The Holocaust Films of Claude Lanzmann: Conclusion

Over the course of one day, I sat and watched all 9 and half hours of Shoah, with only a few short breaks. I think this is the best way to watch the film –to let each and every detail accumulate into something far greater than the whole. It is a devastating film in every way. Over the next two days, I watched the three “outtakes” movies that he made in the years since Shoah up until 2013 – when he released The Last of the Unjust (which I watched approximately two months after the long weekend I spent with the other four films). The first three outtakes films are more focused, but less effective – the fourth, The Last of the Unjust, is a more complete film – a brilliant film in its own right. But even the lesser three films take on far more significance when taken as a part of the whole of Shoah. Lanzmann has essentially been working on these films since the 1970s. Taken as a single work, it is one of the greatest works in cinema history. Shoah is, of course, the singular achievement – one of the greatest single films ever made. The others simply add to it. Shoah ensures that Lanzmann’s work will never be forgotten. It shouldn’t be.

The Holocaust Films of Claude Lanzmann: The Last of the Unjust (2014)

The Last of the Unjust
Directed by: Claude Lanzmann.
Written by: Claude Lanzmann.
Featuring: Benjamin Murmelstein, Claude Lanzmann.

The Last of the Unjust is the fifth movie that director Claude Lanzmann has made out the footage that he shot in the 1970s and 1980s for his nine-and-a-half hour epic documentary Shoah (1985) – which is one of the greatest films ever made. In the years since, Lanzmann has taken some of the material that didn’t make the cut in Shoah – mainly for thematic reasons – and fashioned other movies out of them. Unlike the previous three films that Lanzmann made out of the Shoah interviews however, The Last of the Unjust is more than just an extended interview about a specific subject related to the Holocaust. Much of the film is the interview, conducted over the course of a week in 1975 that Lanzmann conducted with Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein. Murmelstein was the last President of the Jewish Council in the Theresiemmstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia – a ghetto the Germans used as a “show ghetto” – a place for propaganda to show the rest of the world that they were not mistreating Jews, although even in that show ghetto, death was a big part of daily life. Murmelstein is the only “Jewish Elder” to survive the war, and he lived out his days in Rome, in Exile. Some thought he was cruel – a war criminal and collaborator who should have been executed for his role. But he was tried, and found not guilty of all charges. This has done little to rehabilitate his image – although I have a feeling that this film will do that.

But The Last of the Unjust is not just the 40 year old interview with Murmelstein – although that by itself would have made it a worthy film. Lanzmann also has scenes of himself visiting the locations that Murmelstein mentions, walking the grounds, telling us the story of the atrocities that happened there. The film opens with Lanzmann at the train station where the Jews who were transported to Theresiemmstadt got off to walk to their “new home”. Passenger trains fly past him, and Lanzmann grows frustrated that he cannot control the trains. Trains played a large role in Shoah, of course, as Lanzmann made great use of them to show us the routes the trains took – but back then, he could control the trains, and get the shots he wanted. But now, 40 years later, life is moving too fast for Lanzmann to control – and people have moved on. Lanzmann’s films have always been, at least in part, about memory – but today there are very few left who still have any first hand memories of the Holocaust. In the years since Shoah, we have seen countless Holocaust movies of all sorts – but very few, if any, with Lanzmann’s point-of-view. The title of the film therefore refers not just to Murmelstein, but to Lanzmann himself.

As with all the interviews conducted for Shoah, Lanzmann is relentless in his questioning of Murmelstein – wanting to get all the minute details of what he did, when, and who he talked and why Murmelstein did what he did. Murmelstein is unapologetic for what he did – like many in Shoah, he claims not to have known what the Nazis were doing at the other camps, even when they shipped people off from his ghetto, and new arrivals seemed to know something about “gas”. Murmelstein was worried about what the Nazis would do to his ghetto, and he helped them turn it into the vehicle for propaganda that they wanted it to be – but claims he did that to help save the ghetto. His theory, and it’s not a bad one, is that if people knew about the ghetto, the Germans couldn’t get rid of it.

