NP Re: what was that film again?

[davemarc]

> From: Niall Martin <nmartin at xs4all.nl>
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: what was that film again?
> Date: Wednesday, February 26, 1997 5:28 AM
> 
> While we're still agonizing over celluloid holocausts I wonder if there's
> anyone who can substantiate an episode which I'd assumed was common
> knowledge but now that I try to find a reference seems to have come over
all
> phantasmagoric. I'm convinced that there was one famous auteur who
actually
> followed the Allies into the death camps with the intention of making a
film
> of Nazi War Atrocities (presumably government sponsored) but as the body
> count grew higher the project inevitably ground to a halt. I can still
see a
> b/w photo of jeep with movie camera on tripod with its path literally
> blocked by a heap of bodies. 
> 
> Initially thought the auteur in question was Welles but, that's just
silly,
> then checked out Grierson and the GPO film unit, more likely but, no
luck.
> Same w. David Lean, Powell & Pressburger, all the usual suspects ..... so
> doubting my faculties I now appeal to the erudition of the list ... am I
mad
> or have revisionist historians been rearranging my bookshelves?
> 
This sounds remotely like Sam Fuller.  There's a great short film of him
watching the footage he shot after his enfuriated commanding officer said
something like, "So you know how to use a camera?  Shoot this!"  It turned
out to be the experience that persuaded Fuller to commit his life to making
movies.  What really got his goat was how the locals kept on denying what
had happened in the camp.  "If there's anything I can't stand, it's a
liar!"  In one of his movies (Verboten! I think), there's a scene in which
a young postwar admirer of the Nazis is forced to go to Nuremberg and watch
that concentration camp footage (I think it's Fuller's own).  Even though
the victims aren't shown fighting back, the experience shocks the kid into
recognizing the evil of his erstwhile heroes.  Of course, in the remake,
the kid will be given a lecture about the flaws of capitalism.

davemarc