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IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE
HOLOCAUST tells a provocative and mostly
unknown story of the 60-year relationship
between Hollywood and the atrocities of Nazi
Germany. With scenes from over forty films,
rare newsreels, and interviews with leading
scholars, filmmakers, and witnesses to the
events portrayed, IMAGINARY WITNESS takes
the viewer on a 60-year journey from the
American ambivalence and denial during the
heyday of Nazism, through the silence of the
post-war years, and into the end of the 20th
century. The film explores not only the
question of how an industry that sells
fantasy has dealt with one of the most
horrifying episodes in modern world history,
but also how the movies themselves reflect
America's ever-evolving relationship to the
events of that era. At the core of the film
is an ethical and moral debate about
portrayal. Is it even possible to imagine on
screen the unimaginable? Should the movie
industry even undertake such an endeavor?
Ultimately, the film asks hard questions:
about the uneasy relationship between
American popular culture and the Holocaust,
about the responsibility of filmmakers in
their portrayal of history, and about the
power of film to affect the way we look at
ourselves. Narrated by Gene Hackman and
featuring a remarkable series of clips and
interviews, IMAGINARY WITNESS is a
revelation, not least for its large
inclusion of material from BEFORE the
Holocaust even happened, including American
newsreel footage of Nazi book burning that
treat it like a fraternity prank and pre-war
Hollywood films in which characters refer to
Jews as non-Aryans.
Opens Dec. 25, 2007 at IFC in New York City.
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