To be sure, by the time the interview had been conducted, Murmelstein had had three decades to rationalize his behavior and justify it to himself. But he doesn’t really make excuses for what he did – but he does have his reasons. When you make a documentary that is largely centered on a single person being interviewed, the audience will inevitably decide whether or not they believe them. In the case of something like Errol Morris’ The Unknown Known, I think most people distrusted Donald Rumsfeld. In the case of The Last of the Unjust, I think most will end up believing Murmelstein. He doesn’t make excuses – he doesn’t let himself off the hook.

Perhaps one of the reasons Lanzmann felt the need to make The Last of the Unjust was to disprove Hannah Arendt’s theory of the banality of evil in regards to the likes of Eichmann – which has become a widely held belief in the years since Arendt created so much controversy with it. Murmelstein knew Eichmann better than most – and could have provided some valuable testimony at his trial, but the prosecution didn’t want him as a witness – they didn’t find him “trustworthy” enough. Lanzmann has never been in the camp that believed Arendt’s theory, and here he lets Murmelstein tell what he knew of the man.

He also lets Murmelstein respond to those who think he himself should have been hanged for his actions. At the end of this long (3 hour, 40 minute) film, there is a final interview, of Lanzmann and Murmelstein walking the streets of Rome, where Murmelstein explains what he thinks of those who think he should have been hanged. He says “An Elder of the Jews can be condemned, in fact they must be condemned, but they can never be judged, because you cannot take his place”. Like all of the Lanzmann films about the Holocaust, it sheds new light on one of the most horrific events in human history. Watching the film you will find new insight, new information. But it’s even deeper than that. The other three films that Lanzmann made out of the Shoah interviews were interesting. The Last of the Unjust, while not on the same level as Shoah (as few films ever could be), is far and away the best of the bunch since then. If it is indeed the final film of Lanzmann’s Shoah cycle, it is a fitting way to go out.

The Holocaust Films of Claude Lanzmann: The Karski Report (2010)

The Karski Report (2010)
Directed by: Claude Lanzmann.
Written by: Claude Lanzmann 

There are many interview subjects in Claude Lanzmanns epic Shoah that will burn themselves into your memory with their recollection of what happened. Although he appears very late in the 9 and a half hour film, Jan Karski is one of those people who will remember forever. Lanzmann interviewed him over the course of two days – but only included parts of his day 1 interview in Shoah. The second half, which isn’t about what Karski saw, but about what happened when he reported what he saw – in particular to American President Franklin Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter – a close ally of Roosevelt, and a Jew himself. The film that Lanzmann released in 2010 is essentially just that second day of his interview. It is fascinating in itself.

Karski’s job during WWII was to go undercover into Poland, and report back to the Government in exile in London. Lanzmann focuses mainly on what he saw in the Ghettos, and the state of the Polish Jews, but he needed to report much more. Once he returned to London, and before he was sent back to Poland, they wanted him to speak to other world leaders to let them know the plight of the Polish people. In Washington, he met with Roosevelt.

According to Karski, Roosevelt listened to his entire report – about 20 minutes – with only a few notes about the Jews. Roosevelt did not seem very interested in the Jews themselves – he asked no question about them directly, spending more time on what needed to be done to win the war. Roosevelt does give him a list of names of other he wants Karski to speak to. The most fascinating one is Felix Frankfurter, a Supreme Court Justice and a Jew. Unlike Roosevelt, he wants to hear all about what is happening in Poland to the Jews. He listens as Karski tells him everything that was happening. Frankfurter listens intently – and then announces that he does not believe Karski. The Polish Ambassador is angry – “how can you say he’s lying?” he wants to know. Frankfurter responds – “I didn’t say he was lying, I said I didn’t believe him” – which is two different things.

Karski’s interpretation of Frankfurter’s response is essentially the theme of the movie. He thinks he did believe what Karski told him – but that he couldn’t wrap his head around it. What the Nazis did to the Jews was entirely unprecedented. How could anyone who didn’t see it firsthand actually believe that it happened?

