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Shoah – Great Works of Report and
Film First Shown at PKU
By Wang Yi
PKU NEWS 2004--09—21
http://ennews.pku.edu.cn/news.php?s=95816048
Peking University, Beijing, Sep 21st, 2004: The full length documentary film ―Shoah
(great calamity)‖ is shown in the centennial hall today.
Directed by famous French director Claude Langzman, this great film probes into the
genocide of the Jews during World War Two. In terms of memory and history, Shoah
surpasses the films of the same kind in the intensity of the testimony and rigor of
history.
The audiences need to remain in their seats for as long as 10 hours, going back to
the real scene along with different kinds of narrators in the film, including many
survivors of the genocide, who have been keeping silent about that period of history
until they are finally found by the director after his ten years of investigation.
Watching the film, one can find there is a wide use of wide-angle lens and close-up.
Together with the wide-angle lens, the director sets the key tone of the film into a
grey gloomy, which stands for the cruel and oppressive atmosphere of that period of
time. When it comes to the close-ups, the director tries to reveal the narrator‘s inner
world when they are recalling their experiences in those dark days that they can‘t
bear to look back. And that is why the narration is always disjointed.
Shoah contains a huge amount of work done by the journalists, so that it may be
rated as a model of investigation and interview. But the director‘s skill in film
editing----joining the 10-hour interview together in the form of mutual
question-and-answer, running afoul of each other and adding off-screen
voices----makes Shoah a great film as well.
Today the film is first on show in China. As the key works of the Beijing 2004
International Documentary Film Exhibition started from 15th September, it is a piece
of classic works that worth seeing by everybody.
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