Shoah

by Vice, Sue

• ISBN13: 9781844573257
• ISBN10: 1844573257
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-04-26
• Publisher: British Film Institute

Summary

Claude Lanzmann's nine-and-a-half-hour 1985 epicShoahits title is the Hebrew word for "catastrophe"is the distillation of more than 350 hours of film gathered over 11 years. It tells the story of the Holocaust through interviews with the survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators. In 2000, theGuardianfilm critic Derek Malcolm called it "one of the most remarkable films ever made." It has also provoked debates about the very possibility of Holocaust representation. Sue Vice provides a devoted study of the film, discussing the problematic role of Lanzmann as the director and the numerous controversies and conclusions thatShoahhas produced. Some of the topics she covers are: Lanzmann as filmmaker, mise-en-scene, Lanzmann as interviewer, the ethics of filming, testimony, and more.

Author Biography

SUE VICE Professor of English Literature at the University of Sheffield, UK. She is the author of Introducing Bakhtin (Manchester University Press 1997, second edn 1998), Holocaust Fiction (Routledge 2000), Children Writing the Holocaust (Palgrave 2004) and Jack Rosenthal (Manchester University Press 2008), and the editor of Representing the Holocaust: Essays in Honour of Bryan Burns (Vallentine Mitchell 2003).

Table of Contents

Lanzmann as Director
Lanzmann as Protagonist
Shoah and Cinematic Holocaust Representation
Critical Estimates: is Shoah a Documentary?