Assuming that directors make films on genocide to raise awareness and to move people to act for justice, the films we have seen in class try to reflect that theory. Night and Fog is a 1955 French documentary short film directed by Alain Resnais created ten years after to the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The film was composed of shots of the camps making it graphic in nature. It alternates between the present and past using black and white and color shots. They show the Auschwitz remnants while the narration is going on with the scenery. The issue of sadism is raised upon the prisoners with things such as medical experimentation, torture, and prostitution. The graphic scenes of the bodies and the chambers are disconcerting to say the least. I think the use of the music along with black and white images are overused leaving the audience in shock, thus raising full awareness. If it were up to me I would not use as much graphic images at he did. It is one of the movies you cannot forget about due to the images that are engraved in your mind. Resnais switches to color to and narrates with little to no music which blends well in order to give the audience a break from the horrific images. The color shots are not vibrant so the translations from black and white to color is not disturbing to the eye. Some …show more content…
The documentary is based on reports from eyewitnesses by American and European personnel who were in the near east at that time. They should have had more documents as proof for what the eyewitnesses are reporting and make it more reliable information. I think the film Ararat raises awareness on this genocide better when it comes to filming, content, and theme. Ararat puts things into perspective in a new way and makes the audience zone in and out to the past and present making us think about the reality of the
The Holocaust did not happen like a movie; it is impossible to recreate fully the horrific and grotesque events that occurred. However; in Spielberg’s telling of a true story from the Holocaust, it strived for historic accuracy and exemplified realism to Hollywood’s
The Holocaust was a distressing time in history and is not a story everyone can absorb. Both the book, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas written by John Boyne and the film, Life is Beautiful, directed by Robert Benigni, are based upon the real life events of the Holocaust but with a difference. They made clever use of different techniques to dim and censor the reality of the events and interpret it in a more tolerable way. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas depicts the life of a young nine year old boy named Bruno who is the son of the Commandant of the Auschwitz
Holocaust film has emerged as its own genre throughout time. Originally, directors ignored the possibility of Holocaust films, then the content started to take form in non-fiction recordings. Eventually, the genre of Holocaust film took off and today there is an abundance of Holocaust related films that appear when one scrolls through movie streaming sites. The Pawnbroker (1964), directed by Sidney Lumet, is a perfect example of a film that deals with both the lasting effect of the Holocaust and the stereotyping of a multitude of characters. Exploring the Holocaust in media through The Pawnbroker and The Pawnbroker’s film techniques, serve as a prime example for not only how Holocaust survivors felt emotionally imprisoned, but stereotypes different groups as well. Critics responded harshly to this stereotypical labeling and this shows how the meaning of the film has been interpreted by society differently over time.
Elie Wiesel was a young boy strongly devoted to his faith, but it quickly dwindled as he experienced dehumanization. Throughout the novel Night, The Nazis conducted many acts of dehumanization upon the Jewish citizens. The Nazis harshly targeted the Jews’ humanity, and gradually softened their perception of being human. The inhumane treatment began in their very own town of Sighet and continued into various concentration camps they were forced into. Jews were brutalized in these camps and experienced many forms of mental and physical abuse. They were given tattoos in the camps, which was quite demeaning. They physically mistreated them, starved them and separated them from their loved ones.
The Holocaust was a very important tragic event that occurred in history. Many of the stories belonging to the jews were lost and never told, many of the innocent souls were unknown, but never forgotten. For years, people have tried to dig up these stories and explain it to many generations, because the Holocaust wasn't something to be forgotten about or left unknown. Sometimes it is hard to understand the truth without a visual. Movies such as Schindler’s list or books such as Maus try to give a message as well as a visual to better understand the content.
The statement that, “ The most widely seen films about the holocaust tend to focus on the mystery of goodness rather than the horror of mass murder,” can be seen as a true statement, but a very skewed one. The reason that we see this patterning is the fact that many of the personal stories (by survivors) come from two split paths, those who survived through an extermination camp and those who survived outside of one. These extermination camps led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and those people's lives were lost along with their stories. Many documentaries tend to focus on the people that were detained in an extermination camp during the Second World War. Documentaries tend to focus on the horror of the mass murder in the extermination
Dehumanization in the novel Night, is shown through the actions observed by Elie Wiesel. One example is when he first arrives to Auschwitz and gets a number tattooed on himself, in which it robs the humanity and identification of him. Another example is when the selection process of prisoners is shown either between being healthy or not. So, if the person was deemed sick or unhealthy they would be sent to the gas chambers because the S.S. officers had no use for them anymore.
