Shoah (DVD)

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Claude Lanzmann once said that, had Spielberg had the proper moral conscience when it comes to The Holocaust, the American director either would not have made "Schindler´s List" or would have made "Shoah" instead of a fictional narrative. Personally, I feel that Lanzmann´s attitude is very restrictive and limiting. We can not understand what we can not see; consequently, there is a remove between what we know and what we feel when confronted with "Shoah". As everything is talk and diagrams and charts and decayed-remnants-of-the-concentration-camps, it becomes tempting to ask Lanzmann to start showing and to stop telling. Indeed, the irony of "Shoah" is that it has an "objectifying" viewpoint that resembles Nazi bureaucratic coldness since the film does not create the kind of pathos that an re-enactment or archival footage can (for example, the newsreels that American Army soldiers filmed when they first arrived at death camps generates shudders no matter how many times you´ve encountered The Holocaust).

Video:
I don´t think that there was much restoration/clean-up work done to the 1.33:1 (full-frame on 4:3 monitors) image. There are varying degrees of dust, speckling, nicks, and scratches on the print that was used to make this DVD transfer. Overall, you get a sharp but not-quite-clean visual experience.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio doesn´t offer much beyond direct conversations between interviewers and interviewees. There´s a fair amount of hiss that remains in the track, so I´m guessing that there wasn´t much clean-up work done on the audio (as with the video). The dialogue is always intelligible, but the quality isn´t quite there.

Optional English and French subtitles support the audio.

Extras:
Each DVD in the four-disc set offers a mini-biography of Claude Lanzmann as well as a mini-filmography. Also, you can choose English or French menus when the DVDs first load in your DVD player.

--Miscellaneous--
A custom Digipak box set houses four discs. A fold-out insert provides chapter listings.

Film Value:
"Shoah" is a comprehensive motion picture documentation of people and materials related to The Holocaust. Admittedly, Claude Lanzmann´s refusal to show any archival footage or to show any re-enactments of what happened in the past places a distance between viewers and history. Therefore, someone without a grasp of history may not be induced to care about The Holocaust by "Shoah". For that reason, I have to give the film a Film Value rating of "9" instead of a "10".