Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann | |
---|---|
Lanzmann in 2014 | |
Born |
Paris, France | 27 November 1925
Nationality | French |
Occupation | Filmmaker |
Years active | 1970–present |
Known for | Shoah (1985) |
Spouse(s) |
Judith Magre (m. 1963; div. 1971) Angelika Schrobsdorff (m. 1971) Dominique Petithory (m. 1995) |
Children | Angélique Lanzmann, Félix Lanzmann |
Claude Lanzmann (French: [lanzman]; born 27 November 1925) is a French filmmaker known for the Holocaust documentary film Shoah (1985).
Life and work
Lanzmann was born in Paris to a Jewish family that had immigrated to France from Eastern Europe.[1] He is the brother of writer Jacques Lanzmann. He attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. His family went into hiding during World War II.[2] He joined the French resistance at the age of 17 and fought in the Auvergne.[3] Lanzmann opposed the French war in Algeria and signed the 1960 antiwar petition Manifesto of the 121.[4]
From 1952 to 1959 he lived with Simone de Beauvoir. In 1963 he married French actress Judith Magre. They divorced in 1971, and he next married Angelika Schrobsdorff, a German-Jewish writer.[5] He divorced a second time and married Dominique Petithory in 1995. He is the father of Angélique Lanzmann, born in 1950 and Félix Lanzmann, born in 1993.
Lanzmann is chief editor of the journal Les Temps Modernes, founded by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and lecturer at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.[6] In 2009 he published his memoirs under the title Le lièvre de Patagonie ("The Patagonian Hare").
Shoah
Lanzmann's most renowned work, Shoah (1985), is a nine-and-a-half-hour oral history of the Holocaust, broadly considered to be the foremost film on the subject. Shoah is made without the use of any historical footage, and uses only first-person testimony from perpetrators and victims, and contemporary footage of Holocaust-related sites. Interviewees include the Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski and Raul Hilberg, the American Holocaust historian. When the film was released, the director also published the complete text, including in English translation, with introductions by Lanzmann and Simone de Beauvoir.
Lanzmann has disagreed, sometimes angrily, with attempts to understand the why of Hitler, stating that the evil of Hitler cannot or should not be explained and that to do so is immoral and an obscenity.[7]
Legacy and honors
- On July 14, 2011, he received the French Legion of Honor.[8]
- At the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2013, Lanzmann was awarded with the Honorary Golden Bear.[9]
- 2010 Welt-Literaturpreis[10]
Selected works
Filmography
- Israel, Why (Pourquoi Israel) (1973)
- Shoah (1985)
- Tsahal (film) (1994)
- A Visitor from the Living (1999)
- Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m (2001)
- Lights and Shadows (2008)
- The Karski Report (2010)
- The Last of the Unjust (2013) about Benjamin Murmelstein, Elder of Theresienstadt
- Napalm (2017)
As subject
- Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah (2015) a documentary about Lanzmann, directed by Adam Benzine
Books
- Shoah: An Oral History of the Holocaust : The Complete Text of the Film. Pantheon Books, New York 1985, ISBN 978-0-394-55142-5
- The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir (translated by Frank Wynne). London: Atlantic Books, 2012, ISBN 978-1-84887-360-5 ; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-374-23004-3
- La Tombe du divin plongeur. Gallimard, Paris 2012 ISBN 978-2-070-45677-2
References
- ↑ "Fuse Feature: A Conversation with Claude Lanzmann about his memoir, "The Patagonian Hare"". The Arts Fuse. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
- ↑ On Campus: "Claude Lanzmann", Columbia University News
- ↑ Lawrence D. Kritzman, Brian J. Reilly, Malcolm DeBevoise. The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought Entry "Claude Lanzmann"
- ↑ Israel's enemies take no prisoners., Tageszeitung, 6 July 2009
- ↑ "Nothing he hasn't done, nowhere he hasn't been". Lrb.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
- ↑ Claude Lanzmann Faculty profile at European Graduate School
- ↑ Rosenbaum, Ron (1999). "Claude Lanzmann and the War Against the Question Why". Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-679-43151-9.
- ↑ 'La promotion du 14 juillet de la Légion d'honneur', in Le Figaro, 14/07/2011
- ↑ "Claude Lanzmann: an extraordinary prize for an extraordinary man". Vivamost.com. Retrieved 2013-12-16.
- ↑ "Auszeichnung: Claude Lanzmann erhält den "Welt"-Literaturpreis". Berliner Morgenpost (in German). October 2, 2010. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
Further reading
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Claude Lanzmann. |
- Claude Lanzmann on IMDb
- Jeffries, Stuart. 'Claude Lanzmann on why Holocaust documentary Shoah still matters', The Guardian, 9 June 2011.
- Lanzmann, Claude. "From the Holocaust to the Holocaust", Telos, 42, 21 December 1979, 137–143 doi:10.3817/1279042137
- 'Witness to History: Claude Lanzmann’s Journey to Shoah, Weekly Standard, 8 October 2012.
- "Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection", Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (video excerpts and transcripts of all interviews for Shoah, including outtakes).
- Galster, Ingrid (2011). "'Eine große Qualität meines Buches ist seine Ehrlichkeit.' Postscriptum zu der Debatte um die Autobiographie Claude Lanzmanns", in Das Argument, 290, 72–83.