Shoah

BFI Film Classics

by Sue Vice

Claude Lanzmann’s nine-and-a-half-hour 1985 epic Shoah—its 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, the Guardian film 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 that Shoah has produced. Some of the topics she covers are: Lanzmann as filmmaker, mise-en-scène, Lanzmann as interviewer, the ethics of filming, testimony, and more.

Genres: Film

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2011

About the author

More recently I have developed my enthusiasm for cinema-going into teaching film courses, and in 1993 I completed an MA in Film Studies at Sheffield Hallam University.

I have been interested in representations of the Holocaust for many years, and have developed this into teaching at undergraduate and graduate level, as well as several books on Holocaust literature and film. Between 2007 and 2011, I was Head of the School of English.

Research interests
I am influenced by the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and my research background is in the work of Malcolm Lowry. My publications in the field of literary theory include Psychoanalytic Criticism: A Reader (1996) and Introducing Bakhtin (1997).

In relation to the Holocaust, I have written about such subjects as novels, in Holocaust Fiction (2000), children´s perspectives, Children Writing the Holocaust (2004), Claude Lanzmann’s classic film Shoah (a BFI Modern Film Classics volume in 2011), and, with Jenni Adams, have edited a volume entitled Representing Perpetrators in Holocaust Literature and Film (2013). book, Textual Deceptions (2014), is on the topic of false memoirs and literary hoaxes. My longstanding engagement with representation of memory has prompted my more recent investigation of the literature of memory-loss and dementia.

My interest in film and television archives led to my 2009 book Jack Rosenthal, and, with David Forrest, Barry Hines: ‘Kes’, ‘Threads’ and Beyond (2017). I have a British Academy Senior Fellowship (2019-20) to write a study of the outtake footage from Lanzmann’s documentary Shoah.

Reviews

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Há 40 anos o monumental (em tempo e em importância) Shoah tinha sua première em Paris e como revê-lo seria uma tarefa hercúlea, fiquei satisfeita em revisitá-lo através da análise de Sue Vice em sua edição da BFI Film Classics, amo essa coleção e mais uma vez não faz feio.

[Paul Toth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't bother reading Vic's book unless you've watched the film -- and if you haven't watched it, why? Definitely slanted towards director Claude Lanzmann in every regard, the author still provides a kind of viewer's mirror that poses questions. Like many, I agree Shoah is the best film about Holocaust, using almost-entirely post-Holocaust footage and avoiding atrocity scenes we've already seen. That allows me to get closer to the horror than any newsreel allows. I don't dismiss the opposite view: that Lanzmann leaves us in the realm of telling and shows nothing, advice I sicken of hearing when it comes to writing but proves obviously relevant to film. In this case, however, what we do see may show more than what we don't; that's my view. Worth reading even if you've seen Shoah a dozen times; I had entirely misinterpreted Lanzmann's interview with a kapo's defender.

[Jeff Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A serious book for a serious film.

Many of the BFI books come at classic films from new angles, this book however is a straight up examination of the creation, impact and legacy of Claude Lanzmann's near 10 hour documentary of the holocaust based on a series of interviews and containing no archive footage.

Watch it, read it.