New Books in Genocide Studies

Jennifer Cazenave, "An Archive of the Catastrophe: The Unused Footage of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah" (SUNY Press, 2019)


Listen Later

Jennifer Cazenave’s An Archive of the Catastrophe: The Unused Footage of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (SUNY Press, 2019) is a fascinating analysis of the 220 hours of outtakes edited out of the final nine and a half-hour 1985 film with which listeners and readers might be familiar. Well known around the world as one of the greatest documentary films ever made, and certainly one of the most important works/artifacts of Holocaust history and memory, Lanzmann’s eventual finished film emerged from an astonishing 230 hours of interview footage shot in various locations. Commissioned originally by the State of Israel to make a film about the catastrophe, Lanzmann collected these testimonies over a period of several years before beginning the epic task of editing the film. He saved the outtakes as a vital repository of accounts of those who had lived through the Shoah. The footage has since been acquired, preserved, and digitized as an archive by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The chapters of Cazenave’s book explore the film’s conceptualization and production, reframing the final film in terms of all that it left out, to think about what was included in relationship to those stories and scenes excluded for different reasons. Over years from an initial dissertation project to this volume, Cazenave pursued the story of the film and its outtakes through archival research, detective work, and close technical, aesthetic and theoretical consideration. The resulting analysis takes author and reader from consideration of the film/archive in relationship to Holocaust trials (and especially the Eichmann trial of 1961), to issues of gender and the feminine, to the question of rescue and refugees, as well as debates about representation, witnessing, and testimony. The book is a wonderful and complex study that will be of great interest to readers in Holocaust and cinema studies. The magnum opus of a French filmmaker working with a largely French crew, and produced with funding provided in part by the French government, the film also illuminates, in its own ways (including its silences) the difficult French past and politics of Holocaust history and memory.

Roxanne Panchasi is an Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada who specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century France and empire. She is the founding host of New Books in French Studies, a channel launched in 2013.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

New Books in Genocide StudiesBy Marshall Poe

  • 4.3
  • 4.3
  • 4.3
  • 4.3
  • 4.3

4.3

32 ratings


More shows like New Books in Genocide Studies

View all
History Extra podcast by Immediate Media

History Extra podcast

3,193 Listeners

New Books in History by Marshall Poe

New Books in History

209 Listeners

The History of England by David Crowther

The History of England

4,362 Listeners

New Books in Psychoanalysis by Marshall Poe

New Books in Psychoanalysis

193 Listeners

New Books in Military History by Marshall Poe

New Books in Military History

162 Listeners

New Books in Islamic Studies by Marshall Poe

New Books in Islamic Studies

30 Listeners

New Books in African American Studies by New Books Network

New Books in African American Studies

161 Listeners

New Books in Environmental Studies by Marshall Poe

New Books in Environmental Studies

23 Listeners

New Books in Political Science by New Books Network

New Books in Political Science

63 Listeners

New Books in Literary Studies by New Books Network

New Books in Literary Studies

23 Listeners

New Books in Philosophy by New Books Network

New Books in Philosophy

110 Listeners

In Our Time: History by BBC Radio 4

In Our Time: History

1,902 Listeners

New Books in Intellectual History by New Books Network

New Books in Intellectual History

61 Listeners

Dan Snow's History Hit by History Hit

Dan Snow's History Hit

4,675 Listeners

Tides of History by Wondery /  Patrick Wyman

Tides of History

6,291 Listeners

Bad Gays by Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

Bad Gays

486 Listeners

Real Dictators by NOISER

Real Dictators

5,240 Listeners

The Ancients by History Hit

The Ancients

3,043 Listeners

The Rest Is History by Goalhanger

The Rest Is History

13,053 Listeners

The Alexei Sayle Podcast by Alexei Sayle and Talal Karkouti

The Alexei Sayle Podcast

42 Listeners

On Auschwitz by Auschwitz Memorial

On Auschwitz

170 Listeners

American History Hit by History Hit

American History Hit

1,420 Listeners

Empire by Goalhanger

Empire

2,107 Listeners

Past Present Future by David Runciman

Past Present Future

321 Listeners

The Holocaust History Podcast by Waitman Wade Beorn

The Holocaust History Podcast

59 Listeners