Questions of (Re) Presentation in Uwe Boll’s Auschwitz (2011)

  • Elizabeth M. Ward
Chapter
Part of the The Holocaust and its Contexts book series (HOLC)

Abstract

In September 2010 an online trailer appeared for Uwe Boll’s latest film, Auschwitz. Featuring a German SS (Schutzstaffel) officer dozing whilst Jewish men, women and children suffocate to death in a gas chamber, the 49-second clip instantly provoked public and critical outrage from both within Boll’s native Germany and around the world. Tom Goldman from the online magazine The Escapist described the trailer as ‘disturbing and gruesome’ and ‘likely to push moviegoers over the edge’ (Goldman, 2010), whilst the critics Sophie Albers and Matthias Schmidt from the German magazine Stern reflected that ‘the words Auschwitz and Uwe Boll in one breath rightly leads one to fear the worst’ (Albers and Schmidt, 2010). Writing for the online blog Slashfilm, David Chen possibly most accurately summarized the reaction caused by the incongruity of subject matter and director in his comment that, ‘The trailer itself is extremely disturbing and I’d dare say effective. Judged on its own merits, the teaser conveys the horrors of Auschwitz with some graphic imagery and quasi-decent editing. But attach Boll’s name to it and the picture changes a bit’ (Chen, 2010).