The film is short – about 45 minutes – but it’s a good film. Karski is a good speaker, and he’s more confident this time than the previous day, when he seemed on the verge of breaking at every moment. He holds court, and he hardly lets Lanzmann break in with his patented hammering questions. Lanzmann doesn’t bother with his usual shots of the present day locations – mainly, I think, because they aren’t needed. Karski is enough. This is a simple film, but an unforgettable one.

The Holocaust Films of Claude Lanzmann: Sobibor October 14, 1943 4 pm (2001)

Sobibor October 14, 1943 4 pm (2001)
Directed by: Claude Lanzmann.
Written by: Claude Lanzmann 

Yehuda Lerner was a teenage Jew in WWII, who was taken to, and escaped from, 8 different Concentration Camps during the war. During the filming of Shoah, Lanzmann interviewed Lerner, but felt his story didn’t fit in with the narrative he was telling – which was more about the dead than about the survivors. But Lanzmann thought Lerner’s story was worth telling – particularly his recollection of the uprising in the Sobibor concentration camp on October 14, 1943 – when the Jews hatched a complicated plan to lure the Nazis who worked at the camp to the various buildings, where they could be killed one by one. The Jews then fled into the forest to fight for their survival.

Stylistically, the film is very much like Shoah – with long takes of the interview of Lerner, with Lanzmann’s constant, questions probing for more details intercut with shots of the Sobibor camp as it appears today. The key difference is, of course, instead of many voices telling the story, in this film we have only one. Lerner recounts the events of that day, often in minute by minute detail. Lerner wasn’t at the camp long when the plan was hatched – he was shipped there after he escaped from another camp and was recaptured. When Lanzmann asks why he was never killed in all those escapes and recaptures – Lerner doesn’t really have an answer other to say that he was lucky. Had different German forces caught him, he very well could have been hung on the spot. That never happened though.

At its best, the film is nail bitingly suspenseful. The best sequence is undeniably the central one to the movie – when Lerner tells precisely what he and his cohorts did to kill one Nazi, in an exacting but messy fashion, cleaned up, and then killed another not more than 5 minutes later. They knew the Nazis where extremely punctual – they never arrived a minute early or late – and that used that against them – scheduling one to arrive at 4 pm and the next to arrive at 4:05. Any shorter, and they wouldn’t have time to clean up, any longer and they risk word getting out at the simultaneously killings. Lanzmann lingers over this sequence – stretching out each minute well beyond its actually running time, as he wants every detail.

At 102 minutes, the film is the longest of the three “outtakes” documentaries included on the Shoah Blu-Ray (the fourth, The Last of the Unjust clocks in at almost 4 hours). The film needs most of that length to do justice to the story it is telling. However, I also feel that in many ways, the film is not as effective as the other two. This is the only film Lanzmann has made that is essentially a triumph – not a tragedy – and yet he has made the film the same way. The long takes of the present day Sobibor have the sense overwhelming sense of tragedy as the other films – but that doesn’t work with the films tone. Neither does the long (10 minutes) list of names that ends that film of all those who died at Sobibor. Yes, we should remember all those who died, but at a certain point, a list of names with no context is simply a list of names. This isn’t their story, but the story of the uprising and the victory the prisoners got against their captors. To make a better film, Lanzmann should have found a different tone for the parts of the movie that are not interview segments by Lerner.

But these are mainly minor complaints. Lanzmann has dedicated decades of his life to documenting the Holocaust. Shoah is his masterpiece, but these outtakes movies provide more context, different stories. Yes, he should have found a slightly different way to tell this particular story – but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a fascinating, intense film in its own right.

