‘All I Had Was Nothingness’ Review: An Insightful Behind-the-Scenes Look at Claude Lanzmann’s ‘Shoah’

by

In the realm of filmmaking and beyond, Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 documentary “Shoah,” spanning 566 minutes, continues to stand as an unprecedented milestone that has yet to be matched. Even Lanzmann, who subsequently directed a few movies utilizing footage not included in the original cut of “Shoah,” never reached the pinnacle or plumbed the existential depths like he did with this epic exploration of the Holocaust. “Shoah” is more of an experience than a film, best savored over two days on a large screen, and the impact it leaves is usually indelible.

In a way that feels almost disrespectful, another filmmaker sifted through additional unused footage from the groundbreaking documentary Shoah, and created their own distinct movie. This new production is called All I Had Was Nothingness (Je n’avais que le néant — “Shoah” par Lanzmann)), which was produced by the widow of the late director, Dominique.

Guillaume Ribot, both writer and director, skillfully crafts this documentary about the creation of Lanzmann’s ‘Shoah’, not just respecting the original work but also emphasizing its colossal personal and logistical demands. This tribute doesn’t aim to replace the real thing; instead, it offers a compelling 90-minute glimpse into the making of a cinematic masterpiece, setting the stage for the next nine hours of the full experience.

Claude Lanzmann, who sadly passed away in 2018 at the age of 92, was a remarkable individual, not just as a journalist and writer, but also as a filmmaker. He was renowned for his confrontational nature and strong ego, traits that were evident throughout Ribot’s documentary. Smoking Gitanes cigarettes, he traveled extensively from New York to Tel Aviv, Germany to Poland, to interview people who lived through the Holocaust from various perspectives – survivors of the horrific events, perpetrators, and bystanders who resided near death camps but continued with their lives as if the atrocities were not occurring (a topic also addressed in Jonathan Glazer’s film, The Zone of Interest)).

Today, it’s effortless to access countless Holocaust documentaries concurrently on different cable stations and numerous others on platforms like Netflix, Amazon, or YouTube. However, in 1973 when Lanzmann started seeking out WWII survivors to record their testimonies for a documentary, the genre hadn’t been established yet. As he stated in his 2009 book, The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir, “There was no reality in film. It had to be created.” This voiceover is a direct quote from the director and is featured in the book, which partially recounts the challenging 12-year period leading up to the production of Shoah.

Lanzmann and his small team constructed a reality in which the horrors of the past were relived, not reenacted. Key members, such as renowned cameraman William Lubtchansky, whose parents were Holocaust victims, were part of this group. In the film Shoah, there is no archive footage; instead, it consists solely of interviews in which individuals recount their experiences. When we witness scenes of concentration camps, they appear as Lanzmann and his team discovered them: as decaying structures amidst overgrown fields, surrounded by forests and farmlands. The “nothingness” in the film’s title, borrowed from the director’s book, symbolizes both the lack of material evidence about the Holocaust at that time and the symbolic experience of creating a movie centered around death itself.

Lanzmann, a figure larger than life, rarely underestimated himself. In Ribot’s film, he emerges as a relentless investigator/champion, ceaselessly chasing a truth that constantly slips away, enduring all the hardships from travel, exhaustion, financial struggles (we discover that not a single U.S. dollar was used to finance Shoah, despite Lanzmann’s efforts to secure funding), and over a decade of emotional turmoil. Although he is scarcely present in Shoah, most of the footage in this film makes him the focal point – something that the director, with his ego-driven nature, might have disapproved of.

To someone acquainted with the initial body of work, it’s captivating to observe the tremendous courage and audacity required to chronicle events deliberately concealed or overlooked by those with no wish to revisit such atrocities, regardless of whether they were Jews or Nazis. In a way reminiscent of early Michael Moore, we find Lanzmann persistently seeking out retired German men who had worked in concentration camps, covertly recording their vague, tearful admissions on video and audio. At one instance, he is discovered and forced to escape, abandoning costly equipment in the process.

Additionally, it’s interesting to note that Shoah wasn’t just recorded, but orchestrated in certain aspects. For instance, the well-known segment where Abraham Bomba, who was tracked down over many years from Brooklyn to Israel, narrates his experience of cutting the hair of fellow Jews before they entered the gas chambers at Treblinka. It was Lanzmann’s innovative idea to film Bomba’s testimony while he was working as a barber in Tel Aviv. This was done with the intention that the repetitive actions would aid Bomba in recalling the events more easily, and the outcome is one of the most impactful sequences not only in Shoah, but arguably in any film ever made.

In some instances, it’s apparent that the filmmaker intentionally sets up certain scenes. For example, consider the extended sequence at the start of “Shoah,” which was also used as the movie poster art. This scene features a former Polish train conductor operating the very locomotive he once utilized to transport Jewish prisoners to concentration camps. Lanzmann persuaded him to reenact this sad routine by renting a train at a significant cost and filming numerous takes until the sequence was perfect. Is this part of the documentary or fictional? Lanzmann wasn’t concerned about labels like that. “The act of conveying is what truly matters,” he stated in his memoir, and Ribot ensures to emphasize those words near the end of his film.

In Ribot’s documentary, All I Had Was Nothingness, certain aspects, such as the recurring voiceover, differ significantly from Lanzmann’s unique style in his own work. However, this documentary provides viewers with an impression of how profoundly Shoah still resonates four decades after its initial release. At its best, it might persuade those who haven’t seen the original film to finally do so. For those with time constraints, Lanzmann’s later works like The Last of the Unjust and the female-focused The Four Sisters, are shorter versions that serve as compelling supplementary pieces to Shoah. Similar to Nothingness, they consist of footage Lanzmann captured during his decade-long quest, a journey he referred to as “a race against death,” which was the crowning achievement of his career. These works offer a somber reflection on our shared history.

Read More

2025-02-17 16:55