#663: LANZMANN, Claude: Shoah (1985)

LANZMANN, Claude (France)
Shoah [1985]
Spine #663
Blu-ray


Over a decade in the making, Claude Lanzmann's nine-hour-plus opus is a monumental investigation of the unthinkable: the murder of more than six million Jews by the Nazis. Using no archival footage, Lanzmann instead focuses on first-person testimonies (of survivors and former Nazis, as well as other witnesses), employing a circular, free-associative method in assembling them. The intellectual yet emotionally overwhelming Shoah is not a film about excavating the past but an intensive portrait of the ways in which the past is always present, and it is inarguably one of the most important cinematic works of all time.

566 minutes
Color/Black & White
Monaural
in French, Italian, Polish, German, English, Hebrew, and Yiddish
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2013
Director


Claude Lanzmann was 60 when he directed Shoah.

The Film

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Sixty-four page booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones and writings by Lanzmann.

Commentary

None.

Three additional films

By director Lanzmann:
  1. A Visitor from the Living (1999, 68 minutes)
  2. Sobibór, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m. (2001, 102 minutes)
  3. The Karski Report (2010, 49 minutes)
Conversation

Between Lanzmann and critic Serge Toubiana.

Interview 1

With Lanzmann from 2003 about A Visitor from the Living and Sobibór.

Interview 2

With Caroline Champetier, assistant camera person on Shoah, and filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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