Keywords

Narrative Structure Holocaust Denial Shower Scene Holocaust Memory Camera Shot 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Albers, Sophie, and Matthias Schmidt (2010) ‘Trash-Regisseur Boll provoziert mit Auschwitz-Film’, Stern, 14 September, available at: http://www.stern.de/kultur/film/trailer-im-netz-trash-regisseur-boll-provoziert-mit-auschwitz-film-1603170.html (accessed 2 February 2013).Google Scholar
  2. Assmann, Aleida (2008) ‘Canon and Archive’, in Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, Sara B. Young and Jürgen Reulecke (eds.) Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 97–107.Google Scholar
  3. —— (2011) ‘Canon and Archive’, in Jeffrey K Olick, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Daniel Levy (eds.) The Collective Memory Reader, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 334–7.Google Scholar
  4. Assmann, Jan (2008) ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory’, in Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, Sara B. Young and Jürgen Reulecke (eds.) Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 109–18.Google Scholar
  5. Ball, Karyn (2008) ‘For and Against the Bilderverbot: The Rhetoric of “Unrepresentability” and Remediated “Authenticity” in the German Reception of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List’, in David Bathrick (ed.) Visualising the Holocaust, Rochester, NY: Camden House, pp. 162–84.Google Scholar
  6. Berlinale (2009) ‘Berlinale 2009: John Rabe Press Conference’, available at: http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/2009/02_programm_2009/02_Filmdatenblatt_2009_20090041.php (accessed 2 February 2013).
  7. Boll, Uwe (2010) ‘Uwe Boll Talks about Auschwitz’, interview available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huqiOG51gms&feature=youtube_gdata_player (accessed 2 February 2013).
  8. Chen, David (2010) ‘Teaser Trailer: Uwe Boll’s Auschwitz’, Slashfilm, available at: http://www.slashfilm.com/teaser-trailer-uwe-bolls-auschwitz/ (accessed 2 February 2013).
  9. Connolly, Kate (2010) ‘German Director’s Holocaust Film Causes Outrage’, The Guardian, 12 November, available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/12/uwe-boll-auschwitz-film-causes-outrage (accessed 2 February 2013).Google Scholar
  10. Cooke, Paul (2012) Contemporary German Cinema, Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
  11. De Wever, Bruno (2007) ‘Historical Film as Palimpsest’, in Leen Engelen and Roel Vande Winkel (eds.) Perspectives on European Film and History, Gent: Academia Press, pp. 5–12.Google Scholar
  12. Edel, Uli, and Bernd Eichinger (2008) ‘The Baader Meinhof Complex: Press Kit’ available at: http://www.vitagraphfllms.com/Films/Baader-Meinhof_Complex/BMC%20PresskitFinal.pdf (accessed 2 February 2013).
  13. Eichinger, Katja (2008) Der Baader Meinhof Komplex: das Buch zum Film. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe.Google Scholar
  14. Fitzner, Helga (2004) ‘Interview mit Oliver Hirschbiegel’, Kultura-Extra, 28 August, available at: http://www.kultura-extra.de/film/filme/untergang.php#interview (accessed 2 February 2013).Google Scholar
  15. Goldman, Tom (2010) ‘Uwe Boll Sickens with Auschwitz Movie’, The Escapist, 8 September, available at: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103310-Uwe-Boll-Sickens-With-Auschwitz-Movie (accessed 2 February 2013).Google Scholar
  16. Gunning, Tom (1990) ‘The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’, in Thomas Elsaesser (ed.) Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, London: BFI Publishing, pp. 56–62.Google Scholar
  17. Gunning, Tom (1994) ‘The Whole Town’s Gawking: Early Cinema and the Visual Experience of Modernity’, The Yale Journal of Criticism 7.2, pp. 189–201.Google Scholar
  18. Gunning, Tom (2006) ‘The Cinema of Attraction [s]: Early Film, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’, in Wanda Strauven (ed.) The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 381–8.Google Scholar
  19. Haase, Christine (2007) ‘Ready for his Close-Up? Representing Hitler in Der Untergang (Downfall, 2004)’, Studies in European Cinema 3.3, pp. 189–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. Hake, Sabine (2012) ‘Entombing the Nazi Past: On Downfall and Historicism’, in Martin Ruehl and Karolin Machtans (eds.) Hitler: Films from Germany History, Cinema and Politics since 1945, Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 99–131.Google Scholar
  21. Halle, Randall (2008) German Film after Germany. Toward a Transnational Aesthetic, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
  22. Henkel von Donnersmarck, Florian (2006) ‘Im Ausland wird man immer zuerst auf Nazis angesprochen’, Die Welt, 21 March.Google Scholar
  23. Heritage, Stuart (2013) ‘Assault on Wall Street Trailer: Bankers Get What’s Coming, Uwe Boll Style’, The Guardian, 14 May, available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/may/14/assault-on-wall-street-trailer (accessed 2 February 2013).Google Scholar
  24. Koepnick, Lutz (2002) ‘Refraining the Past: Heritage Cinema and Holocaust in the 1990s’, New German Critique 87, pp. 47–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. Lachmann, Günther (2010) ‘Auschwitz-Film schockiert mit brennenden Kindern’, Welt Online, 9 November, available at: http://www.welt.de/kultur/articlel0821778/Auschwitz-Film-schockiert-mit-brennenden-Kindern.html (accessed 2 February 2013).Google Scholar
  26. Landsberg, Alison (2004) Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
  27. Mazierska, Ewa (2011) European Cinema and Intertextuality: History, Memory and Politics, Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. Nord, Cristina (2008) ‘Deutsche Geschichte im Kino: die neue Naivität’, taz, 20 October.Google Scholar
  29. Rentschier, Eric (2000) ‘From New German Cinema to the Post-Wall Cinema of Consensus’, in Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie (eds.) Cinema and Nation, London: Routledge, pp. 260–77.Google Scholar
  30. Rosenstone, Robert (2006) History on Film/Film on History, Harlow: Longman/Pearson.Google Scholar
  31. Rothermund, Marc (2005) ‘Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. Presskit’, available at: http://www.zeitgeistlilms.com/lilms/sophiescholl/sophiescholl.presskit.pdf (accessed 2 February 2013).
  32. Teachout, Terry (1999) ‘Review of Life Is Beautiful’, Crisis 17.1, p. 52.Google Scholar
  33. Toplin, Robert Brent (2002) Reel History: In Defense of Hollywood, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
  34. Wenders, Wim (2004) ‘Tja, dann wollen wir mal’, Die Zeit, 21 October, available at: http://www.zeit.de/2004/44/Untergang_n (accessed 2 February 2013).Google Scholar
  35. Winkle, Sally (2011) ‘Margarete von Trotta’s Rosenstraße: “Feminist Re-Visions” of a Historical Controversy’, in Terri Ginsberg and Andrea Mensch (ed.) A Companion to German Cinema, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 429–61.Google Scholar
  36. Zacharek, Stephanie (2008) ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’, Salon.com, 7 November, available at: http://www.salon.com/2008/11/07/boy/ (accessed 2 February 2013).Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Elizabeth M. Ward 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  • Elizabeth M. Ward

There are no affiliations available

Personalised recommendations