History Film / Shoah

''Shoah'' is a 1985 {{Documentary}} by Claude Lanzmann about [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the extermination of the Jews in occupied Europe]]. It was highly influential, and it was the first nonfiction film many had seen on the topic. It was part of the wider interest in Nazi and collaborationist atrocities which appeared in the late 1960s (and featured so heavily in the cultural 'Revolution' of May '68).

The film does not deal much with earlier aspects of the Holocaust, such as Jews being penned up in ghettos and starving, or the "Holocaust by bullets" in which death squads followed the German armies on Operation Barbarossa in 1941; instead it concentrates on the organized extermination of the Jews in death camps, 1942-1944. Between 1976 and 1981, Claude Lanzmann interviewed many protagonists of the Holocaust, both survivors, bystanders and former perpetrators. His film, clocking in at nearly a whopping nine and a half hours, is a collection of these interviews, interspersed with shots of the ruins of the extermination camps. There is, however, no [[StockFootage archival footage]] whatsoever, and the horror is made all the greater by the audience having to rely on [[TalkingHeads oral testimonies]] to imagine it, rather than actually being shown.

* {{Documentary}}: Possibly the most famous film documentary of the Final Solution.

* LeaveTheCameraRunning: The interview with Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, in which Hilberg explains how the Holocaust sprang from a long tradition of European antisemitism, runs nine minutes without a cut.

Between 1976 and 1981, Claude Lanzmann interviewed many protagonists of the Holocaust, both survivors, bystanders and former perpetrators. His film, clocking in at nearly a whopping nine and a half hours, is a collection of these interviews, interspersed with shots of the ruins of the extermination camps. There is, however, no [[StockFootage archival footage]] whatsoever, and the horror is made all the greater by the audience having to rely on [[TalkingHeads oral testimonies]] to imagine it, rather than actually being shown.

%%* PunchClockVillain: Played chillingly straight.

* DaylightHorror: Most of the remains of the camps are filmed in daylight, and one interviewee says poignantly that there must have been many sunny days at the height of the holocaust.

Between 1976 and 1981, Claude Lanzmann interviewed many protagonists of the Holocaust, both survivors, bystanders and former perpetrators. His film, clocking in at nine hours, is a collection of these interviews, interspersed with shots of the ruins of the extermination camps. There is, however, no [[StockFootage archival footage]] whatsoever, and the horror is made all the greater by the audience having to rely on [[TalkingHeads oral testimonies]] to imagine it, rather than actually being shown.

Many of the interviewees viewed themselves as having been "cogs in the machine" - people just doing their jobs, regardless of what that job involved, because if they hadn't done it then someone else would've... and that that someone else might have [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIaORknS1Dk&feature=youtu.be&t=1m12s made things 'worse' (somehow)]]. [[NeverMyFault The abnegation of]] [[SomebodyElsesProblem personal responsibility]] was endemic among unenthusiastic perpetrators of the Holocaust: if they didn't blame other people for 'forcing' them to do evil, they would have to think of ''themselves'' as evil. [[AndThatsTerrible And that would be terrible.]]

* PunchClockVillain: Played chillingly straight.
* RetiredMonster: Former Nazis are interviewed, the filmmakers duped them into appearing by promising audio-only interviews and filming them with hidden cameras.

''Shoah'' is a 1985 {{Documentary}} by Claude Lanzmann about [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the extermination of the Jews in occupied Europe]]. It was highly influential, and it was the first nonfiction film many had seen on the topic. It was part of the wider interest in Nazi and Collaborator atrocities which appeared in the late 1960s (and featured so heavily in the cultural 'Revolution' of May '68).

->''"There is no proper response to this film. It is an enormous fact, a 550-minute howl of pain and anger in the face of genocide. It is one of the noblest films ever made... It is an act of witness."''
-->-- '''Creator/RogerEbert'''

[[quoteright:345:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Shoah_3456.jpg]]

'''''Shoah''''' is a {{Documentary}} by Claude Lanzmann about [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the extermination of the Jews in occupied Europe]]. It was highly influential, and it was the first nonfiction film many had seen on the topic. It was part of the wider interest in Nazi and Collaborator atrocities which appeared in the late 1960s (and featured so heavily in the cultural 'Revolution' of May '68).

'''''Shoah''''' is a {{Documentary}} by Claude Lanzmann about [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the extermination of the Jews in occupied Europe]]. It was highly influential, and it was the first nonfiction film many had seen on the topic.

Many of the interviewees viewed themselves as having been "cogs in the machine" - people just doing their jobs, regardless of what that job involved, because if they hadn't done it then someone else would've (and that someone else might've made it 'worse' somehow). [[NeverMyFault The abnegation of]] [[SomebodyElsesProblem personal responsibility]] was endemic among unenthusiastic perpetrators of the Holocaust: if they didn't blame other people for 'forcing' them to do evil, they would have to think of ''themselves'' as evil. [[AndThatsTerrible And that would be terrible.]]

'''''Shoah''''' is a {{Documentary}} by Claude Lanzmann about the extermination of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. It is widely considered the definitive nonfiction film on the topic.

Several of the interviewees were "cogs in the machine", people who were just doing their jobs--it didn't matter much to them that their jobs involved making industrial-scale murder possible. As such, this film is a harrowing illustration of Hannah Arendt's line about "the banality of evil".

-->-- '''RogerEbert'''

->''There is no proper response to this film. It is an enormous fact, a 550-minute howl of pain and anger in the face of genocide. It is one of the noblest films ever made... It is an act of witness.''

* DrowningMySorrows: Many of the Russian train conductors were drunk during the long rides to the concentration camps. Without alcohol, they couldn't have done it.

* DaylightHorror: Most of the remains of the camps are filmed in daylight, and one interviewee reflects that there must have been many sunny days at the height of the holocaust.

Between 1976 and 1981, Claude Lanzmann interviewed many protagonists of the Holocaust, both survivors, bystanders and former perpetrators. His film, clocking in at nine hours, is a collection of these interviews, interspersed with shots of the ruins of the extermination camps. There is, however, no archival footage whatsoever, and the horror is made all the greater by the audience having to rely on oral testimonies to imagine it, rather than actually being shown.