The Holocaust Films of Claude Lanzmann: A Visitor from the Living (1999)

A Visitor from the Living (1999)
Directed by: Claude Lanzmann.
Written by: Claude Lanzmann 

While shooting what would become Shoah, director Claude Lanzmann filmed an interview with Maurice Rossel, a Swiss citizen who to get out of Military duty (he says he was bored by it) joined the International Red Cross. During WWII, he was sent to Germany to “inspect” the Prisoner of War camps that the Germans were running. They agreed to let Rossel inspect those camps, because they didn’t really have a choice – International Law required that they give the Red Cross access to POW camps. The Germans however argued that the Red Cross had no jurisdiction over the Jewish ghettos or camps – these were civilians they had “detained” and as such, the Red Cross had no business inspecting them. Rossel paid an “informal” visit to Auschwitz – and found the Germans “very polite” – and though he saw the skeleton like prisoners who were so close to death that he felt like a ”visitor from the living” – he really couldn’t do much about it. The Germans did let him formally inspect Theresienstadt – a Jewish ghetto that is now well known as a “show” ghetto – where the prisoners were treated better (not great, but better) than anywhere else so that the Germans could try and show the outside world they were treating the Jews well. This was a lie – many still died in Theresienstadt – and the residents were almost all eventually sent to their death in the camps. Rossel wrote a glowing review of Theresienstadt for his superiors.

As Lanzmann showed in Shoah, he is merciless as an interviewer – hammering away at his subject, no matter if they were victim, witness or abuser. Perhaps because A Visitor from the Living is made up entirely of his interview with Rossel – intercut, like Shoah was, with shots of current location, Lanzmann appears to be even rougher on Rossel than he was with just about anyone in Shoah. But this is also because Lanzmann is clearly frustrated with Rossel – wanting to know how he could be so willfully ignorant at the time of his visit to Theresienstadt – and how he can seem to still be that ignorant. When Lanzmann asks him if he regrets his report, Rossel replies that he would write the same report today (this was 1979) – he reported what he saw. None of the Jews passed him or note or gave him any indication that they were being abused in anyway. Only “dozens” died daily in the ghetto, which while overcrowded, seemed to Rossel to be well run – the residents well fed. There was even a children’s playground. How and could it have been?

Lanzmann undoubtedly has the benefit of hindsight – he knows the truth of Theresienstadt which was well documented by the 1970s. But he also has to be that frustrated because Rossel doesn’t seem to grasp the reality of the situation – and doesn’t want to admit that he messed up. Rossel was obviously not responsible for what happened in Theresienstadt, but had he written a more clear eyed report, perhaps it would have brought more attention to what was happening that it ultimately did. Like many of the witnesses that Lanzmann interviewed in Shoah, he seems to be someone who turned a blind eye to what was really going on.

The opening scrawl of the movie seems to indicate that between the time the interview was filmed – in 1979 – and when this film was released – in 1999 – that Rossel at least has a better understanding of what happened – and is role in it. The final two lines in that scrawl written by Lanzmann indicate that Rossel asked him not to make him look stupid, and Lanzmann replying “I did not try to” – a clear indication that Lanzmann views Rossel’s ignorance in the interview as Rossel’s own fault – which is true.

Lanzmann was right to exclude this interview from Shoah. It would have introduced another entire facet to the movie that was already well over 9 hours – and so he would have had to shoehorn it into a movie where it didn’t really fit. But he was also right in thinking that this is an interesting subject, deserving of its own movie to explore. Even though the movie is only 68 minutes, it’s fascinating throughout, one where you’ll likely find yourself as frustrated as Lanzmann was while interviewing Rossel.

The Holocaust Films of Claude Lanzmann: Shoah (1985)

Shoah (1985)
Directed by: Claude Lanzmann.
Written by: Claude Lanzmann.

So much has already been written about Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah that it can be intimidating for a first time viewer to actually sit down and watch the film. The first thing you hear about the film is its length – 566 minutes, or approximately nine and half hours. It’s meant to be watched all in one sitting, or perhaps two – as Lanzmann does break the film into two different “eras” – although watching one four and a half hour long movie followed by a five hour movie the next day is just as intimidating. The next thing you hear about the film is that Lanzmann uses no archival footage at all – that he switches between so called “talking head” sequences with survivors, witnesses and the Nazis themselves – and shots of the locations as they were when Lanzmann shot the movie in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It should be clear to anyone who has read anything about Shoah that it is not a typical Holocaust documentary – it’s not a typical documentary at all. In many ways the film is a one off in cinema history. You’ve never quite seen anything like it.

