The Next Chapter in the History of Holocaust Cinema

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In the first fifteen years of the twenty-first century, a large number of films have been produced in Europe, the United States, Israel and elsewhere that have addressed the historical reality and the legacy of the Holocaust. Contemporary Holocaust cinema exists at the intersection of national cultural traditions, aesthetic conventions, and the inner logic of popular forms of entertainment. It also reacts to developments in both fiction and documentary films following the innovations of a postmodern aesthetic. With the number of witnesses to the atrocities of Nazi Germany dwindling, mediated representations of the Holocaust take on greater cultural significance. At the same time, as a result of the current shift in the role of direct witnessing, visual responses to the task of keeping memories alive have to re-adjust their value systems and reconsider their artistic choices. Both established directors and a new generation of filmmakers have tackled the ethically difficult task of finding a visual language for the representation of the past to which viewers can relate. Both geographical and spatial principles of Holocaust memory are frequently addressed in original ways. Another development concentrates on perpetrator figures, adding questions related to guilt and memory. Covering such diverse topics, this volume brings together scholars from cultural studies, literary studies, and film studies; their analyses of twenty-first-century Holocaust films venture across national and linguistic boundaries and make visible various formal and intertextual relationships within the substantial body of Holocaust cinema.

‘A rich and highly cogent collection of essays, which carefully probes the vibrant field of Holocaust cinema since 2000 in all its geographical and generic variety. It shows how the medium of film is working today to reconfigure the historical and cinematic past, the ethics of representation and the problem of evil in an era of «post memory».’ – ROBeRt S. C. GORDOn, Cambridge University

OLeKSAnDR KOBRYnSKYY is a lecturer in the english department at the University of erlangennürnberg. His research focuses on representations of the Holocaust in anglophone literatures and european cinema. GeRD BAYeR is privatdozent in the english department at the University of erlangen-nürnberg. He has written on a wide range of topics and is the co-editor of Literatur und Holocaust (2009).

WA L L F L O W E R P R E S S

Holocaust Cinema-cover.indd 1

in the tWentY-FiRSt CentURY MeMory, IMages, and tHe etHICs of representatIon

edited by OLeKSAnDR KOBRYnSKYY & GeRD BAYeR

KoBrynsKyy & Bayer

‘This volume combines probing close analyses of important recent Holocaust films with valuable discussion of new themes, characters, geographies, tropes, analogies, ways of using archival images, and forms of reflexivity that distinguish this group of works from earlier cinema. Covering films from a diverse range of countries and genres and bringing together authors from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, the volume constitutes a compelling contribution to debate about the contemporary mediation of Holocaust memory.’ – LiBBY SAxtOn, Queen Mary, University of London

Holocaust Cinema

cover photo: Ida (2014) © Opus Films/Phoenix Film/ Sylwester Kazimierczak

25/08/2015 11:21


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