Oh come on!
Schindler’s List is a piece of shit film. Life is Beautiful is almost as bad, and The Pianist is even worse (actually much worse - total complete shit).
I haven’t seen any really well done Holocaust or concentration camp films, but Escape From Sobibor is pretty good.
I had the (dis) pleasure of seeing LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL in Taiwan in its original Italian with Chinese subs. Great because I dont understand Italian and I cant read Chinese. !!
Just to add something possibly helpful to my post above here’s three good ones:
Night and Fog - Pretty decent standard short about the camps. I wasn’t overly impressed, but it does its job.
Come and See - not Holocaust as such, but the start of the Nazis plan to also genocide slavs - I think they killed almost a million in Belorus. (Not suitable for kids)
Judgment at Nuremberg - not Holocaust, but good even-handed examination of complicity
But back to original topic - if you just want something for kids, to tie in with Anne Frank, try one of the several film or TV adaptions )I haven’t seen any, so can’t recommend)
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]
Schindler’s List is a piece of shit film. Life is Beautiful is almost as bad, and The Pianist is even worse (actually much worse - total complete shit).[/quote]
Well, they’re manipulative and silly and why anyone would ‘choose’ to see 'em is a bit fucked up. Why do people like ‘pain’ films? But if there are kids that don’t read, it’s better to throw a ‘movie’ at 'em than nothing?
[quote=“Buttercup”]
Well, they’re manipulative and silly and why anyone would ‘choose’ to see 'em is a bit fucked up. Why do people like ‘pain’ films? But if there are kids that don’t read, it’s better to throw a ‘movie’ at 'em than nothing?[/quote]
Agree with you. Disagree with Bu Lai En.
I think you mean Life is Beautiful (La Vita è Bella) . I would agree that this is a suitable film for high-school students, except that it is in Italian, whereas Maoman want to do this as part of his English teaching. When I watched it I had trouble deciding whether to struggle listening to the Italian dialogue or struggle reading the Chinese subtitles.[/quote]
Great film. When it finished, I walked out of the cinema in floods of tears. Some people don’t like it because on a literal level, it’s not the most accurate depiction of historical events. But I think that that’s exactly what made it so affecting for me—the irony of that sweet story being overlaid on the horrific situation that we all know about. You need the light to make the dark truly dark.[/quote]
Er…I can’t hope to convey how profoundly I disagree. I walked out of that film more angry than I can remember any film making me, anger at the crassly insulting, trivialising effrontery of setting a slapstick romantic comedy in this context.
Its the worst film ever made, so to that extent it might serve an educational purpose, but not for an audience that has not clue one about the subject matter.
If Italian films were acceptable (and, as pointed out above, they probably aren’t) you could combine the worst film treatment of concentration camps I’ve ever seen ( “La Vita e Bella / Life is Beautiful” Italy 1997) with one of the best treatments of concentration camps I’ve ever seen “Pasqualino Settebellezze / Seven Beauties” (Italy 1975). but I guess it’d be hard to find, probably impossible with Chinese subtitles.
Both are surprisingly positive, which, given the subject matter, isn’t a good or realistic thing, but the second one isn’t stupid about it. The horror is conveyed, and the Germans aren’t portrayed in it as ineffective, comic buffoons, which insults the audience, the victims, and even the perpetrators.
Mr/Ms Ducked that is one of the truly most profound posts that I have ever read. Brownie points to you. Schindler’s list still makes me weep, tho. Holocaust slapstick doesn’t really work.
What do you think about using movies as an aid to foreign language aquisition?
What do you think about using movies as an aid to foreign language aquisition?[/quote]
I’m in favour of pretending that movies are an aid to foreign language aquisition so that I can sit on my ass and not teach.
What do you think about using movies as an aid to foreign language aquisition?[/quote]
I’m in favour of pretending that movies are an aid to foreign language aquisition so that I can sit on my ass and not teach.[/quote]
That is unfortunate. Most students “like” movies and with a lot of help can learn how to learn from them.
[quote=“bob”]
That is unfortunate. Most students “like” movies and with a lot of help can learn how to learn from them.[/quote]
I agree with you, Mr Bob. Just being cynical.
