Language:
English
Year of publication:
2015
Titel der Quelle:
Dapim; Studies on the Shoah
Angaben zur Quelle:
29,1 (2015) 1-16
Keywords:
Polanski, Roman.
;
Rosenmüller, Markus.
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in motion pictures
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in music
Abstract:
The theme of music is common to a number of Holocaust films. Besides presenting it as a type of spiritual resistance in ghettos and camps, a means of survival, or "therapy" for traumatized survivors (and sometimes for perpetrators), various films emphasize the redemptive power of music and, at the same time, marginalize the often ambivalent role it played during the Holocaust. Compares the representation of music and musicians in two films: Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" (2002) and Markus Rosenmüller's "Wunderkinder" (2011). In "The Pianist", music is the path to survival for the film's protagonist, Władysław Szpilman. Polanski clearly connects the German officer Hosenfeld's decision to help Szpilman with his appreciation of Szpilman's artistic talent. The film's focus on Hosenfeld and his relationship with Szpilman deflects attention from the genocide, thus downplaying the tragedy. In "Wunderkinder", music saves only one of the young Jewish heroes, Abrascha, from death; but it was the cause of death for the second Jewish virtuoso, Larissa, because for the Nazis music symbolized the German striving for world domination. After the war, as an adult, a traumatized Abrascha does not perform anymore and works as a gardener. "Wunderkinder" demonstrates the potential for film to engage with the complex, often ambiguous relationship between music, survival, and trauma in the Holocaust, and to avoid engendering Holocaust narratives with redemptive meaning.
DOI:
10.1080/23256249.2014.968829
URL:
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