Claude Lanzmann, Shoah

Claude Lanzmann's epic nine and a half hour Shoah celebrates its 25th anniversary with a re-release intended to honor the French filmmaker's commitment to remembering the awful annihilation of six million Jews under Nazi rule. A vigorous age 85, Lanzmann--in this interview that is primarily in English with occasional French--reflects on the innate inability to name what happened and how he uses no historical footage but rather visits the sites where so many were murdered and interviews survivors and participants. Lanzmann tells how Shoah was chosen as his title and became a byword for the events. Candidly and devastatingly he summarily rejects the subsequent deluge of Holocaust films, including Steven Spielberg's Oscar winning Schindler's List, and why he believes Spielberg's well-intentioned Shoah Foundation is pointless. (32 minutes)

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