ,md ",dex.
ISBN 0-7425-4332-3 (dOlh , alk. p.lpn)- ISBN 0-7425-4333-1 (pbk.: ,ilk. p;lpn)
I. Ilolocaust.Jewish (1')39-1 ')45). in motion plc\llres. I. Titk.
I'NI995.9.115JBJ72005
791.43'658-<1c22 200501251')
Printed III the Umted States of AmericlI.
[email protected]"
'C' The paper used 111 tillS publlCJtlOIl meelS the mlllllllUIlI R'<jUllTlllents of
AmeTlcan National Standard for Information Sciellces-Pl'rmallellce of 1'.lper
for I'rintl·d Library Matenals. ANSI/N1SO ZJ9.48-1992.
Contents
vii
1 The Holocaust: A Cinematic Cataclysm? I
Notes 18
2 Picturing the Holocaust in the Past: 1945-1979 23
29
The GI and the OP: '/11(' $r<lrrh
The Decade of the Diary: 'n,(' Dil1ry ofA ,me Pnmk 34
TIl(" Venality of Evil: '!7w Shop 011 Ma;" SIf('{'/ 40
Miniseries, Maxi-lllll);lCI: 1-1(1/,,((111$/ 47
Notes 55
J The Biopic: Personalizing Perpetrators. Victims, and Resisters 65
The Dictator as Director: 'I1rr Emf'IY .\Iir,." 68
The Christian as Manyr: lj,mll~ffl'r: A.\'f'/J1 .if Gm(r 74
The Jew as ManyT: Korrzl,k 78
The Jew as Fugitive: Ellrol"l, EII"'p,/ 84
The Jew as Inmate: 'triumph lif IIII' Spirit 89
Notes 93
4 Condemned Couples: Lovers and Liquidation 103
Pygmalion and Persecution: MlmJIII 11111/ J 107
Mufficd Music: nu' I-ilimumiSIS III
Ostr:lcizing the OUlsider:)!'", Jjuy u'I'i 117
A Doubly Doomed Low: Ai",h· IImIJII.i!IWr 121
Pink Triangles and Yl'llow SIJrs: IXIII 125
Not~·s 129
VI emlle/HS
5 Scrious Humor: Laugillcr as Lamcntation 135
The Nasty Ghoul: GmS/lis C'/m 139
Lies Hi~ Father Told Him: LiJi: Is BCdrrlifrrl 143
Fiddler on the Cmle-Car Roor: -/ralll 4 Uft 149
False I-lope Is Better Tilln No i-Iope:jai..-l)/J 1/11' Uar 154
A Gefilte Fish Out of Water: .\k/ldcl 160
NOl('s 164
6 The Children Arc Watching: Holocaust Films for Youngsters 171
Give Us Your Trau11Iatizl'd, YelTl1ing to Breathe Free:
Alall mill jVaomi 176
Dallcing to a Differ('nt Drulllmer: SWill,\! Kids 178
Alone among the Cannibals: n,l' Islmrd Oil Bird Slrfl.'l 183
Oz-Schwitz: Till' Del.il's Arithmetic 187
Till' Silwr Lining: Mimc/e '1I1\1idll~!!lrr 191
Notes 196
7 Relevant Rell1cl11branccs: Thcmcs in Rcccnt Holocaust Movics 201
Nco-Nazis as Holocaust GllOstS: R,)sl'lIzu'I'({s Frel'dolll 201
Rescuers-From Saints to Sinners: Schi,lIl1cr:, Us, 207
n",
New Lives, Old ArgllllWlltS: Quarrel 215
The Second Generation-Carrying the I'arents' lhgg;age
Lefl Llj,l!!!'t!!1'
Collective Silence Is Not Golden: n,l' 1\"[51)' Girl
Notes 230
8 Projecting the Holocaust into thc Twenty-first Century 239
Humanizing Hitler-The Dictator as a Young Man: Max, Hiller:
-n e Rise 4 El'il, and 11/1' DOW1!f<11I 240
The Soloist: -1111' Pial/ist 243
Doubly Displaced: i\'oll'herc ill Afriw 248
The Limits of Realism: 111(' Grey Z,>1/C 253
Referential TTl'atment-The Holocaust as Pop Metaphor: X-MI'll 258
Holocaust Cinema as Prostlll"tic Memory 262
Note~ 264
Selcacd 13i/J/ir~!!r(1ph)' 269
Fi/1I1('gral,h),: 1990-2004 279
IlIlemet Res(/urres 291
Illdex 293
Ab,,1It IIII' Alit/lOr 307
Preface
Yor twelve years, 1 have caught a course on the depiction of [wcmicth
century Jewish hiswry 111 feature fill1\s. A subst:ltuial number of the lllovies I
assign my srudcnts CO watch an: about the Holocaust or its impact 011 postwar
Jewish idcntity. The deep impression Illotion pictures like &ililld/as Lisl and
'J'/I/! QUlIrrelmadc on class members prompted 111(' to offer a course on 1-1010-
c.:lIlst cinema. As I selected books for the reading list, I was surprised to dis
cover that the last survey of this field, the second edition of Annette lnsdorf's
Illdelible Shadows, had been published in 1989. Thlls, [ started in 2002 to fill this
!}II' by :turhOTlIlg an overview of key Holocaust films produced between 1990
:llld the p!"l:sent. While [was working on this project, updated editions of Ins
dorf's book and Judith DOllcson's Till' Holo((lllst ill/lllll'riClII1 Film werc released.
