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===Critical response=== Hailed as a masterpiece by many critics, ''Shoah'' was described in ''The New York Times'' as "an epic film about the greatest evil of modern times".<ref name=nytimes1>{{cite news| url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9805E5DC1E39F933A15753C1A963948260 | work=The New York Times | first=Richard | last=Bernstein | title=An Epic Film About The Greatest Evil of Modern Times | date=20 October 1985}}</ref> According to [[Richard Brody]], [[François Mitterrand]] attended the first screening in Paris in April 1985 when he was president of France, [[Václav Havel]] watched it in prison, and [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] arranged public screenings in the Soviet Union in 1989.<ref name=brody/> In 1985, critic [[Roger Ebert]] described it as "an extraordinary film" and "one of the noblest films ever made". He wrote: "It is not a documentary, not journalism, not propaganda, not political. It is an act of witness."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-shoah-1985|title=Shoah|first=Roger |last=Ebert|date=29 December 2010|work=rogerebert.com|access-date=13 March 2016}}</ref> [[Rotten Tomatoes]] shows a [[List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes|100% score]], based on 37 reviews, with an average rating of 9.2/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Expansive in its beauty as well as its mind-numbing horror, ''Shoah'' is a towering – and utterly singular – achievement in cinema."<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/shoah/ | title=Shoah (1985) | work=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] | publisher=[[Fandango Media]] | access-date=1 July 2019}}</ref> [[Metacritic]] reports a 99 out of 100 rating, based on four critics, indicating "universal acclaim".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.metacritic.com/movie/shoah-re-release | title=Shoah Reviews | work=[[Metacritic]] | publisher=[[CBS Interactive]] | access-date=2 February 2016}}</ref> As of July 2019, it is the site's 20th highest-rated film, including re-releases.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.metacritic.com/browse/movies/score/metascore/all/all|title=Best Movies of All Time|work=[[Metacritic]]|publisher=[[CBS Interactive]]|access-date=1 July 2019}}</ref> ''[[Time Out (magazine)|Time Out]]'' and ''[[The Guardian]]'' listed ''Shoah'' as the best documentary of all time in 2016 and 2013 respectively.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.timeout.com/newyork/film/the-50-best-documentaries-of-all-time-documentary#tab_panel_5 |title=The 50 Best Documentaries of All Time |last1=Fear |first1=David |last2=Rothkopf |first2=Joshua |last3=Uhlich |first3=Keith |date=6 January 2016|work=Time Out|access-date=7 February 2016}}{{pb}} {{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/nov/12/top-10-documentaries |title=Top 10 Documentaries |work=The Guardian |date=12 November 2013 |access-date=7 February 2016}}</ref> In a 2014 [[British Film Institute]] (BFI) ''[[Sight and Sound]]'' poll, film critics voted it second of the best documentary films of all time.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28602506 |title=Silent film tops documentary poll |access-date=1 August 2014 |publisher=BBC News|date=August 2014 }}{{pb}} {{cite web|author=Nick James | url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk//sight-sound-magazine/greatest-docs |title=Critics' 50 Greatest Documentaries of All Time |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |date=21 December 2015 |access-date=29 January 2016}}</ref> In 2012 it ranked 29th and 48th respectively in the BFI's critics' and directors' polls of the greatest films of all time.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b76b0507b/sightandsoundpoll2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160630192121/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b76b0507b/sightandsoundpoll2012|url-status=dead|archive-date=30 June 2016|title=''Shoah'' (1985) |publisher=British Film Institute |access-date=30 January 2016}}</ref> The same polls in 2022 placed it 27th among critics and 72nd among directors.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Shoah (1985) |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/46732480-a60e-5db0-9467-692af02d7383/shoah |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=BFI |language=en}}</ref> The film had detractors, however, and it was criticized in Poland.<ref>[https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/movies/claude-lanzmann-director-holocaust-documentary-shoah-dies-age-92-n888971 Claude Lanzmann, director of Holocaust documentary 'Shoah,' dies at age 92 - NBC News]</ref> Mieczyslaw Biskupski wrote that Lanzmann's "purpose in making the film was revealed by his comments that he 'fears' Poland and that the death camps could not have been constructed in France because the 'French peasantry would not have tolerated them{{'"}}.<ref name=Biskupskip36>{{cite book|chapter=Poland and the Poles in the Cinematic Portrayal of the Holocaust|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|title=Rethinking Poles and Jews: Troubled Past, Brighter Future|year=2007|author = Mieczyslaw B. Biskupski|editor1=Robert D. Cherry|editor-link=Robert D. Cherry|editor2=Anna Maria Orla-Bukowska |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vkLTSB7NHwgC|isbn=978-0742546660}}</ref> Government-run newspapers and state television criticized the film, as did numerous commentators; [[Jerzy Turowicz]], editor of the Catholic weekly ''[[Tygodnik Powszechny]]'', called it partial and tendentious.