Originally made for AMC, its solid collection of clips does illustrate one salient point: Depicting evil poorly is a sin unto itself.
Comment
04/04/08
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust (2007)
86 %
Reviews Counted: 14 Fresh: 12 Rotten:2 Average Rating: 7/10
Synopsis: This documentary examines Hollywood's portrayal of the Holocaust over a 60-year period. One of the defining tragedies of the modern age, the mass murder of six million Jews was at first greeted with silence by the film industry, before being portrayed in an increasingly explicit fashion.... [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Starring: Steven Spielberg, Sidney Lumet, Rod Steiger, Branko Lustig, George Stevens
Reviews
1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Some of the speakers are a bit too self-congratulatory, but the film is still hugely informative.
04/03/08
Imaginary Witness is powerful and complex, and few will manage to make it through to the end without gasping, weeping or covering their eyes.
02/07/08
Anker's film is an important one, shining a light on that red stain and how we saw it filtered through Hollywood's lens.
01/18/08
Sheds light on the paradoxes and political maneuvering that went on in the studios.
01/17/08
Falls into the some of the same traps as the films it politely criticizes.
01/11/08
Daniel Anker's film faults Hollywood both for ignoring the Holocaust during the war years and for trivializing it later. It's a mixed message that coheres largely thanks to Anker's archival spadework and his luck in securing interviews.
01/04/08
Daniel Anker’s 90-minute documentary takes on over 60 years of a very complex subject: Hollywood’s complicated, often contradictory relationship with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.
12/26/07
Imaginary Witness works fine as an illustrated history, but the material could've supported something more probing and provocative.
12/26/07
Uses an ample supply of clips from dozens of films to shows how Hollywood at first declined to portray the horrors of the Holocaust before going all-out to graphically exhibit the dimensions of evil.
12/25/07
The most dispassionate account of the Holocaust in the last 20 years.
12/22/07
This solid, clip-heavy history of Hollywood’s narrative efforts pushes past sobriety to arrive at some tough ideas.
12/13/07
1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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