European Cinema and Intertextuality His Ewa Mazierska

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.247248 Notes to Chapter 26 On numerous occasions Godard criticised Schindler s List and even regardedit as his personal failure that he failed to prevent M.Spielberg from rebuild-ing Auschwitz (quoted in Brody 2008: 562).However, Spielberg s contribu-tion to Holocaust studies also includes the Steven Spielberg Film and VideoArchive of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, which comprises over 1000hours of archival footage.7 Edgar s impotence to change his ideas into a tangible product inevitably isreminiscent of Le m�pris (1963) and Passion, where Europeans also provedunable to make films or at least had to rely on American funding to com-plete them.8 The belated suicides bring to mind the suicides of some famous Jewish andnon-Jewish survivors of the war and concentration camps, such as TadeuszBorowski in 1951, in Poland, Paul Celan in 1970 and Romain Gary in 1980,in France, and Primo Levi in 1987, in Italy.9 One can guess that for Said the attitude of the Canadian state towards ethnicidentities is a form of Orientalism: a way of containing the other , prevent-ing the emigrants from full assimilation with the West and retaining theiroriginal identities.Such criticism is valid, but in my view the practice alsohas the advantage of allowing the West to learn from the East, which oftenhappens in Egoyan s films.10 Marczewski does not refer to Gross s works, perhaps he did not even readthem.Yet, the similarity between these two works supports Halbwachs sclaim that all memory is collective; people belonging to the same cultureremember similar things and in a similar way.A factor in the similarity ofGross s and Marczewski s take on Polish anti-Semitism is their belonging tothe same generation: Marczewski was born in 1944, Gross in 1947.For bothof them the year 1968 was thus a formative experience.11 The attitudes of Poles and artists to the Jews perishing in ghettos are dis-cussed by Jan Błoński in his essay Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto (Poor PolesLook at the Ghetto).This essay, published for the first time in the influentialPolish Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny in 1987, played an importantrole in changing Polish attitudes to the Polish Jewish past (Błoński 1987).12 Juliana is played by Juliane K�hler, who in due course would play Eva Braunin Downfall, where she encapsulates a woman who as close to history asanybody can be, but at the same time unable or unwilling to face it, thereforeprefers to seize the day.Her role in Marczewski s film prefigures this type.2 Our Hitler : New Representations of Hitler inEuropean Films1 The makers of films about Hitler are in this respect in a similar position toartists creating anti-fascist monuments (on anti-fascist countermonumentssee Young 2003).2 This blocking of the memory about involvement in Nazi atrocities and giv-ing into Hitler s charm was facilitated by the Allied-supported policy of theintegration of former Nazis into the new West German society and, in a widersense, by the realities of the cold war (Herf 1997, 2002; Judt 1992).It was alsoin a measure a legacy of the First World War (Geyer 1997).Notes to Chapter 2 2493 Yet, European cinema is not free of these sins.Practically all Europeancinemas have indigenous traditions of melodrama, and commercial pressuresalso exist in them.4 The perceptions of Nazism as ultra-modern and anti-modern can be recon-ciled.The first perception pertains to a victim and observer of Nazism, as priv-ileged in Bauman s book, which focuses on the industrial and bureaucraticcharacter of Nazi killings.For Hitler s followers, by contrast, sheltered (at leastinitially) from Nazi barbarities, what mattered was the promise of returning toan old German bucolic ideal.It can be argued that Hitler attempted to returnto a premodern past by accelerating modernity.Not surprisingly, his projectfailed.5 Sokurov s depiction of the Berghof remains in contrast with the image ofthe Berghof we receive from documentary footage and photographs, somemade by Eva Braun, of a spacious mansion set in a sunny, idyllic landscape.However, it partly conforms to the depiction offered by Traudl Junge in hermemoirs, who emphasises the fog enwrapping the mountains, the difficultyof leaving the house due to its physical location and being confined by herbenevolent master (Junge 2004: 56 103).6 The motif of mother and son also reflects the director s specific taste for themother son relationship, as conveyed by his earlier film, Mat i syn (Mother andSon, 1997).7 As Joachim Fest observes, Hitler himself declared that with the exception ofRichard Wagner he had no forerunners , and by Wagner he meant not onlythe composer, but Wagner the personality, the greatest prophetic figure theGerman people had had (Fest 1974: 49).Fest lists many parallels betweenHitler and the composer, from their obsessions about the destiny of theGerman people, affinity for theatricality and pomp, through morbid hatred ofJews, vegetarianism, which Wagner ultimately developed into the ludicrousdelusion that humanity must be saved by a vegetarian diet (ibid.), an ideato which Hitler also alludes in one of his deranged monologues, included inSokurov s film.8 This attitude, most likely, was true about Hitler whilst in his public pro-nouncements he expressed contempt for Stalin and his people, in reality heregarded Stalin as an equal, even surpassing him in some respects.Similarly,he was forced to accept that Russian soldiers proved superior to German sol-diers (Junge 2004: 145 8).9 As commander of Bavarian Group Command IV, Mayr became one of the midwives of Hitler s political career (Kershaw 1998: 122).He sent Hitler on acourse in civic thinking (Fest 1974: 113).This course was a reward for Hitler sachievements as an informant for the commission which was set up to lookinto the events during the Soviet rule in Bavaria.In due course, Mayr, urgedby his superior to write a paper on the subject of the danger Jewry constitutesto our people today , asked Hitler to do it, addressing him as My Dear HerrHitler , an unusual salutation from a captain to a corporal (ibid.: 115).Theresponse Hitler gave was very similar to that we hear in the film.On bothoccasions Hitler condemned an emotional anti-Semitism, which finds itsexpression in pogroms, opting for anti-Semitism of reason , which leads tothe planned judicial opposition to and elimination of the privileges of Jewsand, ultimately, to the removal of the Jews altogether (ibid.).250 Notes to Chapter 210 Hitler, in reality, being 175 cm tall, was of over-average height.In manyphotographs we see him as taller than the bulk of men who surround him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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