What becomes clear early on in Shoah is that Lanzmann is not going to ask anyone any of the “big questions”. He’s not going to ask “why” it happened – what made Hitler and the Nazis decide to exterminate 6 million Jews – alongside other “undesirables” (who Lanzmann doesn’t really mention in the film). Hitler and the top ranked Nazis are actually barely mentioned in the movie at all. You would think that a movie that is as long as Shoah would detail everything that happened – and walk you through step-by-step the major turning points. But that’s not really what Lanzmann is interested in doing – and besides, you can get that information from any number of other sources. Instead what Lanzmann is interested in is the memories of those who were there – those who suffered, those who witnessed their suffering and those responsible for their suffering. His camera rarely moves during the interviews he conducts – and they often stay on the face of his subject for extended periods of time – 10 minute shots are greater are not uncommon. What he is most interested in is what happened on a micro level, not on a macro level.

For instance, he interviews a barber – who is still cutting hair in Israel – whose job at one of the camps was to cut off the hair of those who were about to go to their death in the gas chambers. How many other barbers worked alongside him? What was the setup like? What did he use to cut their hair? Were their mirrors? How long did he take to cut one person’s hair? What was the style he cut it into? What did they do with the hair? Lanzmann is not on camera much in Shoah, but his voice is persistent. He pushes and pushes and pushes everyone he talks to for more details. When they breakdown, as they often do, and ask him to stop he doesn’t. He keeps pushing, he keeps his camera trained on them as they go quiet, or start to cry. They cannot go on. They must, Lanzmann tells him. Some complain that he is cruel – and he is at times – but he knows how important the interviews are not just to him and his film, but also to the individuals. They haven’t talked about this for decades. It’s important to get it out.

Lanzmann does this over and over again – training his camera on his subjects and not letting them go. He gets a wealth of information from a few of the Nazis who helped run the death camps. These were shot on a hidden camera, in grainy black and white, and the Nazis ask for assurances that their conversation will be kept confidential. “Of course”, Lanzmann responds, boldly lying. Again with these men he isn’t asking the large questions, but the smaller ones. How long did it take to “process” one train car full of victims? The entire train? How did they manage to keep these people under control? What order did they go in? Why that order? And on and on and on. He spends a lot of time in Poland, asking the residents what they saw and how they feel about the Jews. Do they miss them? There is not a lot of introspection on their part. He has interviews with some of the Germans who were in charge of running the trains? Did they know what was on those trains? Of course not, they say. They were so busy they never left their desks. One train was just like all the rest. But when he examines the train documents with an historian, he wonders why none of the people in charge ever wondered why they were scheduling full trains to arrive and empty trains to depart later that same day go somewhere else, fill up again, and return to the same location?

Because of the way the film is made, it has the feeling of memory – as both the people and the places they are talking about are somewhat out of time. The men and women are talking about events 35 years ago, and the locations Lanzmann is shooting – the death camps, the Polish cities, the ghetto, etc. – have also changed. They are different, and yet haunted by their past. When Lanzmann’s camera is not trained on his interview subjects, it is attached to the trains for minutes on end – sometimes with the interviews heard on the soundtrack, sometimes not – or slow and steady tracking shots along the grounds of the areas they are talking about. The shots are haunting – beautiful and sad at the same time.

The movie needs to be as long as Lanzmann has made it for it to have the effect he desires. This is not an issue of a filmmaker not knowing what needing to be cut and including everything – he has already made four other documentaries out of the interviews he shot while making Shoah that didn’t fit in to this movie (I’ve seen three of them, all great, but Lanzmann made the correct decision not to include them in this film, as they really do not fit). The film is about the accumulation of small details, the memories of everyone involved the merging of past and present. He takes an unfathomably large subject and concentrates on the small details, illuminating the whole in a distinct way. This would not be the film to watch if you were some sort of alien creature who had never heard of the Holocaust at all – it assumes some knowledge on the part of the audience. But Lanzmann is interested in specific parts of the Holocaust – not the exact events, but how it happened to individuals instead of how it happened to 6 million people. More than any other film I have ever seen about the Holocaust, Shoah gives us the details that allows you to get closer than ever before to what it was liked to be lined up heading into the gas chambers to be killed. Between the words of those being interviews, and the landscapes Lanzmann captures, he creates images that only exist in the mind’s eye. Like in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona where many people think that Bergman actually shot Bibi Andersson’s sex scene, when really she just described it, or in the shower scene in Psycho, where many think they saw a lot more than they actually did, Lanzmann achieves the same thing in Shoah. The effect is powerful, disturbing, haunting and unforgettable.

