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.

Movie Review: The Boxtrolls

The Boxtrolls
Directed by: Graham Annable & Anthony Stacchi.
Written by: Irena Brignull & Adam Pava based on the novel by Alan Snow.
Starring: Ben Kingsley (Archibald Snatcher), Isaac Hempstead Wright (Eggs), Elle Fanning (Winnie), Jared Harris (Lord Portley-Rind), Nick Frost (Mr. Trout), Richard Ayoade (Mr. Pickles), Tracy Morgan (Mr. Gristle), Dee Bradley Baker (Fish / Wheels / Bucket), Steve Blum (Shoe / Sparky), Nika Futterman (Oil Can / Knickers), Pat Fraley (Fragile / Sweets), Fred Tatasciore (Clocks / Specs), Max Mitchell (Baby Eggs), Maurice LaMarche (Sir Langsdale), James Urbaniak (Sir Broderick / Male Workman 1 / Male Workman 2), Brian George (Boulanger / Male Aristocrat), Toni Collette (Lady Portley-Rind), Simon Pegg (Herbert Trubshaw).

The Boxtrolls is the type of children’s movie I have always responded to – even when I was a child. This is a dark movie – both visually and thematically – but it’s one that trusts that children can handle a certain degree of darkness in their stories. Most animated films being pitched at children are candy colored, fast moving crap – that appeals only to the lowest common denominator, and want to teach children the most basic of lessons about being nice to each other. The Boxtrolls is an altogether thornier movie, in that it addresses some real issues. The film is about a hierarchical society, that isn’t based on merit, but on wealth and privilege – and one where those in power keep that power with fear mongering and lies. Some have mentioned Hitler and Nazis in relation to The Boxtrolls – and the comparison is apt. This is a society in which all of society’s ills are blamed on a certain group that mob readily buys into demonizing, without ever questioning their actions. It also contains two men who are “just following orders” – but believe themselves to be the good guys at first, but as the movie goes along start to realize that they are acting more like the “bad guys”.

The story is about the city of Cheeseberg – which seems to exist in some 19^th Century version of England. The town is run by the White Hats – a group of four men who make all the decisions for the town, but basically gorge themselves on cheese the entire time. When the film opens Archibald Snatcher (voiced, brilliantly, by Ben Kingsley) shows up on the doorstep of Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris), the leader of the White Hates, and tells him that the much vilified “Boxtrolls”, who live under Cheeseberg, and subsist on their garbage – have stolen a child. Lord Portley-Rind doesn’t much care – but when Snatcher suggests that they could be coming after his cheese next, Portley-Rind snaps into action – and agrees to Snatcher’s terms. If he can exterminate all of the Boxtrolls, he’ll make him a Whitehat – which will allow Snatcher access to the cheese, despite the fact that he cannot eat cheese without becoming a swollen monstrosity. The main action of the movie is about Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) – the child who was “kidnapped” by the Boxtrolls, who is now 10, and doesn’t know he was a human and Winnie (Elle Fanning), Lord Portley-Rind’s oft ignored daughter – who slowly realizes everything she has been told in her life is a lie.

The film is a visual wonder. Made by Laika – the studio behind Coraline and ParaNorman, two other excellent, dark children’s movies – the movie is top motioned animated, and creates multiple great visual landscapes – none more so than the twisty, turny, garbage dump of a lair of the boxtrolls. The streets of Cheeseberg are as crooked as those in The Cabinet of Dr. Cagliari. And the Portley-Rind’s house is one of extravagance and opulence. The character design is just as good – with the Boxtrolls a mixture of grotesque and cute, and the human characters looking slightly off-kilter. There is not a scene in this movie that isn’t a wonder to look at.

Of course, it all comes down to the writing, and for the most part, The Boxtrolls is smart, although the movie does give in to the action people expect in children’s movie at the end, which seems at odds with the rest of the movie.  The movie is dark – it isn’t really for younger children (it’s been a few months since there was an animated kids movie, so I considered taking my 3 year old to the movie, but decided to watch it solo first – and I’m glad I did, as I don’t think she could handle it). But for slightly older children, The Boxtrolls is one of the best animated films of the year. It trusts children to be able to handle some of the darker and more macabre elements that used to exist in children’s movies, but have pretty much been eliminated these days. Yes, the film basically ends on a much happier note than the rest of the movie would lead you to believe possible – but until that ending, I loved The Boxtrolls. In a time in which Pixar is somewhat flailing, Laika is making a base for itself as being the next best thing.

Movie Review: Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia

Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
Directed by: Nicholas D. Wrathall.

