After the Fact: The Holocaust in Twenty-First Century Documentary Film

Description

After the Fact studies the terrain of Holocaust documentaries subsequent to the turn of the twenty-first century. Until now most studies have centered primarily on canonical films such as Shoah and Night and Fog, but over the course of the last ten years filmmaking practices have altered dramatically. Changing techniques, diminishing communities of survivors, and the public's response to familiar, even iconic imagery, have all challenged filmmakers to radically revise and newly envision how they depict the Holocaust. Innovative styles have emerged, including groundbreaking techniques of incorporating archival footage, survivor testimony, and reenactment. Carrying wider implications for the fields of Film Studies, Jewish Studies, and Visual Studies, this book closely analyzes ten contemporary and internationally produced films, most of which have hardly been touched upon in the critical literature or elsewhere. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Introduction The Holocaust Documentary: In Stages Chapter 1 Touring Sites: Revisiting the Concentration Camps in KZ and Martin “You feel it?”: Touring Mauthausen in Rex Bloomstein’s KZ The man from Dachau: Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s Martin Chapter 2 Mediated Memories: The Influence of Spielberg’s Hollywood Hit on Inheritance and Spielberg’s List Meet me in Płaszów: James Moll’s Inheritance Lost in translation: Omer Fast’s Spielberg’s List Chapter 3 Forgiveness on Film: Resentment and Reconciliation in Forgiving Dr. Mengele and Landscapes of Memory: The Life of Ruth Klüger Liberation from resentment: Forgiving Dr. Mengele Born in the house of the hangman: Renata Schmidtkunz’s Landscapes of Memory: The Life of Ruth Klüger Chapter 4 Family Issues: Oedipal Confrontations in 2 or 3 Things I Know about Him and The Flat Cutting into the past: Malte Ludin’s 2 or 3 Things I Know about Him Searching for the plot: Arnon Goldfinger’s The Flat Chapter 5 Rescreening Perpetrator Images: Witnessing the Past in A Film Unfinished and Photographer Inside the screening room: A Film Unfinished Shades of gray: Dariusz Jablonski’s Photographer Conclusion Notes Selected Filmography Works Cited Index