Will we one day see the inside of a gas chamber in action in a mainstream film? As trivial as the question is, it illustrates the debate which still animates the world of cinema, 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, on how to represent – or not to represent – the Shoah. “The scale of the massacres and the industrial dimension of mass extermination, and the fact that extermination is an ideological objective of Germany, and not a consequence of inhumane treatment, as with slavery, makes the subject always sensitive at the time of its representation,” explains Claire Kaiser, lecturer and specialist in Germany and cinema at Bordeaux-Montaigne University.
Same analysis of the uniqueness of this crime by Remy Besson, historian at the University of Montreal and specialist in the representation of the Shoah in cinema: “There is no archive which films the interior of a gas chamber, everything is therefore only speculative and raises the question: how to represent what has never been represented? “. This is notably the party of Claude Lanzmann, director of the documentary Shoah : There is no image of gassings, and one should not be created.
Filming what has never been filmed
The debate arose as early as the Second World War: “Already, witnesses were asking themselves the question in the ghettos of how to report the unspeakable,” recalls Hélène Camarade, professor of Germanic studies at Bordeaux-Montaigne University.
Which makes representation in cinema such a hot topic, where representations of genocide in comics – notably with Art Spiegelman’s Mauss – or in literature have aroused less lively reactions. “In representation by drawing or novel, there is an immediate distancing by the medium, which is not the case with cinema. The extremely strong manipulative power of the image makes the viewer more passive,” explains Claire Kaiser. Remy Besson continues: “A documentary aspect emerges more easily from the film, which establishes what is seen as a historical truth and not as a fiction.”
Can we let the viewer expect gaslighting?
In 1993, in Schindler’s ListSteven Spielberg seems to break the “taboo” by taking his camera inside a gas chamber, where a group of naked Jewish women with cropped hair are parked. At least, he makes the viewer believe so. In reality, the scene ends with a twist. These are real showers, and it is water that gushes out, and not Zyklon B. If it therefore avoids the absolute horror, such a scenario of the Holocaust has provoked the ire of many comments. Can we let the viewer “expect” gassing, and play on this expectation?
« The death of 3,000 people, men, women and children asphyxiated together in a gas chamber in one of the Auschwitz crematoria, literally defies all representation and literally defies all fiction. […] So, people will say to me ”Well Spielberg didn’t do that”. That’s absolutely true, but he made it look like he was going to do it. And I consider that to be a serious mistake. » Claude Lanzmann, 1994. »
Louis Skorecki, French film critic, also criticizes the director for filming “Jewish deportees hunted by the Nazis like he filmed children chased by dinosaurs in Jurassic Park”.
“This man is only entitled to the deepest contempt”
Criticisms reminiscent of those, even more vehement, received by director Gillo Pontecorvo. In 1960, in his film headone of the first fictions on the subject, an aestheticized camera movement on a deportee committing suicide on barbed wire shocks some public opinion and critics. In the Cahiers du cinéma, an article soberly titled Of abjection judges the director: “The man who decides, at that moment, to do a tracking shot forward to reframe the corpse from a low angle, taking care to register the raised hand exactly in one corner of his final framing, this man is only entitled to the deepest contempt. »
Today, such moral critiques sometimes seem anachronistic. “We can estimate that there is a form of habituation, once the taboo has been transgressed once, it is necessarily less shocking the second time,” recalls Hélène Camarade, who sees in The Falla 2004 German film retracing the life of Adolf Hitler, “returning to his weaknesses and his humanity”, the symbolic passage of a milestone and a change of era.
“There is above all a generational effect,” she continues. Nazism and the Holocaust are a less central, taboo and sensitive subject for new generations. » As time does its work, “a certain number of control towers and moral sentinels have disappeared,” adds Ophir Lévy, lecturer in cinematographic studies at the University of Paris-8 and author of Political Power of Images. Notably Claude Lanzmann, who died in 2018.
-Does cinema attenuate the reality of the Shoah?
If the moral question is less central than in the past, the representation of the Shoah in cinema still raises questions. “In front of films on the subject, there will always be turmoil and controversy,” estimates Claire Kaiser. In particular, that of mitigating the Shoah. In an interview, Steven Spielberg admitted that he had been forced to soften the behavior and erase certain abuses of his character Amon Göth, commander of the concentration camp, in relation to historical facts, because no spectator would have considered it credible. “Reality is not necessarily plausible in cinema”, explains Ophir Lévy, “there can be an excess in reality which would be attributed to a screenwriter wanting to do too much”. However, Spielberg “being a very good filmmaker, he knows what the public is ready to believe or not believe, and will therefore adopt his film on this criterion, and not on historical reality, even if it means tampering with it. . »
The same goes for the quest for meaning, essential for a good scenario, but very absent from the facts. Certainly, Life is beautiful by Roberto Benigni (1997) makes it clear from the outset that it is a fable and directly avoids truth. But “showing a character who gives meaning to his sacrifice, by saving his son’s view of the world, denies the reality of the Shoah. There was no possible meaning in the Shoah and no noble sacrifice achievable. It was an extermination,” explains Hélène Comarade.
Deception of reality or necessary gateway?
In a more or less pernicious way, cinema has already modified our imagination of the Shoah. “The cinematographic representation borrows a lot from concentration camp imagery – striped pajamas, dormitory, etc. – even to deal with the genocidal reality, which is an immediate assassination,” explains Ophir Lévy. In the minds of many, confusion dominates between concentration camp and extermination camp, which can create an attenuation of reality. »
Still, these films, as imperfect as they are, also have their defenders. Hélène Comarade takes up the case of Life is beautiful“many teachers said that it was a very good entry point for young students, in the sense that the film does not show much that is shocking, but allows them to ask questions and then dissociate by classify the true from the false.
The Holocaust has never stopped being filmed in cinemas
A 2024 black The area of interest, film which chooses to never film inside the camp, always shown from the outside, or off-camera. By showing the taboo, has the real artistic challenge become to hide it? “I think this film remains an exception, and not a new trend,” says Claire Kaiser. Future productions will probably continue to film ”from the inside”. Especially in an artistic era where you have to show everything and play up the excess of realism.”
Our file on Auschwitz
Especially since there is confusion, believes Hélène Comarade: “The Shoah is not off-camera in this film. We hear it – screams, sounds of the oven, sounds of bullets -, just as we see the consequences – flames, ashes in the river…” An observation that can be extended to many films, for Ophir Lévy: “This Just because the Shoah is not visible on screen does not mean that it is not filmed. We use many actors for the screams or the sounds of the bullets… The culture of the image is so prevalent that a representation that is not visual is not taken into account, yet yes, many films have shown the Shoah. »
And in fact, visual shots inside a gas chamber in action have already been filmed on film. The historian counts at least five, however often in minor films. The “ultimate” taboo has fallen, proving also that yes, definitely, cinema can “dare” to do it. Without answering the question: should he?
