Last Thursday, April 29, as part of the Bernard A. Stotsky lecture series, John Michalczyk, documentary filmmaker and chairman of the fine arts and film studies department at Boston College, conducted a lecture on the controversy that surrounds Holocaust films.

Held annually, the purpose of the lecture series is to not only raise awareness of the horrors of the Holocaust, but also to bring fresh perspectives on the matter to the UMB public.

The McCormack Graduate School For Policy Studies’ Bernard A. Stotsky lecture series was founded in honor of George and Bess Stotsky who were responsible for transporting over 200 Jews out of Europe and sparing them from the Holocaust.

Michalczyk has a long interest in Holocaust themes and questions of ethnic violence and other genocides. He has also produced nine films for PBS and authored seven books, the most recent of which is Confront: Resistance In Nazi Germany.

“As you know, over the past half-century,” Michalczyk said, “film about the Holocaust has really helped us revisit vicariously some of the deeds, events, the characters, both protagonists and antagonists, of the Shoah or Holocaust. And the medium has given us access not only to the historical events of this time period, which I think are very, very crucial, but also to the psychology of the behavior of both victim and victimizer… film stands as a type of social, cultural, political witness to the values of the period in which these films are produced.

“So, while films during the Third Reich were used to manipulate and propagandize, obviously, you’ll remember Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Today, we see the power of the Holocaust film to move, to educate, to inspire, and I believe also for us today to provoke some kind of critical thinking.”

Michalcyzk also noted that examining these films is important because, “There is an increase of Holocaust deniers that are more visible today for a variety of reasons,” including Internet communications and the increasing sophistication of hate groups.

Michalczyk’s presentation of several films in different genres and from different time periods demonstrated the various modes of controversy surrounding the Holocaust.

The first film featured preceded the United States’ entrance to the war, Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 satire The Great Dictator, a parody of Nazi Germany in which Chaplin plays the role of a Jewish barber in Tomania who is mistaken for Hitler-esque Adenoid Hynkel.

The Great Dictator, though a box-office success and recipient of several Oscar nominations, was admonished for not only being preachy but critical of a foreign ruler, which was considered commercial suicide at the time. Michalczyk recounts that Chaplin said in his memoirs that if he had been aware of the Nazi mass murder campaign when he was making The Great Dictator, he “would not have been so polite.”

Alain Resnais’ 1955 Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog), represented the first commercially successful documentary of the Holocaust. It was highly regarded for its brief, intense presentation that very accurately, almost clinically, depicted the death camps at Dachau, Birkenau and Auschwitz, but it was criticized for never using the word “Jew.”

Michalczyk said that, “Resnais’ purpose in the film is to show man’s inhumanity to man. He tries to universalize evil. He doesn’t forget the Jews, but [wants] to put forth the universal concept of the evil Nazi destroying the world.”

Iconoclastic Italian director Lina Wertmuller’s 1977 Seven Beauties is a dark comedy that centers on a convicted murderer and rapist being sent to a concentration camp. Wertmuller’s portrayal was not well taken by many. Though Seven Beauties was successful, some of its detractors claimed that by focusing her story on the survival of a certified degenerate, Wertmuller trivialized the true suffering of Holocaust survivors.

Another Italian film that was considered demeaning to the true horror of the Holocaust was Roberto Benigni’s La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful),1998, in which the father of a family that is sent off to concentration camps attempts to provide constant comic relief for his young son in order to shield him. Though lauded by many as one of the best films to capture the power of the human spirit, La Vita è Bella was sharply criticized by others for making a comedy with the Holocaust as its backdrop.

A 1978 NBC television miniseries starring James Woods and Rosemary Harris was condemned by Elie Wiesel, one of the world’s most prominent and outspoken Holocaust survivors for “turning [the Holocaust] into a soap opera.”

The defining moment of Michalczyk’s presentation came when he showed a clip of 2001’s The Grey Zone. This film revolved around the actions of a select few Jews at Auschwitz who assist in the murder of their fellow prisoners.

The Grey Zone is based on the memoirs of a Hungarian Jewish doctor who was given the opportunity to remain alive in exchange for offering his talents to the infamous Josef Mengele.

Michalczyk pointed out that since the number of Holocaust survivors is rapidly shrinking, films about the event are becoming much more crucial in giving people an idea of the Holocaust.