The success of the Shoah movie and what “Inglorious Basterds” is doing to it
How can we remember one of the worst tragedies in history?
Swearing by the slogan “Never again, never forget,” international Jewish leadership has obsessed over this question for more than a decade as Holocaust survivors have begun to pass away. And while the Holocaust, due to the efforts of myriad Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, is one of the most well-documented historical events, nothing tells its story like a firsthand account from a relative or friend.
Except, perhaps, a movie. Since 1993’s “Schindler’s List,” Hollywood has exploded with Holocaust films, a trend that accelerated this year, when more than a dozen Nazi-related flicks came out. And the more survivors die, the more movies we may see. The films could act as a surrogate for the survivor generation’s telling its story to young people who may no longer have living grandparents to hear it from.
But why the Holocaust? Of all the wars and genocides in human history, the Holocaust has the largest presence in the world of film, something that may come from the totality of its destruction. The Holocaust killed more people than any other genocide: six million Jews, plus millions from other minorities in a short amount of time. To many people, this terrifying suddenness makes the Holocaust the epitome of historical tragedy.
The Holocaust also took place in the Western world, which makes it more familiar to American viewers. Genocides such as those in Rwanda and Armenian Turkey took place in societies that most Americans know little about. And though movies such as “Hotel Rwanda” aim to familiarize the public with those tragedies, it is difficult for film producers to attract an audience to a movie when that audience knows nothing about the movie’s subject.
And that may be the key to the Holocaust movie boom: attracting an audience. Because the Holocaust is so ubiquitous, many of these movies are extremely successful. The influence of Jewish film executives in Hollywood helps as well.
But is it right to make money off of such a tragedy? To many, the profit is a necessary evil that nonetheless leads to greater awareness of the Holocaust. To others, however, such graphic movies desensitize viewers, especially young people, to the horrors of the Holocaust. Movie-goers are used to seeing violence in film.
The question gets even more complicated in light of “Inglorious Basterds [sic.],” Quentin Tarantino’s gratuitously violent Holocaust movie that the Jerusalem Post called a “comic-book version of events.” Tarantino uses the Holocaust and World War II as a historical setting and pays no attention to fact, raising the question of how far we can go from the truth in order to raise awareness of an all-too-real tragedy.
But even “Basterds” caught the Holocaust-movie success bug, opening at number one at the box office in both the United States and the United Kingdom. As of September 23, it has made $227.91 million worldwide.
So is “Basterds” ushering in a new era of Holocaust remembrance where, as survivors pass, we place less emphasis on historical accuracy and more on emotional poignancy and cinematic creativity?
Only time will tell. For now, let’s focus on hearing the real story from survivors while we still can, and leave fictionalization to later generations.
