Shoah

Over a decade in the making, Claude Lanzmann’s nine-hour-plus opus is a monumental investigation of the unthinkable: the murder of more than six million Jews by the Nazis. Using no archival footage, Lanzmann instead focuses on first-person testimonies (of survivors and former Nazis, as well as other witnesses), employing a circular, free-associative method in assembling them. The intellectual yet emotionally overwhelming Shoah is not a film about excavating the past but an intensive portrait of the ways in which the past is always present, and it is inarguably one of the most important cinematic works of all time.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1985
  • 550 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.33:1
  • French, Italian, German, Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, English
  • Spine #663

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored 4K digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
  • Three additional films by director Claude Lanzmann: A Visitor from the Living (1999, 68 minutes); Sobibór, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m. (2001, 102 minutes); and The Karski Report (2010, 49 minutes)
  • New conversation between Lanzmann and critic Serge Toubiana
  • Interview with Lanzmann from 2003 about A Visitor from the Living and Sobibór
  • New interview with Caroline Champetier, assistant camera person on Shoah, and filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones and writings by Lanzmann

    New cover by Sam Smith

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored 4K digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
  • Three additional films by director Claude Lanzmann: A Visitor from the Living (1999, 68 minutes); Sobibór, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m. (2001, 102 minutes); and The Karski Report (2010, 49 minutes)
  • New conversation between Lanzmann and critic Serge Toubiana
  • Interview with Lanzmann from 2003 about A Visitor from the Living and Sobibór
  • New interview with Caroline Champetier, assistant camera person on Shoah, and filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones and writings by Lanzmann

    New cover by Sam Smith
Shoah
Cast
Armando Aaron
Key Witnesses
Paula Biren
Abraham Bomba
Czeslaw Borowi
Inge Deutschkron
Itzhak Dugin
Ruth Elias
Pan Falborski
Pan Filipowicz
Henrik Gawkowski
Richard Glazar
Franz Grassler
Raul Hilberg
Jan Karski
Martha Michelson
Moshe Mordo
Filip Müller
Joseph Oberhauser
Pani Pietyra
Jan Piwonski
Michaël Podchlebnik
Simha Rottem
Franz Schalling
Gertrude Schneider’s mother
Alfred Spiess
Simon Srebnik
Walter Stier
Franz Suchomel
Rudolf Vrba
Motke Zaïdl
Hanna Zaïdl
Itzhak Zuckermann
Credits
Director
Claude Lanzmann
Producer
Claude Lanzmann
Cinematographers
Dominique Chapuis
Cinematographers
Jimmy Glasberg
Cinematographers
William Lubtchansky
Film editors
Ziva Postec
Film editors
Anna Ruiz
Sound engineers
Bernard Aubouy
Sound engineers
Michel Vionnet

Current

Claude Lanzmann on Shoah
Claude Lanzmann on Shoah
For our new release of Shoah, director Claude Lanzmann sat down with critic Serge Toubiana to talk about his philosophy and approach in making the formidable investigation into the Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II. One of the ideas he…
Approaching Shoah
Approaching Shoah

How Claude Lanzmann made a thoughtful film about the unthinkable and unfilmable.

By Kent Jones

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Claude Lanzmann Revisits Shoah in a New Documentary
Claude Lanzmann Revisits Shoah in a New Documentary
Last night, HBO premiered British filmmaker Adam Benzine’s Oscar-nominated documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah. In interviews and dug-up footage, Benzine’s film traces the twelve-year production of Shoah, Lanzmann’s groundbreakin…
Nina Hoss on Working with Christian Petzold and Preparing for Phoenix
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Fifty Essential Documentary Films
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