1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910797720603321

Autore

Mintz Alan L

Titolo

Popular culture and the shaping of Holocaust memory in America / / Alan Mintz

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Seattle : , : University of Washington Press, , 2001

©2001

ISBN

0-295-80369-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiv, 208 pages) : illustrations

Collana

Samuel & Althea Stroum lectures in Jewish studies

Disciplina

940.53/18

Soggetti

Culture in motion pictures

Public opinion - United States

Jews - United States - Attitudes

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in motion pictures

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) - Historiography

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) - Influence

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) - Foreign public opinion, American

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-200) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Preface -- From silence to salience -- Two models in the study of holocaust representation -- The holocaust at the movies : Three studies in reception -- Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) -- The pawnbroker (1965) -- Schindler's list (1993) -- The future of memorialization.

Sommario/riassunto

The Holocaust took place far from the United States and involved few Americans, yet rather than receding, this event has assumed a greater significance in the American consciousness with the passage of time. As a window into the process whereby the Holocaust has been appropriated in American culture, Hollywood movies are particularly luminous. Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America examines reactions to three films: Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), The Pawnbroker (1965), and Schindler's List (1992), and considers what those reactions reveal about the place of the Holocaust in the American mind, and how those films have shaped the popular perception of the Holocaust. It also considers the difference in the



reception of the two earlier films when they first appeared in the 1960s and retrospective evaluations of them from closer to our own times. Alan Mintz also addresses the question of how Americans will shape the memory of the Holocaust in the future, concluding with observations on the possibilities and limitations of what is emerging as the major resource for the shaping of Holocaust memory -- videotaped survivor testimony. Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America examines some of the influences behind the broad and deep changes in American consciousness and the social forces that permitted the Holocaust to move from the margins to the center of American discourse.