Claude Lanzmann was born in Paris to a Jewish family that immigrated to France from Eastern Europe. He attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. His family went into hiding during World War II. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in the Auvergne. Lanzmann opposed the French war in Algeria and signed a 1960 antiwar petition. From 1952 to 1959 he lived with Simone de Beauvoir. In 1963 he married French actress Judith Magre. Later, he married Angelika Schrobsdorff, a German-Jewish writer, and then Dominique Petithory in 1995. He is the father of Angélique Lanzmann, born in 1950, and Félix Lanzmann (1993-2017). Lanzmann's most renowned work, Shoah, is widely regarded as the seminal film on the subject of the Holocaust. He began interviewing survivors, historians, witnesses, and perpetrators in 1973 and finished editing the film in 1985. In 2009, Lanzmann published his memoirs under the title"Le lièvre de Patagoni" (The Patagonian Hare). He was chief editor of the journal"Les Temps Modernes" which was founded by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, until his death on July 5, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/claude-lanzmann-changed-the-history-of-filmmaking-with-shoah
Location filming of scenes in New York City for SHOAH. FILM ID 3449 -- Camera Rolls NY 39.39A.139-142.161 La Ville -- 01:00:01 to 01:08:51 Car on Brooklyn Bridge going into Manhattan. World Trade Center (WTC) and Woolworth Building on left. Manhattan Municipal Building on right. Car on BB going towards Brooklyn. Financial District straight ahead. Major buildings from left to right Chemical Bank Building (at far left), 120 Wall Street (stepped design). The two tall buildings in BG are First National City Trust Co. and 60 Wall Street (the tallest building in this group). 01:00:41 First, a view of Brooklyn, then the camera spins around showing the Financial District again. Statue of Liberty in distance. 01:01:01 Governors Island and Brooklyn. Yellow building is the Watchtower Building (the world headquarters for the Jehovah Witnesses). 01:01:15 Brooklyn Bridge coming into lower Manhattan with the Manhattan Municipal Building on the right. 01:01:22 Pace University on left, WTC between Pace University and Woolworth Building. 01:01:30 New York City Hall behind the trees. 01:01:45 FDR Drive heading north towards Brooklyn Bridge and South Street Seaport. 01:01:56 Fulton Fish Market, Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge in distance. 01:02:25 Manhattan Bridge. 01:02:43 FDR Drive going south and the Manhattan Bridge. 01:03:40 On-ramp to Brooklyn Bridge going into Brooklyn. After turn onto bridge, shots of the Manhattan Municipal Building, Murry Bergtraum High School, and New York Telephone Building on left. 01:03:56 In Lower Manhattan. St. Paul Chapel driving north. 01:04:17 World Trade Center. 01:05:22 Statue of Liberty. 01:05:52 Brooklyn Heights looking towards the Brooklyn Bridge. 01:06:25 Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan, WTC, Chase Manhattan Bank (left). 01:06:53 FDR Drive south with views of the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge. FILM ID 3450 -- New York La Ville Doubles -- 01:00:00 to 01:08:37 Statute of Liberty and views of the lower Manhattan Financial District filmed from Brooklyn Heights. 01:00:32 Red Hook in Brooklyn. Pan of ships, Statue of Liberty, Staten Island Ferry Terminal, and the Financial District. 01:01:43 Brooklyn Heights' Promenade with a jogger running towards camera. Pedestrians strolling. Camera pulls back and shows Brooklyn Bridge looking towards Midtown Manhattan, then pan from north to south. In BG, Empire State Building, residential building, New York Telephone Building, Manhattan Municipal Building, World Trade Center, 120 Wall Street (stepped design), First National City Trust Co. and 60 Wall Street are the tall buildings in"fron" of WTC. 01:02:15:09 Midtown Manhattan seen from the observation deck (86th floor) Empire State Building. Pan shot from west to east looking uptown, then camera pans down slightly and moves back from east to west. 01:02:57 Looking uptown from the World Trade Center observation deck (100th floor). Empire State Building straight ahead. Camera pans east to East River. Zoom-in of Domino's Sugar plant just past the bridge; the gas tanks in the BG were on Maspeth Ave. in Brooklyn. 01:03:33 Same as previous shot except starts with a closer shot of the Empire State Building, and zooms-in closer to Domino's. 01:04:10 Repeat of previous shot. 01:04:45 Shot from WTC of Brooklyn Bridge. Yellow building to right is the Watchtower Building (the world headquarters for the Jehovah Witnesses). Pan up the East River past the Manhattan Bridge to the Williamsburg Bridge and zoom-in on the Domino's Sugar plant. 