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11/06/09
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust (2004)
88
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:16
Fresh:14
Rotten:2
Average Rating:6.9/10
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
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... [More]
Starring: Steven Spielberg, Sidney Lumet, Rod Steiger, Branko Lustig
Director: Daniel Anker
Reviews for Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust
1 - 18 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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03/27/09
Top CriticDeserves merit for detailing a painful subject with maturity and intelligence
01/16/09
Noteworthy for clips from less familiar films and newsreels, and interviews with creative participants in groundbreaking films.
01/13/09
Originally made for AMC, its solid collection of clips does illustrate one salient point: Depicting evil poorly is a sin unto itself.
04/04/08
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
Anker's excavated some remarkable stuff here...
12/18/07
This solid, clip-heavy history of Hollywood’s narrative efforts pushes past sobriety to arrive at some tough ideas.
12/13/07
A dash of cold water for both the movie industry and the public.
03/26/05
1 - 18 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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