Claude Lanzmann

{{Infobox person

| name = Claude Lanzmann

| image = Claude Lanzmann 2014.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Lanzmann in 2014

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1925|11|27|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Bois-Colombes, France

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2018|07|05|1925|11|27|df=y}}

| death_place = Paris, France

| yearsactive = 1970–2018

| occupation = Filmmaker

| known_for = Shoah (1985)

| partner = Simone de Beauvoir (1952–1959)

| spouse = {{plainlist|

{{Marriage|Judith Magre|1963|1971|end=divorced}}
{{Marriage|Angelika Schrobsdorff|1971||end=divorced}}
{{Marriage| Dominique Petithory|1995|}}

}}

| children = 2

}}

Claude Lanzmann ({{IPA|fr|lanzman|lang}}; 27 November 1925 – 5 July 2018) was a French filmmaker, best known for the Holocaust documentary film Shoah (1985), which consists of nine and a half hours of oral testimony from Holocaust survivors, without historical footage. He is also known for his 2017 documentary film Napalm, about a love affair he had with a North Korean nurse whilst visiting North Korea in 1958, several years after the Korean War.

In addition to filmmaking, Lanzmann had also been the chief editor of Les Temps Modernes, a French literary magazine.

Early life

Lanzmann was born on 27 November 1925 in Bois-Colombes, France, the son of Paulette ({{Nee|Grobermann}}) and Armand Lanzmann.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/05/claude-lanzmann-obituary|title=Claude Lanzmann obituary|last=Pascal|first=Julia|date=5 July 2018|website=The Guardian|language=en|access-date=7 July 2018}} His family was Jewish, and had immigrated to France from the Russian Empire.{{cite web|url=http://artsfuse.org/54364/fuse-feature-a-conversation-with-claude-lanzmann-about-his-memoir-the-patagonian-hare/|title=Fuse Feature: A Conversation with Claude Lanzmann about his memoir, "The Patagonian Hare"|last=Epstein|first=Helen|date=26 March 2012|website=The Arts Fuse|access-date=4 March 2014}} He was the brother of writer Jacques Lanzmann. Lanzmann attended the {{Interlanguage link|Lycée Blaise Pascal (Clermont-Ferrand){{!}}Lycée Blaise-Pascal|fr|3=Lycée Blaise-Pascal (Clermont-Ferrand)}} in Clermont-Ferrand.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bREQibN9i-sC|title=The Columbia History of Twentieth-century French Thought|last=Delacampagne|first=Christian|date=2007|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=9780231107907|editor-last=Reilly|editor-first=Brian J.|pages=571–72|language=en|chapter=Claude Lanzmann (1925–)}} While his family disguised their identity and went into hiding during World War II,{{Cite web|url=http://news.columbia.edu/oncampus/2719|title=Claude Lanzmann Talks About Shoah, de Beauvoir and His Memoir With Charlie Rose|last=Berry|first=Meghan|date=26 March 2012|website=On Campus|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330174846/http://news.columbia.edu/oncampus/2719|archive-date=30 March 2012|url-status=dead|access-date=7 July 2018}} he joined the French resistance at the age of 17, along with his father and brother, and fought in Auvergne. Lanzmann opposed the French war in Algeria and signed the 1960 antiwar petition Manifesto of the 121.{{Cite news|url=https://www.taz.de/!642746/|title=Israels Feinde machen keine Gefangenen|last=Dax|first=Max|date=19 June 2009|work=Die Tageszeitung|access-date=8 July 2018|language=de|trans-title=Israel's enemies do not take prisoners|issn=0931-9085}}

Career

File:President_Nasser-Sagan-Sartre.jpg Gamal Abdel Nasser meeting Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Lanzmann (first from left) in Cairo, 1967|215x215px]]

Lanzmann was the chief editor of the journal Les Temps Modernes, founded by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and lecturer at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.{{Cite web |last=admin |title=The European Graduate School |url=https://egs.edu/ |access-date=27 August 2023 |website=The European Graduate School |language=en-US}} In 2009 he published his memoirs under the title Le lièvre de Patagonie ("The Patagonian Hare").{{cite news| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/books/review/the-patagonian-hare-by-claude-lanzmann.html| title = The Witness| author = Paul Berman| author-link = Paul Berman| date = 10 August 2012| access-date = 11 February 2020|newspaper = The New York Times}}

=''Shoah''=

Lanzmann's most renowned work, Shoah (1985), is a nine-and-a-half-hour oral history of the Holocaust. Shoah is made without the use of any historical footage, and uses only first-person testimony from perpetrators and victims, and contemporary footage of Holocaust-related sites. Interviewees include the Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski and the American Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg. When the film was released, the director also published the complete text, including in English translation, with introductions by Lanzmann and Simone de Beauvoir.

Lanzmann disagreed, sometimes angrily, with attempts to understand the why of Hitler, stating that the evil of Hitler cannot or should not be explained and that to do so is immoral and an obscenity.{{cite book|title=Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil|last=Rosenbaum|first=Ron|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1999|isbn=0-679-43151-9|chapter=Claude Lanzmann and the War Against the Question Why|author-link=Ron Rosenbaum}}

Lanzmann also oftentimes pushed his subjects to extreme emotional limits to bring out the most authentic reactions for his audience. The interview with barber Abraham Bomba is an epitome of a Claude Lanzmann interview.{{cite web|url=https://prizedwriting.ucdavis.edu/witness-and-technique-interview-claude-lanzmann's-shoah |title=Witness and Technique: Interview in Claude Lanzmann's Shoah | Prized Writing }}

