BGSU series to explore film treatment of the Holocaust

“Schindler’s List” and “La Vita È Bella (Life Is Beautiful),” both winners of multiple Academy Awards, will headline “The Holocaust and the Moving Image,” a four-week film, lecture and discussion series.

The series, which begins Thursday (March 18) in the Gish Film Theater in Hanna Hall, will connect film, Holocaust scholars and the public. Each free screening will begin at 7 p.m. with comments by guest speakers.

Kristie Foell and Christina Guenther, German faculty, German, Russian and East Asian languages, will introduce the first film in the series, the 1974 East German version of “Jakob der Lügner (Jakob the Liar).”

In the film, set in 1944, Jakob Heym is summoned to a Polish ghetto's Gestapo headquarters to be punished. While there, he hears a radio news report, and, after managing to leave unharmed, he relates it to a despondent friend: the Russians are 20 kilometers away. Then begins his storytelling to alleviate the unbearable life of those around him.

On March 25, David Brenner, a faculty member in German and Jewish studies at Kent State University, will provide commentary for “Al Tigu Le b'Shoah (Don't Touch My Holocaust).” The 1994 Israeli documentary chronicles the preparation of Israel’s Akko Theater Center for a play called “Arbeit Macht Frei.” Traveling to Morocco, the Czech Republic and Germany, the international troupe of actors meets Holocaust survivors, wrestling to understand the events and fates they will bring to life on stage.

Michael Bernard-Donals, a faculty member in English and Jewish studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will introduce the April 1 screening of “Schindler’s List.” Director Steven Spielberg’s 1993 portrayal of businessman Oskar Schindler, who saved more than 1,000 Jews from death during World War II, won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

The series concludes April 8 with “La Vita È Bella (Life Is Beautiful),” introduced by Carlo Celli, Italian faculty member in romance languages. Roberto Benigni won the Best Actor Oscar for his 1997 film, which was also named Best Foreign Language Film. Its use of comedy in its treatment of the Holocaust has divided audiences, critics and scholars.

At each of the four films, audience members will be able to debate questions of historical consciousness and responsibility, the political ramifications of aesthetic undertakings, and the relationship of art and experience.

GREAL is sponsoring the series with the BGSU provost’s office and the Ruth Fajerman Markowicz Holocaust Resource Center of Greater Toledo. For more information, contact GREAL at 2-2268.