Holocaust Cinema in the Twenty-First Century

the long version

"In the first fifteen years of the twenty-first century, a large number of films have been produced in Europe, the United States, Israel and elsewhere that have addressed the historical reality and the legacy of the Holocaust. Contemporary Holocaust cinema exists at the intersection of national cultural traditions, aesthetic conventions, and the inner logic of popular forms of entertainment. It also reacts to developments in both fiction and documentary films following the innovations of a postmodern aesthetic. With the number of witnesses to the atrocities of Nazi Germany dwindling, mediated representations of the Holocaust take on greater cultural significance. At the same time, as a result of the current shift in the role of direct witnessing, visual responses to the task of keeping memories alive have to re-adjust their value systems and reconsider their artistic choices. Both established directors and a new generation of filmmakers have tackled the ethically difficult task of finding a visual language for the representation of the past to which viewers can relate. Both geographical and spatial principles of Holocaust memory are frequently addressed in original ways. Another development concentrates on perpetrator figures, adding questions related to guilt and memory."--Page 4 of cover.