Since neither discussed many of the newer pinures 1 uscd III Illy course, 1 pro
ceeded with my undertaking. Caroline Picart's new HolocmlSl Film SmTCl'bO<Jk
is too expensive and 10llg to require as a course textbook, but it docs provide
the first extensive, although h:lrdly comprdll"nsive, filmography of Holocaust
cinem:l.1
As I proofread my manuscript, I marvel at the divergence between the
book I planned to write and the one I did. One re:lson for the difference is that
I derived the movies [ :lll:llyzed from the trends revealed by the movie c\3u
base I compiled. J originally anticipated including:l generational 5.1ga like SWI
shilll', :I courtroom dram:l like Thl' KaSlllrr Trial, and a thriller about tracking
Nazi war criminals like 71u> i\1,m [,II/I() CaJ>lIIrrd Eichmllllll, bm the statistics I
gathered poimed in other directions, providing indexes of which genres and
themes filllltll3kcrs thought would be the most appealing and meaningful to
contemporary audil'nces. Rowman & Littlefield's reasonable limitation on the
length of my book necessitated my dropping sections on HamsllII> i\ I)' /-II'(/(/ Is
'"
VIII flr~ra(e
Mine ;I/()IIF, ;lnd !\Iotlter's Crmmge. I hope that ddvmg deeper into fl~\Ver films
stimulates readers to w;Hch other recent Inovies that I have included in the fil
mography. I particularly recomllll~1](1 sl'veral recent films that Illve introduced
~ignificant new topics to the corpus of Holocaust cinelna: /)il,ii/cd J Ii' Fall
(2000), nit, I3CIiCI'Cf (2001). ·/;&illg Sidl'S (2001), nrc L'si 1..i'1I1'r (2002), A1I!1'1I
(2002), I3irdl liTe Ml"lldow (2003), 0111 (If lire Aslres (2003), R()5;'IISlmss(" (2003),
and 71,(, Nilllir /)0), (2004).
The database gave me a historical pcrspcctive on how public memory of
the Holoc;lust h;ls changed over timc. I am by training a cultural and mtellec
tllal histoTian. I have spent my career interpreting how artistic styles, philo
sophical systems, and religious beliefs influcnce and reflect the economic, na
tional. political. and social forces that were rising, dominant, or dec1inmg when
the former were 1Il vogue. In this regard, movies arc not simply a form of mass
elltertal11111ent or purdy the aesthetic visions of their directors but expressions
of a particular 11l1lld-set, plaCt\ and era in history. They do not merely reenact
the event they Jre depicting: they altl'r it to render it relcvJnt to the audiences
they hope to attract to watch it at theJters or in their hOlnes.
While I was confident in my skills to explain the historical coml~xt Jnd
impJct of how the Holocaust has been represcnted in movies, I needed to
ground Illyself ill the exten~ive litl~raturc on thc castillg, editing, filming. script
ing, scoring, and markcting of movies. I gravitJted to gellfe theorists like Rick
Alt111JIl and Steve Neale and reception theorists like Judith Maync and Janet
Staiger. I tend to be cclectic III my application of theoretical irl'iights and to
avoid rdying on ally one ;lpproach to deal with such a diverse body of films.
Moreover. I employ language that nonspecialist~ can understand r;lther than the
theoreticJI terminology of film criticism. As much as possible, I have kept the
theoretic;ll framework for the book ill the footnotes so that the text will rcnd
more smoothly ;ll1d comprehensibly.
