The Eichmann Show
Apr. 7th, 2016 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dimity_blueI hadn't heard of The Eichmann Show before I spotted it on Amazon Video (Amazon UK). The IMDb blurb says:
Dramatisation of the team hoping to televise the trial of Adolf Eichmann, an infamous nazi responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews. It focuses on Leo Hurwitz, a documentary film-maker and Milton Fruchtman, a producer.
Leo Hurwitz was played by Anthony LaPaglia while Milton Fruchtman was played by Martin Freeman.
I don't know how accurate the background stuff was, but the film includes a lot of footage from the actual trial. There's an actor (Vaidotas Martinaitis) potraying Eichmann in the beginning and when they show Eichmann in his cell or being taken to the court, but the rest of the footage is him.
The film also includes footage of witnesses (including a man who discovered his wife and children had been gassed when they were laid out for him to bury), and footage of events inside the camps.
In a world where the Holocaust is discussed, and denial of it is a crime in numerous countries, it adds to the horror of it all to learn that, before the Eichmann trial, survivors were accused of lying, of exaggerating, of somehow being to blame - even among their own people.
The trial became the first globalised documentary, and gave the survivors the chance to speak out. It changed how we view the Holocaust.
The film itself is riveting. Even though you know the trial will be filmed, seeing the struggles that went on behind the scenes, the death threats received by Milton Fruchtman and his family, Leo Horwitz's determination to see Eichmann break, made it all that much more real to me.
It's a hard film to watch but I found it completely worthwhile.
Dramatisation of the team hoping to televise the trial of Adolf Eichmann, an infamous nazi responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews. It focuses on Leo Hurwitz, a documentary film-maker and Milton Fruchtman, a producer.
Leo Hurwitz was played by Anthony LaPaglia while Milton Fruchtman was played by Martin Freeman.
I don't know how accurate the background stuff was, but the film includes a lot of footage from the actual trial. There's an actor (Vaidotas Martinaitis) potraying Eichmann in the beginning and when they show Eichmann in his cell or being taken to the court, but the rest of the footage is him.
The film also includes footage of witnesses (including a man who discovered his wife and children had been gassed when they were laid out for him to bury), and footage of events inside the camps.
In a world where the Holocaust is discussed, and denial of it is a crime in numerous countries, it adds to the horror of it all to learn that, before the Eichmann trial, survivors were accused of lying, of exaggerating, of somehow being to blame - even among their own people.
The trial became the first globalised documentary, and gave the survivors the chance to speak out. It changed how we view the Holocaust.
The film itself is riveting. Even though you know the trial will be filmed, seeing the struggles that went on behind the scenes, the death threats received by Milton Fruchtman and his family, Leo Horwitz's determination to see Eichmann break, made it all that much more real to me.
It's a hard film to watch but I found it completely worthwhile.
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Date: 2016-04-08 04:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
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