GERMAN 195 / JEW ST 175 Popular Film and the Holocaust
GER and JEW ST designations for the course are cross-listed: if one is full, please sign up for the other.
Can movies even show the Holocaust? On a basic level, is an art form that grew up with westerns, romcoms, and the Three Stooges up to the job of portraying the murder of millions, perpetrated by millions? Since 1945, films and filmmakers have filled this void and answered these questions in their own ways and for their own purposes: some noble and necessary, some less so.
Of each film we view, we will ask questions. How does this film represent the unimaginable? And why? What does the Holocaust mean for this film? Now that the day is not far off when the last survivors and perpetrators will be no more, what does it mean to engage this history cinematically?
In this course, grounded in Holocaust history, students develop skills to analyze films critically and to think through the problems of representing a historical event of unimaginable tragic dimensions.
No prior knowledge of Holocaust history of film studies required.
Course intro video: https://uw.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=e28ca908-1791-49a0-8d22-b43c015f1e6e