Hollywood And The Holocaust: Film Analysis

The video “Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust” is directed by Daniel Anker and narrated by Gene Hackman. The film examines the treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust in Hollywood. These films, over a period of sixty years, portray the impact of the public perception and thinking of the Holocaust. The documentary provides survey of Hollywood films about the Holocaust, and a history of the Holocaust itself. It also shows before and after the war.

Hollywood did not make many Holocaust movies because it is an epic experience that only the people that were there can understand the concept. In 1930 Hollywood did not want to defend the Germans. I was surprised that many movies around that time were not about concentration camps and the brutal treatment of Jews. Nazis demanded

Only a few did address it which was Warner Brothers’ Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939. It was based on a true story of a German spy hiding in the United States. The film was considered so controversial that many people of the cast wanted their names left out of the credits. Another film is MGM’s The Mortal Storm in 1940 starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. It was about the trials of a Jewish family in Germany. However, Charles Chaplin was the film maker who addressed prejudice against the Jewish people directly. He addressed it in the film The Great Dictator. Hollywood then started to input the Jewish Holocaust into traditional shows. For example, the May 1953 episode of the television series This Is Your Life with a Holocaust survivor Hanna Block Kohner. All the typical features of the show were include such as, surprise visits by old friends and family members and the location of all tribulations safely in the past. It reinforced the message that Hanna Block Kohner, like any other immigrant, had found happiness in