Shoah - DaaVeeDee

Shoah (Blu-Ray) (*)

$47.99

Screened, competed or awarded at:
BAFTA Awards
Berlin International Film Festival
Ceasar Awards
Rotterdam International Film Festival
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
French ( Subtitles )
German ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
German ( Subtitles )
Hebrew ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Spanish ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Germany ( Blu-Ray/Region A/B/C )

Running Time:
566 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
2-DVD Set
Interactive Menu
Posters
Scene Access
Booklet
Remastered

Movie filmed in 1985 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )

Directed By:
Claude Lanzmann

Written By:
Claude Lanzmann

Actors:
Simon Srebnik ..... Himself
Michael Podchlebnik ..... Himself
Motke Zaidl ..... Himself
Hanna Zaidl ..... Herself
Jan Piwonski ..... Himself
Itzhak Dugin ..... Himself
Richard Glazer ..... Himself
Paula Biren ..... Herself
Pana Pietyra ..... Herself
Pan Filipowicz ..... Himself
Pan Falborski ..... Himself
Abraham Bomba ..... Himself
Czeslaw Borowi ..... Himself
Henrik Gawkowski ..... Himself
Rudolf Vrba ..... Himself

Synopsis:

Claude Lanzmann directed this 9 1/2 hour documentary of the Holocaust without using a single frame of archive footage. He interviews survivors, witnesses, and ex-Nazis (whom he had to film secretly since though only agreed to be interviewed by audio). His style of interviewing by asking for the most minute details is effective at adding up these details to give a horrifying portrait of the events of Nazi genocide. He also shows, or rather lets some of his subjects themselves show, that the anti-Semitism that caused 6 million Jews to die in the Holocaust is still alive in well in many people that still live in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere.

The primary focus of Shoah is the stories of Holocaust survivors, perpetrators and witnesses. Instead of encompassing a traditional narrative document of these people, director Claude Lanzmann conducts in-depth interviews with his subjects, some of them, like SS Junior Sergeant (Unterscharfuhrer) Franz Suchomel and Franz Schalling, being filmed in secret. In all, the documentary encompasses over nine hours. Survivors that Lanzmann interviews include Simon Srebnik, a survivor of the Chelmno extermination camp, Abraham Bomba, a barber who cut the hair of women before they entered the gas chambers at Treblinka, and Rudolph Vrba, who escaped from Auschwitz and for producing the most detailed information about the exterminations taking place at the camp. Perpetrators interviewed included the aforementioned Suchomel, who describes the processions of prisoners to the gas chambers at Treblinka. He also talks at length about the construction of additional gas chambers. Henryk Gawkowski talks about driving the trains that brought prisoners to Treblinka while consuming vodka supplied to him by the Nazis. Witnesses to the Holocaust include Jan Karski, who was charged by Jewish leaders in the Warsaw ghetto with informing the Allies of the mass exterminations and with trying to procure weapons for the uprising. Other witnesses include the then-living residents of Treblinka who talk about the Jewish residents being removed to the ghettos. In a famous scene, they discuss the events with Lanzmann while Simon Srebnik stands with them. Lanzmann also talks at great length with Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg who talks about the logistics used by the Nazis to transport the millions of victims to the camps via the rail system, the Reichsbann.

Shoah is Claude Lanzmann's landmark documentary meditation on the Holocaust. Assembled from footage shot by the filmmaker during the 1970s and 1980s, it investigates the genocide at the level of experience: the geographical layout of the camps and the ghettos; the daily routines of imprisonment; the inexorable trauma of humiliation, punishment, extermination; and the fascinating insights of those who experienced these events first hand. Absent from the film is any imagery shot at the time the Holocaust occurred. There is only Lanzmann and his crew, filming in private spaces and now-dormant zones of eradication to extract testimony from a series of survivors, witnesses, and oppressors alike. Through his relentless questioning (aided on occasion by hidden camera), Lanzmann is able to coax out material of unparalleled emotional truth that constitutes both precious oral history and withering indictment. Shoah (the title is a common designation for the Holocaust, and a Hebrew word that can be translated as 'Catastrophe' or 'Annihilation') was the first of Lanzmann's films to analyse the effects of the death camps on individual lives and the world at large. It represents an aesthetic achievement in line with Alain Resnais's Night and Fog, combining inquiry, rage, and mourning to create a monumental portrait of shame and grief. Shoah locates within the present a direct line to the horrors of the past, and is widely regarded as one of the most powerful films of all time.

This product was added to our catalog on Sunday 17 March, 2024.