01:05:17 Repeat of previous shot, except camera pulls back and pans to the left back to Manhattan and continues west stopping on the Empire State Building. 01:06:19 Manhattan Bridge from WTC. 01:06:39 Lower East Side or Jewish Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn. 01:06:53 Sunrise looking south towards WTC from ESB. Pan to the east side of lower Manhattan. 01:07:30 ESB looking south-east towards the Manhattan Bridge. 01:08:02 Dawn looking south towards WTC. Similar to previous shots. Clap-board on the ESB Observation Deck. FILM ID 4718 -- NY 42-46 Mount Kisco (28:19) Religious Jew wearing a suit and a yarmulke walks down a tree-lined road in Mount Kisco. He walks towards a group of children. Man riding a bicycle. Houses with large lawns. Street sign: “Yeshiva Rd.” (4:06) The road travels up a winding path. Two men in suits move to the side to let the car pass. The car pulls up to a huge, sprawling white building. Men in suits wearing yarmulkes. (7:43) A different side of the yeshiva at Mount Kisco with many windows and several curved archways. Young men in suits and hats stand, grin and walk around. Sound. A few men look out from open windows of the white building. (11:29) Sign in Hebrew. Sound. Inside a classroom with bookcases and desks, and an ornate platform with red drapery and a crest of two lions holding tablets between them. Large plaque in Hebrew. One wall of the room is covered in small plaques. Men stand around talking. Some sitting and reading. One man is singing. Words in Hebrew underneath the tablets. (16:34) An engraving of a menorah with Hebrew around it. Sign. (18:26) The forest surrounding the neighborhood. Two young boys play outside. (21:30) A crossroads sign says “Nitra Rd” one way and “Tora Rd” the other. (22:10) A “private property, no trespassing” sign. FILM ID 4719 -- NY 117-131 Bibliotheque Bund (28:35) Sound. Library interiors, books, black and white photos propped up on one wall. Man in a red sweater reading in the center of the room. Framed photographs set out on the table. (4:37) Books on the shelves in the library, most wrapped in paper, with numbers on the spines or Hebrew writing. (6:42) Signs on the bookshelves in Hebrew. Librarian stands beside the bookshelf. He is told from off camera “don’t look don’t look.” He smiles and looks down at the book in his hand. He starts speaking to someone off camera. He explains the purpose of the archive. (9:02) CUs, photographs on the table, portraits, including “Paul Jordan. The Unfinished Portrait.” The librarian explains the photographs speaking in Yiddish and in English. He begins to pull folders full of documents out of the cabinets below the bookshelves. He shows them a first edition book, and the different editions published in many different languages. The title is “Rok w. Treblinka.” (18:21) A storage room with boxes and folders filled with documents. A woman starts speaking about atrocities in Poland in English. The librarian holds open a folder, looking inside it. He goes into another storage room and looks through folders, pulling out documents. Someone off camera gives instructions in English. The man begins explaining what is inside the folders, specifically talking about telegrams. FILM ID 4720 -- Williamsburg Bte. 206, 223, 222 (16:39) No picture until 1:26. In the Willamsburg neighborhood, two boys moving a tire on a pole on a city sidewalk. Sign in Hebrew on a building. Children in yarmulkes play across the street in a gated yard while adults watch on. A school bus pulls up and two women get out. (3:38) On the side of the bus is “United Talmudical Academy D’Satmar.” Several shops, one of which says “Kosher Bakery.” Young men in yarmulkes and suits stand around and talk. (5:38) Sound. The men speak to Lanzmann in English. (7:30) Two women sit and talk on a bench outside rows of brownstones. (8:21) People walk down city sidewalks in the Williamsburg neighborhood. (12:10) Two men stand and talk in front of a sign in Hebrew. Crossroads sign, “Lee Ave” and “Williamsburgh West St.” (13:51) “Jacobowitz Clothing Chasidic Tailor” Sound. Highway signs above cars driving passed.
New York
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Claude Lanzmann spent twelve years locating survivors, perpetrators, and eyewitnesses for his nine and a half hour film Shoah released in 1985. Without archival footage, Shoah weaves together extraordinary testimonies to render the step-by-step machinery of the destruction of European Jewry. Critics have called it"a masterpiec" and a"monument against forgetting" The Claude Lanzmann SHOAH Collection consists of roughly 185 hours of interview outtakes and 35 hours of location filming.