Claude Lanzmann’s Oscar-nominated documentary gets director’s cut

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-nominated filmmaker Adam Benzine releases an excerpt from his award-winning documentary about Claude Lanzmann, the protean French author, philosopher and filmmaker who directed the Holocaust epic Holocaust.

The new version of Benzine’s film, which extends his short film to a feature film, will be presented on Sunday on VOD platforms under the title The Death and Love of Claude Lanzmann. It arrives 10 years after the release of the original film, titled Claude Lanzmann: Ghosts of the Shoahwhich earned an Oscar nomination.

Watch a clip from the director’s cut below Death and Love by Claude Lanzmann.

“In the decade since our film debuted, Claude Lanzmann’s stature and legacy as a filmmaker and historian have only grown,” Benzine said in a statement. “One thing we’ve heard a lot over the years is that, at just 40 minutes long, people wished the film was longer. This new version addresses that, diving deeper into the tumultuous journey that led to the film’s creation. Holocaustwhile reverting to the film’s original intended title.

Benzine added: “It is such an honor to release this new release to mark the centenary of Mr. Lanzmann’s birth, alongside the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, as well as the 40th anniversary of Holocaustthe 1985 release. The themes of the film are more relevant than ever.

For the original version of the film, Benzine interviewed Lanzmann at length about the making of Holocaustreferring to “the secret filming of former Nazis; the long process of convincing traumatized Holocaust survivors to speak on screen and the moving interviews that followed; his battles over the duration and cost of the project; and the grueling challenge of chronicling one of the greatest atrocities the world has ever known; as well as the events that almost cost him his life. »

After its world premiere at Hot Docs in 2015, Claude Lanzmann: Ghosts of the Shoah sparked a bidding war in which HBO prevailed. The film has won awards around the world, including Best Short Documentary at the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece. It has also been nominated for four Canadian Screen Awards, the IDA Award for Best Documentary Short, and the Cinema Eye Honors.

I interviewed Benzine in 2015 after he earned his Oscar nomination for the documentary. He then told me about spending time with Lanzmann, a man of great intelligence with a reputation (as the film pointed out) for a touch of megalomania.

“It was perhaps the interview of my life,” Benzine, a journalist and filmmaker, told me. “He was exactly as I hoped: lucid, poetic, interesting, eloquent, thoughtful and not as difficult as he can be. And I don’t know if it was because we had built a relationship or if I had surprised him for a good week. I would like to think it was that we built a relationship and he could see that I had done a lot of research and knew his work inside and out.”

Benzine added, regarding Lanzmann and Holocaust“The Shoah was not an abstract concept for him. He was Jewish in France during the Second World War.” [As a member of the French Resistance] if he had been captured, he would have been killed. He would have been put on a train and deported or he would have been killed. It’s quite significant when you see it [in Shoah] sitting across from a former Nazi, a former SS officer, pretending to be “buddies” with them, saying, “Oh, no, I’m not a judge, I’m just writing an article.” »

In addition to Lanzmann’s testimony, the original and extended versions of Benzine’s documentary feature previously unseen clips filmed by Lanzmann and his crew in the 1970s. The clips have been digitally restored in Full HD for the director’s cut, courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The extended version of Benzine’s film will be available on lanzmannfilm.com as well as on VOD platforms.

The Death and Love of Claude Lanzmann is written, produced and directed by Adam Benzine, co-produced by Kimberley Warner and executive produced by Nick Fraser (Man on the wire). It features an original score composed by Joel Goodman (JFK, Everything is a copy, The curve), and is edited by Tiffany Beaudin (Pursue evil, The silent planet). The director of photography is Alexander Ordanis (Endless cookie, Forward Slash/Return). International sales are handled by Cinephil and educational sales are handled by Film Platform.

Lanzmann died in 2018 at the age of 92. In the exclusive clip below from Death and Love by Claude Lanzmannhe talks about his relationship with the great French writer Simone de Beauvoir, his romantic partner from 1952-1959.