Manuel Alduy: “Shoah is a painful experience, but one that must be lived”
Tuesday January 30, France 2 broadcasts Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah in full. Interview with the director of Cinema and Digital and International Fiction of the public channel.
Since its release in 1985, Holocaust of Claude Lanzmann remains a reference both in terms of cinema and its subject: the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War. By its enormous duration, almost 10 hours, and its refusal of the archive, Claude Lanzmann’s memorial gesture is part of the present of the testimonies. The realisation of Holocaust took more than ten years of work.
A few days after January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, France 2 will broadcast Claude Lanzmann’s masterpiece in full. Manuel Alduy, head of cinema for the public channel, explains this choice to us.
Tribute to Claude Lanzmann
Who had the idea of the exceptional programming of Holocaust by Claude Lanzmann in its entirety, almost 10 hours?
Alexandre Kara, the information director of France Televisions. This idea is part of a major reflection around the various anniversaries linked to the Second World War. In 2024 and 2025, the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Paris, France and the concentration camps will be celebrated… Added to this, a very current emergency with the rise in anti-Semitism since last fall and the Hamas attack in Israel. We note a violent excitement in certain political debates… We sought the best way to inform, to recall certain historical facts. Cinema has this tremendous capacity for transmission and Holocaust by Claude Lanzmann is a fundamental documentary work. Its distribution in full seemed to us as logical as it was essential.
Its broadcast will therefore begin around 9 p.m. and continue until the early morning…
France 2 is the group’s main channel, this is where the major events are concentrated. HAS France Télévisons we frequently use cinema as a support for social debates. The diffusion of Holocaust is certainly exceptional in its duration but the programming of a social evening of this nature is less so… Note that the channel Arte had already scheduled it in full two days after the death of Claude Lanzmann in July 2018.
Is specific editorialization around this broadcast planned?
Our news colleagues and the various editorial staff will relay it in order to best present this documentary. The 8 p.m. news which will precede the broadcast will of course echo it. The film will then be available for free on the channel’s website for one month.
How do you imagine the way spectators will take advantage of this television moment?
We hope that they will be gripped by the strength of the testimonies. Holocaust is a succession of confessions that Claude Lanzmann has included in a deliberately very long narrative time so that the story with a capital H is revealed in all its truth. The film is gripping, no matter when you enter it. It immediately grabs our attention. Only so-called linear television, as opposed to on-demand programs and platforms, makes it possible to impose it on viewers. This work must, in fact, be placed in a grid and hope that the public will take hold of it. Holocaust is certainly a painful experience, but one that must be lived. This film is not to be taken lightly, it must be approached as it was designed. Then, everyone is free to enter as they wish.
What, in your opinion, makes Shoah an exceptional work?
The film is only made up of testimonies, there are no archive or reconstructed images… We mainly see survivors but also executioners, who express themselves at length… The way of which Claude Lanzmann questions them and frees their words, giving an implacable truth to the subject. In a world like ours saturated with images where artificial intelligence risks becoming more and more important, where deepfakes abound, this film by its very nature is a return to the sources of historical truth. It is difficult to remain indifferent. Holocaust puts things back on a human level. It’s authentic, factual, the film abolishes the distance that can exist with regard to certain heavy subjects. With this programming we are trying to bring spectators closer to this reality. Holocaust pushes the exercise of truth very far.
Holocaust by Claude Lanzmann, broadcast in full on France 2, from 9 p.m. on Tuesday January 30.
