Forum showcases classic Holocaust films

The screening was part of a series of programs on human rights issues. Last year's Academy Award-winning Italian film Life Is Beautiful simultaneously generated as much international acclaim as critical controversy for its unique and innovative exploration of the horrors of the Holocaust. Last night, as part of the Penn Humanities Forum's week-long series "Human Nature-Human Rights: A Civic Dialogue on Unfinished Revolutions," a small crowd of students, professors and Philadelphia residents gathered together to discuss some less publicized but equally controversial Holocaust films of the last half century. The series explores the struggle for human rights in recent history. Monday night, for instance, the Humanities Forum featured a screening of three episodes of the acclaimed civil rights movement documentary, Eyes on the Prize. Last night's event, held in Meyerson Hall, showcased presentations from Penn professors and screenings of two Holocaust film classics: Alain Resnais' Night and Fog, a documentary filmed in 1955 at Auschwitz, and Vittorio De Sica's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1971. Due to what event organizers described as a publicity failure, about 20 people -- only several of whom were students -- attended the program. English Professor Wendy Steiner, the founding director of the Humanities Forum, emphasized the educational value of the event and expressed regret that more students could not benefit from the discussion provoked by these influential films. In his opening remarks, Penn Law Professor Harry Reicher called the Holocaust "a catalyst for the human rights movement." Reicher teaches a course here, "Law and the Holocaust," which is the first of its kind to be offered at any Law school. "One can say in a few words the effect of the Holocaust on international human rights law in the post-World War II era has been dramatic and indeed revolutionary," he said. Communications Professor Barbie Zelizer, an expert on collective memory and visual representation, introduced the first film, Night and Fog, and participated in a panel discussion following the film. "One of the most difficult things about watching [Night and Fog] is to be able to separate oneself from a lifetime of seeing Holocaust imagery," she said. The other professors who participated in the discussion panel were Al Filreis, the faculty director of the Kelly Writers House and Holocaust literature expert Millicent Marcus, director of the Film Studies Program and an authority on the Holocaust in Italian literature and film. The experts identified stylistic elements of the film, presented their own impressions as both scholars and educators on this particular topic and then opened the discussion up to the audience. This discourse, coupled with an introduction from Marcus, provided the context for the second film, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, which concluded the event. "I am quite interested in various studies of the Holocaust, and this program presented valuable insights regarding representations of the Holocaust in film," College freshman David Price said after the event.

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