LA Weekly, Manohla Dargis, January 17, 1997
"A film that builds its case with quiet force and intellectual acuity, The Art of Remembrance: Simon Wiesenthal is far removed from the sort of standard-issue hagiography that clutters the documentary field. Skillfully directed by Johanna Heer and Werner Schmiedel, with original music from John Zorn, the '95 documentary puts Wiesenthal at its center less to glorify one man's work than to inquire into the moral imperative of that work. ... In the end, what makes Wiesenthal a remarkable citizen of the 20th century is not so much his role as "Nazi hunter", but his morality. Wiesenthal's sense of righteousness and of keeping the past present has been his greatest answer to the Shoah."
Product Description
Nontraditional in form,
The Art of Remembrance - Simon Wiesenthal is a powerful documentary film on Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor who became one of the most important humanitarian figures of the 20th century. Wiesenthal has devoted his life to exposing the crimes of the Nazi regime, and bringing to justice the individuals who committed "crimes against humanity".
The filmmakers chose their subject in response to the recent rise of right-wing extremism in Europe. They were given unprecedented access to this pioneer of the human rights movement, despite his hectic schedule, and spent two and a half years making this film biography, as they traveled with Wiesenthal to eight different countries. Accompanying extensive conversations with Wiesenthal himself are interviews with Rabbi Marvin Hier, Dean and Founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles; U.S.Colonel Richard R. Seibel, liberator of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria; Raul Hilberg, professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont, who was forced by the Nazis to leave Austria in 1939; Attorney Sylvie Corrin-Zyss, whose father survived the death camp at Auschwitz; and many others. World-known saxophonist and composer John Zorn provided the original soundtrack for the film.
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