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Event
THE LAST OF THE UNJUST: Special Presentation + Panel
Presented with the Jewish Federation of Champaign-Urbana
Special Presentation:
Sunday, March 9 at 2:00PM
With SHOAH, the heroic Claude Lanzmann (87 and still going strong) re-oriented our understanding of the defining event of the 20th century. Three decades after that cinematic milestone, he does so once again, from an entirely new personal, historical and aesthetic perspective. At the new film's center is Benjamin Murmelstein, the last Jewish elder of Theresienstadt and a figure who was once despised by many of the surviving inhabitants of that dreadful "city". In a lengthy interview shot in Rome that was originally intended for Shoah (intercut with Lanzmann himself revisiting specific sites in Vienna and the Czech Republic, as well as footage, photos and artworks), the brilliant Murmelsteinsometimes excitedly but more often calmly explains his actions and precisely defines his paradoxical role in history.
PANEL PARTICIPANTS
Michael Rothberg is Professor and Head of English and Director of the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Illinois. Among his books are Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (Stanford, 2009) and Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation (Minnesota, 2000).
Lilya Kaganovsky is Associate Professor of Slavic, Comparative Literature, and Media & Cinema Studies, and currently, Director of the Program in Comparative & World Literature at the University of Illinois. Her publications include How the Soviet Man was Unmade (Pittsburgh, 2008) and two co-edited volumes: Mad Men, Mad World: Sex, Politics, Style and the 1960s (Duke, 2013), and Sound, Speech, Music in Soviet and post-Soviet Cinema (Indiana, 2014).
Brett Ashley Kaplan is Associate Professor of Comparative and World Literature and Jewish Studies at the University of Illinois. She is the author of Unwanted Beauty: Aesthetic Pleasure in Holocaust Representation (University of Illinois Press, 2007) and Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory (Routledge, 2011). She is finishing a book on Philip Roth and is beginning work on a project titled The Aesthetic Solution.
REVIEWS
"Fascinating and Impressive...The Last of the Unjust is the portrait of an individual whose actions still defy comprehension, and the self-portrait of an artist consumed by the past."
-A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"A historic film"
-Richard Brody, The New Yorker
"A monumental film."
-Kent Jones, film comment
"Utterly fascinating. A reminder of another way documentaries can be made: simply, agonizingly, without comedy or narcissism, and with unforgettable, almost unbearable power."
-Stephen Marche, Esquire
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LocationThe Art Theater Co-op (View)
126 W. Church St.
Champaign, IL 61820
United States
Categories
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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