A compilation, Shoah: Unseen Interviews, was released in 2012, which included interviews filmed at the time of the original production but that never made it into the film.{{Cite web |title=The Legacy of Filmmaker Claude Lanzmann - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |url=https://www.ushmm.org/collections/the-museums-collections/collections-highlights/claude-lanzmann-shoah |access-date=12 May 2024 |website=www.ushmm.org |language=en-US}}

On 4 July 2018, his last work, Les Quatre Soeurs (Shoah: Four Sisters) was released, featuring testimonials from four Holocaust survivors not included in his Shoah. Lanzmann died the following day.{{cite web|url=https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2018/07/05/claude-lanzmann-le-realisateur-de-shoah-est-mort_5326308_3382.html|title=Claude Lanzmann, le réalisateur de " Shoah ", est mort|last=Nouchi|first=Ramck|date=5 July 2018|work=Le Monde|language=fr|access-date=5 July 2018}}{{Cite web |last1=Tartaglione |first1=Andreas Wiseman, Nancy |last2=Wiseman |first2=Andreas |last3=Tartaglione |first3=Nancy |date=5 July 2018 |title=Claude Lanzmann Dies: Director Of Acclaimed Holocaust Doc 'Shoah' Was 92 |url=https://deadline.com/2018/07/claude-lanzmann-dies-director-holocaust-documentary-shoah-1202421678/ |access-date=27 August 2023 |website=Deadline |language=en-US}}

Personal life

Lanzmann was part of a leftist delegation which visited North Korea in 1958. Toward the end of the visit, he fell in love with a local nurse and had an illicit love affair, which was discovered by the authorities. Never forgetting the romance, he made a 2017 documentary entitled Napalm, as the nurse bore scars from American bombings during the Korean War.

From 1952 to 1959, he lived with Simone de Beauvoir.{{cite news|title=Stand By Your Man|author=Menand, Louis|date=26 September 2005|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/09/26/stand-by-your-man|publisher=The New Yorker: Condé Nast|access-date=28 December 2017}} In 1963 he married French actress Judith Magre.{{cite journal|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n07/adam-shatz/nothing-he-hasnt-done-nowhere-he-hasnt-been|title=Nothing he hasn't done, nowhere he hasn't been|journal=London Review of Books |date=5 April 2012 |volume=34 |issue=7 |publisher=Lrb.co.uk|access-date=4 March 2014|last1=Shatz |first1=Adam }} He later married Angelika Schrobsdorff, a German-Jewish writer. He divorced a second time, and was the father of Angélique Lanzmann and Félix Lanzmann.{{Cite news |last=Lewis |first=Daniel |date=2018-07-05 |title=Claude Lanzmann, Epic Chronicler of the Holocaust, Dies at 92 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/obituaries/claude-lanzmann-dead.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180705135546/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/obituaries/claude-lanzmann-dead.html |archive-date=2018-07-05 |access-date=2024-10-06 |work=The New York Times}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.femmeactuelle.fr/culture/news-culture/claude-lanzmann-se-confie-sur-la-mort-de-son-fils-felix-37204|title=Claude Lanzmann se confie sur la mort de son fils Félix, 23 ans|date=2 March 2017|work=Femme Actuelle|access-date=8 July 2018}} Claude Lanzmann died on 5 July 2018 at his Paris home, after having been ill for several days. He was 92.

Honours

Resistance Medal with rosette
Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit
2010 Welt-Literaturpreis{{cite web |url=http://www.morgenpost.de/printarchiv/kultur/article1412830/Auszeichnung-Claude-Lanzmann-erhaelt-den-Welt-Literaturpreis.html |title=Auszeichnung: Claude Lanzmann erhält den "Welt"-Literaturpreis |work=Berliner Morgenpost |language=de |date=2 October 2010 |access-date=11 November 2012}}
2011 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Lucerne{{Cite web|url=https://www.unilu.ch/en/faculties/faculty-of-humanities-and-social-sciences/about-the-faculty/honorary-doctorates/|title=Honorary Doctorates - University of Lucerne|website=www.unilu.ch|access-date=15 May 2019}}
2011 Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor{{Cite web |date=14 July 2011 |title=La promotion du 14 juillet de la Légion d'honneur |url=https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2011/07/14/01016-20110714DIMWWW00310-la-promotion-du-14-juillet-de-la-legion-d-honneur.php |access-date=27 August 2023 |website=LEFIGARO |language=fr}}
At the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2013, Lanzmann was awarded with the Honorary Golden Bear.{{cite web|url=http://vivamost.com/2013/02/claude-lanzmann-an-extraordinary-prize-for-an-extraordinary-man|title=Claude Lanzmann: an extraordinary prize for an extraordinary man|publisher=Vivamost.com|access-date=16 December 2013}}

Selected works

Filmography

Pourquoi Israël (1973)
Shoah (1985)
Tsahal (1994)
{{Interlanguage link|A Visitor from the Living|fr|3=Un vivant qui passe}} (1997)
Sobibor, 14 October 1943, 4 p.m. (2001)
Lights and Shadows (2008)
The Karski Report (2010)
The Last of the Unjust (2013) about Benjamin Murmelstein, Elder of Theresienstadt
Napalm (2017)
Shoah: Four Sisters (2017)

As subject

Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah (2015) a documentary about Lanzmann, directed by Adam Benzine

Books

Shoah: An Oral History of the Holocaust : The Complete Text of the Film. Pantheon Books, New York 1985, {{ISBN|978-0-394-55142-5}}
The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir (translated by Frank Wynne). London: Atlantic Books, 2012, {{ISBN|978-1-84887-360-5}}; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2012, {{ISBN|978-0-374-23004-3}}
La Tombe du divin plongeur. Gallimard, Paris 2012 {{ISBN|978-2-070-45677-2}}

References

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