Editing Shoah (film) (section)

==Production==
[[File:Claude lanzmann.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Claude Lanzmann]], 2011]]
Lanzmann was commissioned by Israeli officials to make what they thought would be a two-hour film, delivered in 18 months, about the Holocaust from "the viewpoint of the Jews".<ref name=nytimes2>{{cite web| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/movies/07shoah.html?pagewanted=all| title=Maker of 'Shoah' Stresses Its Lasting Value| date=6 December 2010| work=The New York Times| author=Larry Rohter| access-date=9 September 2013}}</ref><ref name=brody>{{cite magazine| url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/03/19/witness-5| title=Witness: Claude Lanzmann and the making of ''Shoah''| date=19 March 2012| magazine=The New Yorker| author=Richard Brody| access-date=15 September 2013}}</ref> As time went on, Israeli officials withdrew as his original backers.<ref name=nytimes2/> Over 350 hours of raw footage were recorded, including the verbatim questions, answers, and interpreters' translations. Most of this footage has been digitized by the [[United States Holocaust Museum]], and is available online.<ref>[https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn539109 Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection]</ref> ''Shoah'' took eleven years to make.<ref name=austin>{{cite book |last=Austin |first=Guy |title=Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction |location=New York |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=1996 |at=24 |isbn=0-7190-4610-6 }}</ref> It was plagued by financial problems, difficulties tracking down interviewees, and threats to Lanzmann's life. The film was unusual in that it did not include any historical footage,<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pwqHdNlNDk Claude Lanzmann on Shoah - criterioncollection on YouTube]</ref> relying instead on interviewing witnesses and visiting the crime scenes.<ref name=nytimes1/> [[Shoah (film)#Legacy|Five feature-length films]] have since been released from the [[outtakes]].

Some German interviewees were reluctant to talk and refused to be filmed, so Lanzmann used a [[hidden camera]], producing a grainy, black-and-white appearance.<ref name=nytimes1/> The interviewees in these scenes are sometimes obscured or distinguished by technicians watching the recording. During one interview, with [[Heinz Schubert (SS officer)|Heinz Schubert]], the covert recording was discovered by Schubert's family, and Lanzmann was physically attacked. He was hospitalized for a month and charged by the authorities with "unauthorized use of the German airwaves".<ref name=brody/>

Lanzmann arranged many of the scenes, but not the testimony, before filming witnesses. For example, Bomba was interviewed while cutting his friend's hair in a working barbershop; a steam locomotive was hired to recreate the journey the death train conductor had taken while transporting Jews; and the opening scene shows Srebnik singing in a rowboat, similarly to how he had "serenaded his captors".<ref name=brody/>

The first six years of production were devoted to the recording of interviews in 14 countries.<ref name=austin /> Lanzmann worked on the interviews for four years before first visiting Poland. After the shooting, editing of the 350 hours of raw footage continued for five years.<ref name=austin /> Lanzmann frequently replaced the camera shot of the interviewee with modern footage from the site of the relevant death camp. The matching of testimony to places became a "crucial [[trope (literature)|trope]] of the film".<ref name=brody/>

''Shoah'' was made without [[voice-over]] translations. The questions and answers were kept on the soundtrack, along with the voices of the interpreters,<ref name=brody/> with subtitles where necessary. Transcripts of the interviews, in original languages and English translations, are held by the [[US Holocaust Memorial Museum]] in Washington, D.C. Videos of excerpts from the interviews are available for viewing online, and linked transcripts can be downloaded from the museum's website.<ref name="interviews">{{cite web|url=https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn539109?rsc=138101&cv=0&c=0&m=0&s=0|title=Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection|publisher=Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|access-date=13 March 2016}}</ref>