I must say that this film is very traumatizing. There are some images in this film that will be burned and scarred into my mind for as long as I live. I have seen many holocaust films, but no one was as near as dramatic and depicting as Night and Fog. However I did like the theme of this movie. It is very sad but yet realistic. Our minds are murky and dull. We tend to only remember the important situation in our lives. Yet we don’t remember the importance of our own history. I say OUR history be cause we all are human beings on this earth. Whether we believe in Allah, Jesus, Jehovah, or whatever higher power, we are all one race, and that the human race. It is very sad to know that human beings were treated and
However, emotion is not only conveyed through the actions of the main characters. Colour also has a significant impact on how good and evil is portrayed within the film. Perhaps the most moving image in Steven Spielberg?s epic, Schindler?s List, condenses all of the sadism of the Nazi regime into one small pictorial area. One of only four colour images in a black and white film spanning over three hours, the little girl in a red coat, making her way, aimless and alone through the madness and chaos, compels Schindler?s attention during the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto. Schindler identifies with the child, the plight of the little girl touches him in a way the sheer numbers make unreal ? this image transforms the faceless mass around him into one palpable human being. This figure serves as a moral reawakening for Schindler, his conscience consequently kicks into gear. The poignant yet subtle musical score also adds to the haunting atmosphere created by the
The Holocaust is the world’s most dehumanizing incident that occurred from the years 1933 to 1945. It was a racial injustice in which Jews, along with people seen as inferior, were persecuted by the German Nazi’s. Author Elie Wiesel and director Steven Spielberg both do excellent jobs at educating an audience of the horrors people experienced during this time. In Wiesel’s novel Night, the Holocaust is shown from a Jewish boy’s perspective as Elie struggles to survive the torment of several concentration camps. Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List shows the Holocaust from a German Nazi’s perspective, as Oscar Schindler faces an internal struggle while attempting to protect several Jews. The stories share numerous similarities along with differences, however, when it comes down to which is a better representation of the Holocaust, Night will come out on top due to Wiesel’s first hand experiences inside the camps.
The Holocaust was a time of great suffering and inhumanity. The novel Night, which took place during this time, was written by Elie Wiesel and talks about his teen self-experiencing the concentration camps of Auschwitz. This is related to the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas which is the story of a young German boy named Bruno who befriends a Jewish boy in a concentration camp. The many similarities and differences between the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and the novel Night include their many themes of “inhumanity” and “guilt and inaction”, and the two also share and differ in the loss of innocence of the characters and how they develop in each medium.
Night- Dehumanization In the memoir “Night” by Elie Wiesel the reader will learn more about the Holocaust. A young boy named Elie Wiesel you Wiesel got separated from his mother and sister. Ellie and his dad almost survived together. Unfortunately his dad died, but elie survived.
Night, by Elie Wiesel demonstrates several incidents where the Jewish people are treated like animals simply because of their religion. They were striped of their identities and reduced to little more "things". The first edict that was that was set to diminish them was the decree that "every Jew had to wear the yellow star" (Wiesel, 11). This symbol took away their uniqueness and placed them into a category in which everyone had only one characteristic, Judaism. Another incident of dehumanization against the Jews that is shown in this novel is how they are referred to by numbers. When Elie Wiesel first arrives at Auschwitz he, along with all of the other Jews in the camp are forced to get tattoos of numbers on their arms. "We were told to
The cinematography of the film gives the audience striking images which expose the taboos of Holocaust film-making, but this gives authenticity to the film itself. The cinematography utilizes accurate content such as dead bodies, nudity, and defamation to show the harsh truths of the Holocaust. For example, there was a pile of the dead jews shown in the beginning of the film shown after they entered the gas chamber. The pile was shown in the background of the main character within the initial 30 minutes of the movie.This was a daily occurrence in many extermination camps. However, one child seemed to survive the gassing, but he was suffocated by a nazi doctor on the table. The main character on the table took him away, because he
Francois Truffaut continued on to say that Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog, made in 1955, was the “greatest film ever made”. The 30-minute film based on the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazi concentration camps after World War II combines Resnais’ own cinematography with original images and footage of the captives in their unfathomable state. The film is lead with a somber narrative that not only accompanies the sobering images being shown but both compliments them and puts them into perspective. Carl R. Plantigna’s chapter from his book ‘Rhetoric and Representation in