No matter what you think about Gore Vidal’s work as a novelist, playwright, screenwriter or political commentator – and lord knows opinions on Vidal run the gamut – no one can deny that the man was fascinating, outspoken and entertaining – otherwise, a perfect subject for a documentary. Nicholas D. Wrath all’s Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia suffers a little bit from trying to do too much – it basically covers Vidal’s entire life in 90 minutes, meaning that at times it plays like little more than a collection of Vidal’s greatest hits – and suffers again by adding celebrity interviews with the like of Tim Robbins and Sting – who do not add much to the film other than their celebrity. But the film is never boring, and is often very entertaining – especially when it simply relies on Vidal himself to tell his own story – either in classic interviews, or interviews recorded for the purpose of the documentary in the final years of his life. Vidal was a gifted speaker – quick witted, funny, opinionated and angry.

If you already know a lot about Vidal, I cannot help but wonder if the documentary has much to offer – except the pleasure of hearing Vidal talk. The film doesn’t really go in depth on his work as a novelist or playwright or screenwriter – it merely pays lip service to that part of his life, with multiple talking heads talking about how great his work was, without ever really telling us why – it simply accepts it as a given.

Wrathall’s major fascination with Vidal seems to be with him as a political commentator – and how Vidal, ever the liberal rabble rouser – took on pretty much every President from Kennedy to George W. Bush – finding them all lacking, even if, as was the case with Kennedy, he actually knew and liked the man. The movie may be at its best when it’s simply showing us Vidal and his infamous televised debates with conservative William F. Buckley – which is kind of a forerunner to today’s cable news structure of having two people who disagree on everything simply spend time yelling at each other. The difference being that both Buckley and Vidal were smart and funny – and gave as good as they got. The other fascinating relationship in the film is that between Vidal and Christopher Hitchens – who were once friends, and who separated forever over Hitchens support of the invasion in Iraq. According to Hitchens, Vidal saw him as his heir apparent – according to Vidal, it was Hitchens who saw himself as that. According to both they were friends, until the disagreement forever separated them – both of them are now dead.

 
The United States of Amnesia is not a great documentary – like many documentaries on a single person, who allowed a lot of access to the filmmaker – the film is too deferential to Vidal – it basically worships at his feet. Yet, the film is entertaining because Vidal is so smart and funny, and knew, right up until the end, how to hold a camera’s attention. If you know nothing about Gore Vidal, this documentary is a good place to start – but it certainly isn’t the place to end.

Movie Review: Citizen Koch

Citizen Koch
Directed by: Carl Deal & Tia Lessin.
Written by: Carl Deal  & Tia Lessin.

I found myself in agreement with much of what Citizen Koch had to say about the state of American democracy – in which politicians can be bought for large donations to SUPERPACs that advertise on their behalf – and still thinking that the documentary itself just wasn’t very good. It reminded me of those cheap Robert Greenwald documentaries that do not much concern themselves with ascetics but simply want to get their message out (Greenwald in fact also directed a movie about the Koch brothers in 2012 – which I did not see). More than that however, Citizen Koch seems rather unfocused, jumping from one thing to another and back again, and never really settling down. That the film is blatantly partisan goes without saying – and there’s nothing really wrong with that either. So while I agree with much of what is said in the movie, I just wish the movie said it all a little bit better.

The film basically focuses on the state of American politics after the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court – which basically gave corporations the same rights as people, including free speech, and equated money with Free Speech. It allowed corporations and people to give massive sums of money to so called SUPERPACs, which are Political Action Groups, which take out massive ads in support of one candidate or against another and do not violate campaign financing laws, because they are not giving any money directly to the candidates. The movie takes a very broad view of what this means, and then focuses most of its attention on Wisconsin – and Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to take away the collective bargaining rights of public unions – and the recall election he had to face as a result. It also covers the Republican primaries of 2012, in which Buddy Roemer tried, unsuccessfully, to get onto televised debates with his message of corporate funding ruining America’s democracy. It also takes some shots at the Tea Party, and groups like Americans For Prosperity, which are funded in large part by the Koch brothers – which is where the film gets its name.

I understand that Citizen Koch wanted to take a broad view of everything that the Citizen’s United decision means to American Democracy – but trying hard to cram so much in to a 90 minute movie means that none of it is really covered in depth. If you watch the news at all – or hell The Daily Show and especially The Colbert Report – there is nothing here you don’t already know. Colbert’s brilliant skewering of SUPERPACs during the 2012 Presidential election actually has more informational and entertainment value than Citizen Koch does.

This isn’t a bad documentary by any means – and I guess if you’ve been living under a rock and know nothing about any of this, there are worse places that you could start. But if you are informed already, than Citizen Koch won’t really give you any additional information. And because the film is so blatantly partisan, I wonder if the effect of the film will be little more than preaching to the converted. You could make a great documentary on this subject – but Citizen Koch isn’t it.

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.