I haven’t talk about many of the details in Shoah – the individuals interviews themselves or the details they uncover in the movie. If I did, then I’d be here all day writing, and you’d be here all day reading. Those details matter – but it’s up to the viewer to find them. I don’t often urge viewers to see a particular movie – I feel my reviews should give the reader an idea as to whether or not they’ll enjoy a particular movie or not, and leave it at that. But I do urge everyone to see Shoah. I put off seeing the film for at least a decade, not wanting to subject myself to what I thought would be a thoroughly depressing experience. But Shoah, while offering a fairly bleak portrait of humanity, is not that. It is something altogether different and unique in cinema history. A masterpiece in every sense of the word.

The Holocaust Films of Claude Lanzmann: Introduction

The website They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? has what I consider to be the best and most comprehensive list of the “Greatest Films of All Time” – taking into consideration the results of many polls of the Greatest Films of All Time. For a long time now, Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985) has been the top rated film on that list that I had not seen – and after its excellent showing on the 2012 Sight & Sound Critics Survey (where it ranked tied for 29^th) it moved into the Top 100 on the They Shoot Pictures list, and became a film I had to see.

To be clear, I’ve always meant to see Shoah – it’s one of those films on my “to see” list that has been there for a decade or more. But I always had an excuse not to see the film. For a while, it was only available on 4 separate DVDs, meaning I’d have to rent four DVDs separately to see one movie. Who has the time to sit there and watch nine and half hours in one sitting – or even four and half hours and then five hours over the span of two days if you give yourself a break and watch only Era 1 than Era 2 as separate experiences? All these were excuses (and the ones I’m still using to avoid Bela Tarr’s Santatango, which is over 7 hours long – and now becomes the top rated film I have to see) – and not very good ones. The truth was, I didn’t really want to see Shoah. I never doubted those who said it was a masterpiece, but much like the reaction of people who I told that Shoah was the movie I was watching this past weekend, the thought of spending that long watching a documentary on the Holocaust would simply be too grueling, too depressing – and I wasn’t sure I wanted to subject myself to that. I feared that the film would be drowning in “importance” and be dry and dull. In short, while I wouldn’t say I was scared of Shoah, I wasn’t chomping at the bit to get to it either.

A few things made me change my mind. One was the desire to simply get it over with. I’ve been saying for two years now that I plan on watching Shoah this year – and after I went through 2013 and didn’t get to it, I knew I needed to get to it in 2014. The Criterion Collection released an excellent Blu-Ray addition, which also included the first three “outtakes” movies that Lanzmann has released in the years since made up of footage that didn’t fit into the original film, and with the release of fourth “outtake” film, The Last of the Unjust, hitting theaters this year, I figured it was now or never.

The following five posts are reviews of Shoah (1985) and the outtakes movies – A Visitor from the Living (1999), Sobibor October 14, 1943 4pm (2001), The Karski Report (2010) and The Last of the Unjust (2013) (which for the record, I watched months after the other four films, which I watched over the course of a weekend – but saved the posts until I could see the final film).  In them, I will explain why I feel Shoah is a masterpiece, why it needs to be nine and half hours long, and how while a grueling experience that could easily be called bleak, why I wasn’t for a second bored by the movie, and why I don’t think it’s a depressing experience. In short, I will explain why I wish I had seen the film sooner.

So if you’re like me and have been avoiding Shoah for years, I urge you to reconsider. It deserves it’s spot on every “Greatest Movies of All Time” list – and the reasons why are far more than just its important subject matter. It is a stunning film in every way.