Projecting the Holocaust into the present: the changing focus of contemporary Holocaust cinema

Abstract

Lawrence Baron. Projecting the into the Present: Changing Focus of Contemporary Cinema. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Paperback, 320 pages; $29.95. An Important Mew Perspective on the in Some authors provide sound scholarship, others supply detailed analysis, but few combine these accomplishments with prose that bridges the gap from the academic to the general reader. Historian Lawrence Baron has done just that while dealing with the often-controversial area of cinematic representations of the Holocaust. Because World War II genocide remains so dark a subject, it is easiest to see the era in high contrast black and white. This author points to the complexities of history, filmmaking, and cultural perceptions by contextualizing his work within classic films of the Shoah (from 1945-1979) while identifying trends and shifts in how stories of the are now brought to the screen in the twenty-first century. Few previous works study more than the obvious contemporary movies Schindler's List (1993) or Life is Beautiful (1997). This author looks at a wide range of films, including X-Men as Holocaust pop metaphor, indicating that the shadow of past atrocities pervades our culture. Baron meticulously developed a database of films to discern changes in filmic narratives. His interest is in storytelling; to include documentaries would lengthen the book and discourage an audience outside the scholarly realm. Journal subscribers will recall Holocaust Iconography in American Feature Films About Neo-Nazis, Lawrence Baron's contribution to Film & History 32.2, the 2002 thematic issue of The on Film. Although Baron grounds his work in critical perspectives, primarily genre studies and the famous work of Robert Rosenstone, the text is designed to be readable for undergraduates as well as more senior scholars. Chapter notes provide extensive references to critical sources as well as contemporary reviews and responses to each film. A detailed bibliography and filmography organized into useful categories concludes this work. A particularly welcome feature is a reference section for Internet resources, the first research tool many college students turn to for information. organization of the text is also classroom friendly. After establishing the tradition of films in such expected titles as Diary of Ann Frank (1959) or the mini-series, (1978), the chapters that follow introduce the intersection of genre conventions with themes, examining four or five films in depth in each chapter. Although some might quarrel with genre as a critical lens, this seems to be particularly appropriate when exploring connections between the historical past and the images of that past that reach the movie screen. …