Get Out: Imaginary Witness at SIFF Cinema

From what I've read, it sounds as if the thesis of your film is that there was a resistance on the part of Hollywood to make anti-Nazi films in the 30s and then after the war, a resistance to showing the horrors of the Holocaust. What caused that resistance?

That's not really a thesis of the film, but pretty much historical fact. There are political, emotional, and historical reasons why the horrors of the Holocaust were not presented more widely in the decades following the war -- and those reasons become compounded by the economics of the studio system and the psychology and backgrounds of the men and women who ran he studios.

Was Hollywood resistant to what the government wanted it to show? Were a lot of the filmmakers emotionally connected to the events in Europe and so didn't want to dig too deep?
I think the analysis stems from a conversation about human nature, rather than the particular filmmakers and their connection to the events. Take 9/11 for example, there were some graphic images shown immediately in documentaries (as there were in 1945 after WWII), but then there seemed to be a moratorium -- that it was too soon, too disturbing, too disrespectful of those who died. Even one of the 9/11 movies, United 93, was booed when it was shown in preview in NYC.

Also - you need to keep in mind the levels of Hollywood filmmaking at play: there are 'b" pictures, some of which were directed by refugee filmmakers, which did address the horrors of the war. Also, politically, writers of the left who would have been the ones making the more realistic war movies, were under fire from [the House Committee on Un-American Activities] and elsewhere. Many of them, including Norma Barzman who appeared in my film, fled to Europe where they were able to make some of these films. And finally, an anomaly is television, which did present the Holocaust, albeit tepidly, in teleplays throughout the 50's and early 60's.

Can you explain why the studios didn't deal with the horrors of the camps even after they were given a tour of them in 1945 that was meant to move them to make movies on the subject? Was there a sense of needing to give the world some time to heal first?

'No' to the first part. 'Maybe' to the second. It may have been that the world felt it was "too soon," or that political pressure from Washington suggested we not demonize the Germans during the period when we were trying to rehabilitate them.

According to one review I read, you don't show the US Army's images of the Death Camps in your film. Why not?

We did. That review is wrong. We had to make our own choices about depiction – what to show, what not to show. Ultimately those choices were made based on the historical chronology, and viewers therefore do not see more than viewers of the time would have seen. The intention is that audiences therefore relive the history they are watching, forming their own insights and opinions about the ethical questions, based on the unfolding of footage over time. But to answer your question -- we do show some of the most graphic images of the Death Camps.

From some of your answers, it sounds as if you tried to make the film from an unemotional point of view. In other words, that you wanted to stay away from passing judgment on Hollywood and simply report the story. If that is a fair reading of your intentions, was it difficult to keep your emotions out of the way when dealing with such an emotional subject?

It was very difficult for us to make this film. We didn't try to minimize our own emotions, but at the same time didn't want to end up making a film that was overly emotional because that itself can be trivializing. Generally films about films celebrate the subject matter, and we didn't want a film that "celebrated" the holocaust, so we kept our analysis at arms length.

The overriding philosophical issue in the film is that of portrayal -- is it necessary to portray the Holocaust because of a responsibility to show future generations what happened; or is it more important to show restraint, to respect and honor those who died by not fictionalizing their deaths. Is our responsibility to the future or the past? That's the central dilemma of the film, and one that I tried not to take sides in.

Imaginary Witness plays at SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center January 18-January 24 at 7:30 pm with an extra show at 2 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets at seattlefilm.org