Jason Brooks

jkb171@psu.edu

The Pennsylvania State University

Trolling the Lethe: Toward a Typology of Memories and Mnemaphoroi in Holocaust Film

This study grows out of the problem French cinema has in representing the Holocaust, indeed, in composing its history. Following Nietzsche’s tripartite model of history—consisting of the monumental, the antiquarian, and the critical—set forth in his essay, “The Use and Abuse of History,” I argue for a typology of rememberers, which I call mnemaphoroi, of memories, and of their inseparability from the writing of history. That is, each kind of memory and mnemaphoros contributes something different to historical conversations; however, one of these types emerges as the most adept at affecting and shaping national/cultural memory and history. After establishing the monumental and antiquarian (Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and Lanzmann’s Shoah, respectively) as two poles on a Holocaust film spectrum, my analysis moves into a theoretical discussion of Marcel Ophuls’ 1988 film, Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, as the critical mnemaphoros that effectively gives balance to the filmic memory and history of the Holocaust.

Although cultural memory has been the subject of much study and scrutiny in the last two decades, particularly in relation to film studies, scarce are the comparative studies of films that have been influential in delineating narratives of historical moments. This is nowhere truer than with Holocaust films. Considering the intellectual, cultural, and historico-political importance of French Holocaust cinema, the paucity of serious investigations into this genre is surprising. Scholars have considered movies such as Shoah vis à vis Schindler’s List, but only to critique Spielberg’s film style apropos of his subject matter. Comparative attention is not paid to the larger projects of these narratives except in passing comments. Holocaust films comprise an intriguing and complex sub-genre that has held an important position in the shaping of our memory of Nazi atrocities. Similarly, French Holocaust narratives, especially given the controversial and varied roles France and its citizens played throughout World War II, have been central texts in the shaping of various French mnemaphoroi as well as French national identity. Much, then, is to be learned from studies that consider Holocaust films comparatively and historiographically. This paper looks not only to start filling the lacuna in scholarship in this area but also to open the discussion for more comparative criticism on representation of the Shoah on film.