Films aren’t real guys. 99% of films are boring shit which manipulates you to get your money. ‘Intelligent’ films just use a different tactic. Humans like to watch rape, murder, torture, etc. It validates their self image as ‘good people’ and provides a safe framework in which to explore their feelings. We enjoy ‘Holocaust films’ because they are extreme and allow us to dabble without getting our hands dirty. Sneaky ones add a little frisson of ‘humanity’ so we can question our motives in a safe way (‘What would I have done?’) and then throw our hands up at ‘the banality of evil’ before going home to our nice lives.
Mass murder is part of being human. These kind of films are a safe way to explore it: we like to explore the difference of Nazi-ism; the dispassionate efficiency, because it helps us to frame genocide as an aberration. We can only deal with murder as an anomaly: ‘evil’, ‘not like us’, which is why we are drawn to the camps as a backdrop for low-end art.
At least the Greek tragedians were self-aware.
That sounds like an interesting class. You could teach it.
Later you could turn the corner and teach them that film brings together more talent than any art form ever invented. Did you know that most symphonies are created now as people “watch” movies? Hardly low brow. You could go on to critique films in terms of their literary merit (a good film is always based on a good script). Hard too to make a good movie without set designers, camera people, people who know how to edit, sync sound etc. And of course if there are subtitles there is a slew of issues to be examined there.
Or we could let them go on watching movies on their own and never interest them in the fact that there are a slew of people devoted to understanding movies and assessing them in terms of their artistic merit, effect on society etc.
Your call.
[quote=“Buttercup”]Films aren’t real guys. 99% of films are boring shit which manipulates you to get your money. ‘Intelligent’ films just use a different tactic. Humans like to watch rape, murder, torture, etc. It validates their self image as ‘good people’ and provides a safe framework in which to explore their feelings. We enjoy ‘Holocaust films’ because they are extreme and allow us to dabble without getting our hands dirty. Sneaky ones add a little frisson of ‘humanity’ so we can question our motives in a safe way (‘What would I have done?’) and then throw our hands up at ‘the banality of evil’ before going home to our nice lives.
Mass murder is part of being human. These kind of films are a safe way to explore it: we like to explore the difference of Nazi-ism; the dispassionate efficiency, because it helps us to frame genocide as an aberration. We can only deal with murder as an anomaly: ‘evil’, ‘not like us’, which is why we are drawn to the camps as a backdrop for low-end art.
At least the Greek tragedians were self-aware.[/quote]
Jeezis, Ms BC! I’ll never look at a film in the same way again.
[quote=“bob”]That sounds like an interesting class. You could teach it.
Later you could turn the corner and teach them that film brings together more talent than any art form ever invented. Did you know that most symphonies are created now as people “watch” movies? Hardly low brow. You could go on to critique films in terms of their literary merit (a good film is always based on a good script). Hard too to make a good movie without set designers, camera people, people who know how to edit, sync sound etc. And of course if there are subtitles there is a slew of issues to be examined there.
Or we could let them go on watching movies on their own and never interest them in the fact that there are a slew of people devoted to understanding movies and assessing them in terms of their artistic merit, effect on society etc.
Your call.[/quote]
I’m sure there are good films. I’ve never really got interested though.
‘Let them’? bob, I don’t teach anymore. I despise the whole concept of ‘teaching’. All the information that there has ever been is ‘out there’. No-one needs a person like me to explain it for them. I used to teach film classes. It was stupid. My stupid boss made me do it because it’s easy to flog to stupid parents.
Help Me Eros.
Sorry.
Yeah, but you don’t like movies. How did you do it exactly?
Too right. That’s what pissed me off about that frickin awful movie The Pianist too. Those were Indiana Jones Nazis - it was the scene where they threw the old guy in the wheelchair out the window for kicks that sealed it. The Nazis were people too. That is to say you can’t draw a line between ‘people’ and monsters - people in all societies in all times have been capable of monstrosity. That’s why Judgment at Nuremberg is good. It deals with this.
Yeah, but you don’t like movies. How did you do it exactly?[/quote]
Me? I lied! Fake interest.