Wednesday, January 8, 2014

A fear of foggy shower bathroom mirrors and of the rigidity of a public collective unconscious




A newly discovered Alfred Hitchock film about the Third Reich Holocaust, and documentary (hmmmm, really?!), is reportedly due to be released later this year 2014. General Eisenhower made Germans over the age of 10 who lived in the vicinity of the camps there walk through the camps during the month or so after they were liberated, which is horrifying if you think about it. He also made US troops do this too, saying that "if US soldiers didn't know what they were fighting for, this would surely show what they were fighting against." This was time-limited since leaving the corpses uncovered posed a health risk. Similarly, once he had movies, he ordered German civilians across the country into screenings of footage made by troops, reportedly mostly provoking resentment. You can read more about this in Valerie Hartouni's "Visualizing Atrocity: Arendt, Evil and the Optics of Thoughtlessness." Some of the footage produced during the camps' liberation by Allied troops was used at the Nuremberg trials because there was a fear that survivor testimony would be dismissed as "biased" & "exaggeration" but photos had a better chance of being accepted as "true" (the opposite of the prosecution strategy for Eichmann's trial). Of course one wants to see what Hitchcock made of this project for many reasons.

LINK:  http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/alfred-hitchcocks-unseen-holocaust-documentary-to-be-screened-9044945.html


p.s. working(i.e. editing) and inspired by the masters. Thank you Alfred. I will take caution in the shower tonight too. But the local diner's public restroom was an absolute gross mess. Barf. bye.