I also found a kindred spirit in Robert Roscnstone, whose articles and
books on cinema have challenged profcssional historians to study feature films
as In alternative version of history capable of imparting ;l lllore tangibk~ sen~e
of how past events were expl~ricnccd than Illost aC;ldellllc hlStorres can achieve.
The resistance to this idea seems even more el1trenchl~d among I-Ioloc:lust
scholars. who insist that the mcmory of this terrible event be reprcscnted only
with the utmost realism and revl.'n'llce. I respect theIr cormnitment but doubt
whether an event as nmltif:1Ccted as the Holocall';t should be rcpn'sclltcd ill a
monolithic way. Differem dircctors dealing with various topics naturally usc
diwrsl~ modes of n~pre~cntatioll and degrees of verisimilitude to rcndcr their
films visually effective, elllocionally moving, or thought provoking. Thcir
movies should not be Judged by whether they are historically, politically, or
theoretically "correct" but by whethcr they tlgurativcly or literally evoke a
Prifa((' IX
sense of the collective :and individu:al choices :and historic:al circulllst:ances that
enabled Hitler to persecute or liquidate millions of civilians he designated as
asoci:aL deviant, ideological, raci:al, or religious encmies.
Although my observations :arc anccdotal, J perccive gl'1leration:al differences
III the responses of the cOl11l1llll1iry :md campus audienccs to the Ho[ocaust films
[ have shown them. Older viewers who lived during the Holocaust or were born
III the immediate postwar period usually prefer historic:ally rt'alistic movies about
the persecution and genocide of the jews during World W:ar II. They generally
dislike comedies !ike Life Is &lIlIlij;,[ or wishful endings like the closing scene of
Korrzak. Conversely, people born after 1960 seem to be more rcccptivc to films
that are more creative than literal in their portrayals of the Holocaust. They also
:arc k·ss offended by the inclusion of chJraC[ers from other persecuted groups, like
Gypsil's Jnd h011l0sexuJls, in films about the Nni era. They want to learn why
the Holocaust is relevanr tocby instead of why it was unique. Directors :lnd stu
dios have started to :accommo(bte this shift becJuse the profitability of their crt'
:atiollS depends on Jttraning young Jdulcs Jnd teens 111(0 buying tickets to sce
them in rheJtl'fs or n..·nting or buying them ro view at hOllle. While historical
movies remain popubr, particubrly biographil's of figures from the Holocaust,
chronological distance from World War II expbins the incrt'Jsed production of
humorous and children's films :about thc ShoJh Jnd the new prollllllcnce of neo
Nazi and second-generation themes in recent Holocaust cinema.
If it takes J village to raise a child, it tJkes a cOllllllunity of colleagues to
birth a book. I h:ave been fortLlnJte to get critical feedback and cordi:al support
from Abn l3ergcr, Michael l3erkowitz, DJvid Brenner, R.. obcrt Cherry, Steve
Colston,jullc CummillS,judith ])oneson, Rich:lrd Freund, Esther Fuchs, Odd
var Hoicbl, Yariv Kohn, Yvollne Kozlovsky Gobn. S:lIn Lehman-Wilzig, An
drea Liss, Hemamalimi Ralnachandran, Lynn IClpaport, Peter Rollins, Robert
Rosenstone, Anna Rosmus, AlysSJ Sepinwall, Naomi Sokoloff, Liliane Tar
gownik, Cynthia Walk. M:ary Wauchope, and David Wemberg. Although they
have not always shared my interpretations of particubr films, they have shared
their erudition. I also am gratefu[ for the sJbbaticJI and minigrallt awarded to
Ille by San Diego State University's Colk'ge of Arts and Leners to work on this
book. [ th:lIlk I3rian Romer of Rowman & Littlefield for Jccepting Illy man
uscript. Erin McKind[cy and jen Kelbnd for editing it, and Mark Fein for fix
II1g computer glitches that seemed intent on deleting it.
I deeply 1ll0UTil the recent deaths of my dcar friends judith Doneson, Di
ane Go[dberg, Liz Kahn,and Tom O'Sh:aughncssy.judy tJught me that movies
arc as valuable a historical source as written texts; TOIll showed me that kind
ness and wllllllSY :Ire Illore effective than rudeness and solelllnity in personal
and professionJI interactions; Liz eilibodied the art oflivillg with gusto; Diane
exemplified how to die with dignity and grace.