<ref name="Meng">Michael Meng, [https://web.archive.org/web/20090205105706/http://icj.huji.ac.il/conference/papers/Meng.pdf "Rethinking Polish-Jewish Relations during the Holocaust in the Wake of 1968"], [http://catholic.co.il/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1266:conference-on-polish-jewish-relations&catid=65&lang=en&Itemid=128 Conference on Polish–Jewish Relations], Hebrew University of Jerusalem, March 2009, 7.</ref> The Socio-Cultural Association of Jews in Poland (''Towarzystwo Społeczno-Kulturalne Żydów w Polsce'') called it a provocation and delivered a protest letter to the [[List of diplomatic missions of France#Europe|French embassy in Warsaw]].<ref name="Szczęsna-2010">{{cite news |url=http://wyborcza.pl/2029020,76842,7694169.html |title=25 lat sporów o 'Shoah' |newspaper=[[Gazeta Wyborcza]] |publication-place=Warsaw |date=2010-03-24 |access-date=17 September 2013 |last=Szczęsna |first=Joanna |language=pl |archive-url=http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,7694169,25_lat_sporow_o__Shoah_.html |archive-date=18 September 2013 |quote=''Translation:'' Szymon Szurmiej, spokesman for TSKŻwP informed the French embassy that the Jewish community in Poland is saddened by such cinematic provocation and an anti-Polish campaign. ''Polish original:'' Szymon Szurmiej jako przedstawiciel Towarzystwa Społeczno-Kulturalnego Żydów w Polsce złożył w ambasadzie francuskiej oświadczenie, że "społeczność żydowska jest zbulwersowana tą filmową prowokacją i antypolską kampanią".}}</ref> [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Poland)|Foreign Minister]] [[Władysław Bartoszewski]], an Auschwitz survivor and an honorary citizen of Israel, criticized Lanzmann for ignoring the thousands of [[Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust|Polish rescuers of Jews]], focusing instead on impoverished rural Poles, allegedly selected to conform with his preconceived notions. [[Gustaw Herling-Grudziński]], a Jewish-Polish writer and [[dissident]], was puzzled by Lanzmann's omission of anybody in Poland with advanced knowledge of the Holocaust.<ref name="Szczęsna">{{cite web | url=http://wyborcza.pl/2029020,76842,7694169.html | title=25 lat sporów o "Shoah" (Twenty five years of the film ''Shoah'' controversy) | publisher=[[Gazeta Wyborcza]]. | date=2010-03-24 | access-date=2013-05-11 | author=Joanna Szczęsna | format=archived from [http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,7694169,25_lat_sporow_o__Shoah_.html GW Teksty] | language=pl}}</ref> In his book ''Dziennik pisany nocą'', Herling-Grudziński wrote that the thematic construction of ''Shoah'' allowed Lanzmann to exercise a reduction method so extreme that the plight of the non-Jewish Poles must remain a mystery to the viewer. Grudziński asked a [[rhetorical question]] in his book: "Did the Poles live in peace, quietly plowing farmers' fields with their backs turned on the long fuming chimneys of death-camp crematoria? Or, were they [[Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles|exterminated]] along with the Jews as subhuman?" According to Grudziński, Lanzmann leaves this question unanswered, but the historical evidence shows that Poles also suffered widespread massacres at the hands of the Nazis.<ref name="Szczęsna" /> The American film critic [[Pauline Kael]],<ref>[https://www.indiewire.com/2010/12/eternal-holocaust-at-25-shoah-ages-but-doesnt-go-stale-244245/ Eternal Holocaust: At 25, "Shoah" Ages, But Doesn't Go Stale|IndieWire]</ref> whose parents were Jewish immigrants to the U.S. from Poland,<ref name="van Gelder">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/movies/pauline-kael-provocative-and-widely-imitated-new-yorker-film-critic-dies-at-82.html?pagewanted=2 | title=Pauline Kael, Provocative and Widely Imitated New Yorker Film Critic, Dies at 82 | newspaper=The New York Times | date=4 September 2001 | access-date=25 September 2013 | author=Lawrence van Gelder | page=2 of 3}}</ref> called the film "a form of self-punishment", describing it in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' in 1985 as "logy and exhausting right from the start ..." "Lanzmann did all the questioning himself," she wrote, "while putting pressure on people in a discursive manner, which gave the film a deadening weight."<ref name="Kael">{{cite magazine | magazine =The New Yorker | url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1985/12/30/sacred-monsters| archive-url=https://archive.today/20240703235758/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1985/12/30/sacred-monsters| url-status=dead| archive-date=3 July 2024|title =The Current Cinema: Sacred Monsters | date=30 December 1985 | access-date=2013-05-10 | author=Pauline Kael | author-link=Pauline Kael | page=[https://archive.today/20240526151450/https://www.webcitation.org/6GVtqqMt5?url=http://images.archives.newyorker.com/rvimageserver/Conde%20Nast/New%20Yorker/1985_12_30/page0000072.jpg%3Ftype%3D2%26width%3D869%26quality%3D70%26v%3Dv1 1] | format=Archived by WebCite}} Also see pp. [https://archive.today/20240526151532/https://www.webcitation.org/6GVuKL6ip?url=http://images.archives.newyorker.com/rvimageserver/Conde%20Nast/New%20Yorker/1985_12_30/page0000073.jpg%3Ftype%3D2%26width%3D869%26quality%3D70%26v%3Dv1 2] and [https://archive.today/20240526151612/https://www.webcitation.org/6GVvRgBKm?url=http://images.archives.newyorker.com/rvimageserver/Conde%20Nast/New%20Yorker/1985_12_30/page0000074.jpg%3Ftype%3D2%26width%3D869%26quality%3D70%26v%3Dv1 3]</ref> Writing in ''The New Yorker'' in 2010, Richard Brody suggested that Kael's "misunderstandings of ''Shoah'' are so grotesque as to seem willful."<ref name=Brody6Dec2010>Richard Brody, [http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/shoah-at-twenty-five "''Shoah'' at Twenty-Five"], ''The New Yorker'', 6 December 2010.</ref>
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