REVIEWS
“Powerful almost beyond words… a portrait of a man whose relationship with time and the world is altered by his dogged commitment to an epic mission.”
– The Seattle Times (Tom Keogh)
“Utterly powerful… a fascinating portrait of a man openly pessimistic about the world, and a unique distillation of a creative process that yielded one of the most powerful cinematic documents of our time.”
– Variety (Kris Tapley)
“The richest and most ruminative of the nominated shorts… providing strong visual correlatives as Lanzmann returns to some of the most difficult moments of his filmmaking process.”
– Variety (Justin Chang)
“This film is incredibly moving… the insight into how Lanzmann evolved from a journalist to a world-class historian elevates Lanzmann to the height of a hero and Mr. Benzine, as his messenger, also attains an historical significance. Both films are testament to a devotion worthy of enshrinement.”
– Indiewire (Sydney Levine)
“Will come as a stunning revelation to both people who have seen Shoah and people who have not.”
– The Toronto Star (Martin Knelman)
“It’s astounding that within the making of this film’s fleeting 40 minutes, we come to an emotionally rich appreciation of the project that marked [Lanzmann] for life.”
– Time Out New York (Joshua Rothkopf)
“Pays fitting tribute to a master of European cinema.”
– Prospect magazine (Jonathan Derbyshire)
“Fascinating and upsetting… I don’t often wish for a film to be longer.”
– The Globe and Mail (Marsha Lederman)
“Taut and focused… think of it as an essential supplement to one of the most important documentaries ever made.”
– NOW magazine (☆☆☆☆ review, Norm Wilner)
FEATURES
Adam Benzine on Tracking Claude Lanzmann’s Emotional Journey to Make Shoah
“He and this work are intertwined: Any film about him is necessarily about Shoah, and any film about Shoah is necessarily about him.”
– Documentary Magazine
Watch: Inside the Making of Shoah
“He turned away from archival footage and instead focused on personal recollection, sometimes captured via secret camera. By 1980, when the five-year process of editing began, he had collected 200 hours of tape.”
– Time Magazine
Claude Lanzmann discusses Spectres of the Shoah, Steven Speilberg, Son of Saul and more
“I like the film, and I think other people like the film. But that doesn’t mean I endorse everything he did with the film. I don’t even necessarily like everything in the film. But that doesn’t mean the film isn’t good.”
– The Hollywood Reporter
Adam Benzine: ‘My documentary about film maker is up for Oscar… and I’m really honoured he likes it’
“I’ve interviewed thousands of people but Claude Lanzmann was probably the interview of my life. I will be lucky if I ever get another subject as charismatic and as interesting as him.”
– The Evening Standard
Attention, Documentary Filmmakers: 6 Lessons from the Making of Shoah.
“The toll of having to lie to people who had trusted him – friends and supporters – was a heavy one for Lanzmann. But as he saw it, there was only one correct way to make the film, and it couldn’t be rushed.”
– Indiewire
Journalist Adam Benzine’s Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah heads to the Oscars
“He had this giant, Hemingway-esque life of travel and adventure, so my first reaction was ‘I’ve got to see a film about him. There must be one.’”
– CBC News
Toronto-based journalist heads to Oscars for short documentary
“It takes a toll on him emotionally, financially, physically, mentally. It really pushes him to his limit. He could have died making the film.”
– CTV News
Spectres of the Shoah was like ‘touching history,’ filmmaker says
“There were questions… that he refused to talk about. But we built a rapport. Claude is an historic figure, and who am I? Nobody. So for him to talk with me, I felt like I was touching history.”
– The Globe and Mail
‘He’s an existentialist intellectual’: Director Adam Benzine talks Shoah, Claude Lanzmann’s epic Holocaust documentary
“There are certain people whom you don’t need to do much more than point the camera at them and let them talk.”
– National Post
A rare insight into the making of Shoah – ABC Radio National
“At the time that Claude Lanzmann was making Shoah, nobody was really doing that kind of work. Seeing his film was a total shock.”
– Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Oscar Hopeful Reveals the ‘Unmaking’ of Claude Lanzmann by His Holocaust Masterpiece
“What I like to tell people is that it’s about the making – or perhaps the unmaking – of Claude Lanzmann, and how the process of making this work left a devastating mark on him.”
– Haaretz
Will Lanzmann finally win an Academy Award?
“The superbly-crafted film from first-time director Adam Benzine explores the arduous 12-year journey that led to the creation of Lanzmann’s landmark documentary Shoah.”
– The Times of Israel
The Unmaking of Claude Lanzmann
“Sitting through five hours of interviews conducted over the course of a week in Paris, Lanzmann discusses his battles with producers and financiers and his gruelling half-decade spent editing Shoah.”
– The Walrus
Claude Lanzmann Revisits Shoah in a New Documentary
“In interviews and dug-up footage, Benzine’s film traces the twelve-year production of Shoah, Lanzmann’s groundbreaking nine-hour 1985 Holocaust documentary.”
– The Criterion Collection
NFT Craze Enters Film World: Claude Lanzmann Documentary is First Oscar Nominee to Be Released as Digital Token
“The tokens effectively provide a method of authenticating a piece of digital content, based on blockchain technology, allowing anyone to trace it back to the original owner.”
– Variety