Claude Lanzmann and the cinema of memory and the absence

In a conversation, Claude Lanzmann was often sardonic, more than a little cynical about the functioning of realpolitik and yet driven by the need to believe in a greater force of justice than the Jews generally have. proven in the hands of history. His many non-fiction films, but especially his masterpiece "Shoah" (1985), are many testimonials of these traits. It is suspected that he would have found confirmation of his worst suspicions in the Israeli newspapers that accompanied his death last week at the age of 92.

Beside Lanzmann's respectful obituaries, Israeli newspapers were filled with headlines in which historians of Yad members of Vashem and the Knesset denounced Prime Minister Netanyahu's joint statement of 27 June with the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, who said that the term "Polish death camps" was "manifestly wrong" and that the Polish government in exile "tried to stop this Nazi activity by trying to sensitize Western allies to the systematic killing of Polish Jews. " Subsequently, Polish groups with close ties to the right-wing Morawiecki government placed newspaper ads around the Globe's uplifting agreement.

Yad Vashem said in a statement: "A thorough review by Yad Vashem hist Oriens shows that historical badertions, presented as undisputed facts, in the joint statement contain grave errors and deceptions, and that the essence of the law remains unchanged even after the repeal of the aforementioned articles, including the possibility of real harm to researchers, unhindered.Search, and historical memory of the Holocaust. "

It is all but a secret that when "Shoah" was released more than 30 years ago, the film was received in Poland with almost universal condemnation. Lanzmann was accused of having deliberately misrepresented in the Polish sections of the film and his supposedly anti-Polish bias was taken for granted.

Which is ironic, given the centrality of a long section of the film detailing Jan Karski's heroic efforts to reveal to the world the extent of politics Nazi extermination and the horror of life in the ghettos of Warsaw and elsewhere. In fact, Lanzmann cut another shorter film on Karski's images, so moved by the Nazis' contempt by the Polish diplomat.

In a sense, Lanzmann had anticipated much of the controversy, before the explosive debates about the revelations. post-World War II anti-Semitic pogroms in Poland, the rise of a particularly nasty strain of Polish nationalism with an uniquely Polish version of denial of the Holocaust and resurgent nationalisms comparable across Europe and , alarmingly, in the United States.

The only thing Lanzmann did not foresee was the advent of an ultra-right Israeli government that would knowingly scotch the Polish position while cynically using the fears of the Holocaust to advance its own nationalist agenda.

Lanzmann would have had no qualms about touting his own foreknowledge. Modesty has never been a strong component of his public figure.

When I asked him about the theatrical re-issue of the 25th anniversary of "Shoah" in 2010, he dismissed the issue as "stupid."

He barked a film that must be hidden. In France, it is broadcast every two years on television and in cinemas. Why is it necessary to re-read "War and Peace?"

The famous journalist and documentaryist just warmed up.

"It's the only big movie about the Holocaust," he said. "It's a very good thing that this is a young company [IFC] who is relaunching it.They understand that the film showed people how distorted their vision of the Holocaust was." But after a while, the film fell into a kind of oblivion [here]. "

When asked if there is anything that he would change about the film, if the film had aged he clearly considered these questions more insane.

"No, no, no, no, that's exactly how the film is," he says. "The Shoah is like a source, like a source, it creates its own necessity, its own actuality, it does not age, the film does not have a wrinkle."

During a moment a little smile played around Lanzmann's lips. He said of his shorter short documentaries, taken from the original interviews, "some of them are not bad", but added, including just about every other film on the subject in his act of Accusation, "Shoah" is the only one "

In truth," Shoah "has become the model of a school of documentary singularly effective on its subject. While no one has come to challenge the primacy of Lanzmann as an exponent of this almost unique cinema of memory and absence, many filmmakers have used it as a model.

The reason for his influence is simple. "Shoah" represented a new paradigm that spoke directly about the fundamental problem of documenting the murder of six million European Jews

How do you represent something that no longer exists? How do you describe an absence? How to root out the historical truth of the void created by the criminals who created it?

At nearly 10 hours of time, "Shoah", Lanzmann's masterpiece, is a work of some dreadful fullness. It certainly feels like a definitive cinematographic statement. The duration of the film is almost entirely composed of testimonies of Jewish witnesses.

Witnesses, you will notice, no survivors. Lanzmann is still bristling with the use of the word "survivors".

"& # 39; Holocaust & # 39; "It's not a movie about the survivors," he insisted in our 2010 interview. "It's a film about the radicality of death inside the gas chambers. I interviewed members of the Sonderkommando, witnesses of the last stage of the process of extermination.Mr Spielberg speaks only of the weak memories of the "survivors."

But when the last of the witnesses died , including Lanzmann himself, a veteran of the Resistance and the most prolific documentary-maker of events?

"Nothing will be forgotten," he said. "You do not have any survivors of the First World War, but everyone knows what happened, is not it? This obsession of 'after the survivors & # 39; is a stupid Jewish idea. & # 39; Holocaust & # 39; will remain as an absolute barrier against forgetting. "

His voice suddenly becomes more plaintive, quieter.

" I tell you that because I think it's the truth, "he said. No vanity, no megalomania. But I am tired of hearing "when the last survivor …" This is not serious. "

There are moments in" Shoah "when you feel that Claude Lanzmann speaks a different language than any other filmmaker, perhaps different from any other Jew … Even he could not have guessed that One of the loudest voices defying his concerns would emanate from the head of the only Jewish state in the world.

On a personal note, to understand how difficult it is to write this column, you must consider my story with Lanzmann … Of course, I saw each of his films.I watched "Shoah" six times.I interviewed Lanzmann face to face four times.This may not sound like much, but it's the longest episodic "relationship" I've had with a foreign filmmaker.And I've written about his work with enthusiasm more times than I can count, at least a dozen Twenty-five years for Jewish Week and many more elsewhere.There are other filmmakers whose work is Motivated in the same way but, given the intensity of his subject, the acerbic tone of his personal speech and the moral authority generally gained by his work, one can not feel anything from him. Critical objectivity approaching Lanzmann

By doing "Shoah" he put a task for the viewer. The film is relentless. Even moments of respite, these strangely beautiful shots of Poland around the 1980s, serve to remind you of what is invisible, erased by the writers. Lanzmann could be insinuating, even charming. Our first interview, following the release of his documentary on the IDF, "IDF" (1994), lasted nearly an hour because we loved our conversation so much

. concerned – was ultimately confrontational and controversial. Maybe it was his true temperament. It was certainly the one that suits his real subject.