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Holocaust Films: Annette Insdorf
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In her evaluation of films that attempt to depict aspects of the Holocaust, Insdorf is generally hard on Hollywood, faulting it for everything from Holo-kitsch to excessive blood and gore to oversensitivity about gentile concerns. While it is amusing to learn that objections from the American Gas Association resulted in the deletion of the word "gas" from a televised version of Judgment at Nuremberg on Playhouse 90 in 1959 (p. 3), revisionist readers will be bemused to find out that it is the "Hollywood conventions of casting and scoring" that undermine the authenticity of The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) (p.7). Evidently the author is not troubled by the discrepancies between the various texts of the diary and its divergences from discernible reality unearthed by Robert Faurisson (condemned in the author’s 1983 introduction), or even by the re-jiggering, as remarked by author Ira Levin, of the diary’s content to cater to the concerns of gentile theater and filmgoers.
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Indelible Shadows investigates questions raised by films about the Holocaust. How does one make a movie that is both morally just and marketable? Annette Insdorf provides sensitive readings of individual films and analyzes theoretical issues such as the ‘truth claims’ of the cinematic medium. The third edition of Indelible Shadows includes five new chapters that cover recent trends, as well as rediscoveries of motion pictures made during and just after World War II. It addresses the treatment of rescuers, as in ‘Schindler’s List’; the controversial use of humor, as in ’Life is Beautiful’; the distorted image of survivors, and the growing genre of documentaries that return to the scene of the crime or rescue. The annotated filmography offers capsule summaries and information about another hundred Holocaust films from around the world, making this edition the most comprehensive and up to date discussion of films about the Holocaust, and an invaluable resource for film programmers and educators.
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Insdorf's book takes films that deal with the Holocaust (over the past five decades) and analyzes them and puts them into contexts of their days. This book looks at both Night and Fog and Shoah.
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Annette Insdorf makes much of searching for Holocaust films that are morally righteous as well as marketable. Her book more than hints... at a greater interest in movies that promote the Holocaust cult with a strong bias and a feeble regard for historical truth, to the largest possible audience.
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Annette Insdorf