Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

source: material. Both the Finzi-Continis and the Bassanis are heavily assimilated.. but that
no one calls assimilation into question. or made an issue. Even the actors. Sanda and
Capolicchio. have blood hair and blue eyes, making them look. particularly Aryan. A
criticism ofmany Holocaust themcd films is that they generalize the Shoah to such a
degree thai it ultimately removes its Jewishness., and this is a rebuke well-leveled at De
Sica's film.
In general though. it is not so much a question ofprivileging one narrative motif
over another in these films. but rather recognizing thaI these are the areas ofJewish
thought which can be expressed within cinema, and reflect the Jewishness ofsome films.
These motifs are different to the Jewish encodedness ofsome of the attributes. which I
discuss below: for something to be considered a narrative motif. it must be integral 10 the
diegesis. rather than something thrown in for "ethnic colour'" or cultural verisimilitude.
VERISIMILITUDE TO JEWISH EXPERIENCE:
In Chapter Four. I noted that one of the crucial attributes in identifying Jewishness
in film was its reflection or Je",ish experience. Then: needs to be a high degree or
verisimilitude to Jewish culture and to Jewish experience for the Jewishness to be
emergent.
We can consider this anribute on three levels. On one level. infonnant comments
can reflect cultural verisimilitude like Eddie's. who noted that his mother. an Auschwitz
survivor. identified the accuracy ofSchindltr's List. Ron noted that certain depictions of
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