Goldhagen & Spielberg's Zwolfkinder

[Steelhead]

>Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 22:49:12 -0700
>From: Roy Gordon <royg at semantic.com>
>Organization: Semantic Systems, Inc.
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win95; I)
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>To: Steelhead <sitka at teleport.com>
>CC: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Goldhagen & Spielberg's Zwolfkinder
>X-UIDL: ef43dc7e4705dc8e326e54f20bb16785
>
>Well, I thought Schindler's List was a great film, and that it was amazing as
>a
>product of the American commercial cinema.
>
>What are the other readily available, mass audience films on the holocaust?
>What are the commercial films produced in other countries for mass audiences
>on
>it?  The Sorrow and the Pity? The Garden of the Finzi-Continis?  The Shop on
>Main Street?  (Well, you can see when I was up on things, to whatever extent.)
>
>Those who saw Night and Fog in college or high school are fortunate, if that
>is
>the word.  It is a totally brilliant and affecting film.  I didn't see it
>until
>teaching in a former lifetime as an academic.  I then would show it to all my
>classes.  (Most of which had nothing to do with film, whatsover.)  This was in
>the mid 70s.  Although I have run into people who have seen it, I know that
>almost none of my students had.  Perhaps things have changed in this respect
>in
>the last 20 years, but somehow I doubt it.  It seems to me that general
>awareness of the Nazis has slid, not increased.
>
>As an aside, Night and Fog's aesthetic problem and great achievement is how to
>present the horror without letting the audience distance itself,
>psychologically or physically, i.e., walking out.  This is the same problem
>faced by SL on a much larger scale, given the intended mass audience.  (Night
>and Fog solves it brilliantly, imo, by, among other techniques, how Resnais
>alternates past and present.)
>
>> Take Ralph Fiennes's incredible
>> portrayal of the SS officer in charge of the Auschwitz death camp. The
>> impression given by the film is that the sadism of one bad German
>> (Fiennes's) is balanced and compensated for by the altruism of a good
>> German (Liam Neeson's Schindler).
>
>All I can say is: this wasn't my interpretation at all.  In fact, I'm pretty
>astounded by your interpretation.
>
>> But Goldhagen's facts haven't been assailed, rather
>> his controversial conclusion that the seeds of the Holocaust were deeply
>> embedded in the German culture,in its myths, music, films, economics and
>> philosophy. Even if you don't accept this thesis, the book is worth it for
>> its detailed history of the little known but horrifically villainous
>> Einsatzgruppen and the sadistic and eliminationist death marches (mainly
>> involving women and children) at the close of the war.
>
>Spielberg undoubtedly should have beaten Goldhagen to it and tacked it on.
>
>> In an interview in LOOT a few years ago, Christopher Simpson
>> suggested there is documentary evidence of this and that the man was merely
>> trying to save his own ass as he forsaw how the war was going to end.
>
>Is this in the book (I don't know.)  Is it publicly available, other than
>someone 'suggesting' it?
>
>As for the identification of Spielberg and Reifenstahl:  I've only seen
>Triumph
>of the Will and Olympia.  I think Triumph of the Will is visually bombastic
>(to
>use someone else's word) and Olympiad amazing and excellent.  But these are
>both entirely stylistically different than Spielberg.
>
>> Actually, I think the full story (although Kubrick, as always, was well
>> ahead of the curve) is hardly known at all--since most of the damning
>> evidence was destroyed by the Nazi's or remains sealed by the US State
>> Department. Some facts continue to emerge. For instance, there is the
>> strange case of George Bush's grandfather, the investment banker Herbert
>> Walker, among whose clients during the war were GAF and its parent
>> company...drumroll...IG Farben. George's father,
>> Prescott Bush continued this tradition at the Nazi-linked firm Dillon,
>> Read. Somehow it doesn't surprise me that George Bush thought Schindler's
>> List was
>> "one of the best films I've ever seen."
>
>Very little would surprise me about George Bush, but I'm really surprised at
>this argument.
>
>                                        -- roy
>
>Re Night and Fog: "In a control tower a French gendarme was clearly visible.
>This visual evidence of collaboration was intolerable to the authorities.
>After two months of negotiations, the producers of the film agreed to alter
>the
>image (and the evidence of history) by covering the gendarme's uniform." (from
>_Alain Resnais_ by James Monaco (1978, p 22.)
>
>I mean, how could they???  Distory history?  In a documentary?  Intentionally?
> Just knuckle under?  So they could satify their egos and get it distributed?
>Wow, I'm sorry I ever saw the film.
>
>