Niagara 9/10
ShoahAs a historical document, it's utterly perfect. As a film though, even with taking breaks, it's undoubtedly overlong and redundant. After about 4 hours I honestly feel it loses its power. Either I'm cold-hearted or everyone else is too afraid to admit it. I'm not saying Lanzmann should have shortened it, I just don't think this should be judged/rated/compared to other documentaries (it plays out more like a visualized historical text than a movie - no music, seemingly unedited interviews, slowly paced - though with amazing visuals). However, I believe Lanzmann made the right choice presenting it this way. He didn't turn the Holocaust into a melodrama (see: Oprah Winfrey/Elie Wiesel TV special: one of the many reasons I find Oprah to be the biggest, most disrespectful, fake cunt in the universe). Shoah is in its own class of documentary where I don't really consider it a movie. All educated people should at least watch some of Shoah, though I can understand how the whole thing may be a bit much for most.But since fellows such as D&D find ways to call me out for not providing ratings.... 10 for a historical document, 8+ish for a film.
I actually am not much into ratings; I only called YOU out on it since you are the one that titled this thread As for Shoah, I mentioned recently - in that film's thread - that I saw the first 5 1/2 hours or so of it. I don't know whether you watched it straight or over a few days, but I don't know if it's supposed to necessarily be watched straight. As for length of time, there's really no right or wrong. On the one hand, there's a limit to how much of one movie people wanna watch; on the other hand, the extent of the horrors of the Holocaust can never be accurately presented even with a film that went on for a thousand hours. Or six million hours. So, why 9 1/2 hours, rather than 8 1/2 or 10 1/2? who knows. we know Lanzmann cut out the second half of his interview with Jan Karski, but Karski criticized him for it, and then Lanzmann released it as The Karski Report. Should the film have been even longer? Again, there is no right or wrong answer.IMO, Lanzmann was correct to include lots of footage, and it is up to each viewer how long he/she wants to watch.One problem I have with the film is how frequently, we hear an interviewee talking for a few minutes before his name and identity flashes on the screen. Now, I knew that the interviews consisted of survivors (the good guys) the Nazis (the evil guys) and local Poles (who for the most part were pretty bad), but you sometimes don't know who is who for a few minutes, so while you are watching someone talk, you don't know "do I hate him or do I pity him?" until his name flashes on the screen after a few minutes. I wish they put the name/identity of each interviewee up there right away. Also, the poster, which has this decrepit old man next to a sign that says "Treblinka," is really misleading; when you first see that poster, you pity the guy, figuring he must have been a survivor of Treblinka, till you watch the movie, and see that that is a fucking bastard who actually drove the trainloads of Jews to their death (and poor, poor him, he had to drink vodka to get through the day's "work," the piece of shit) and then you feel stupid for actually having pitied him when you saw the poster before you saw the movie.Othwerwise, Lanzmann is to be commended for this work.
Watched most of Ken Burns' Prohibition today. Liked it better than The Civil War.
One problem I have with the film is how frequently, we hear an interviewee talking for a few minutes before his name and identity flashes on the screen. Now, I knew that the interviews consisted of survivors (the good guys) the Nazis (the evil guys) and local Poles (who for the most part were pretty bad), but you sometimes don't know who is who for a few minutes, so while you are watching someone talk, you don't know "do I hate him or do I pity him?" until his name flashes on the screen after a few minutes. I wish they put the name/identity of each interviewee up there right away. Also, the poster, which has this decrepit old man next to a sign that says "Treblinka," is really misleading; when you first see that poster, you pity the guy, figuring he must have been a survivor of Treblinka, till you watch the movie, and see that that is a fucking bastard who actually drove the trainloads of Jews to their death (and poor, poor him, he had to drink vodka to get through the day's "work," the piece of shit) and then you feel stupid for actually having pitied him when you saw the poster before you saw the movie.
Could be part of the filmmaker's strategy, nicht wahr? Obviously, Lanzmann wants people to respond deeply to the material, and one way to educe that is to temporarily withhold info. When he is tardy contextualizing the comments, Lanzmann can produce the kind of response you've just described above, which seems more interesting than just having audience members respond to labels. Any idiot can respond to labels.
it's not about responding to "labels." When you hear someone talking about the cattle-car train to a death camp, if he is a survivor then you pity him; if he is the engineer on the train, or some local fucking Pollak who is laughing as he tells how used to make a throat-slitting motion, then you despise him. I'm not looking for what you call an "interesting" response, as I try to guess the identity of a particular speaker. It's feels really weird when you try to guess and then guess wrong. And yes, the identity of the speaker makes a big difference - because almost every one of the speakers tries to have you pity them. Even the fucking engineer who drove the train the Treblinka tries to have you pity him – poor me, I had to drink vodka just to get through my workday driving cattle cars of people to the gas chambers. Yes, part of watching Shoah is the reaction to the specific speaker, rather than merely taking the words objectively as historical information. There's no way you can feel the same when eg. hearing a camp survivor describe the gas chambers, as when eg. hearing that fucking Nazi describe the gas chambers.So yes, if Lanzmann is intentionally trying to keep us in suspense about the speakers, I disagree with him very much on that. And I definitely disagree with putting that engineer on the poster of the movie. That's not to say Lanzmann didn't do a great job with the movie.
