Número 28
Notebook

Crime in Filmic Form: The Holocaust in Hollywood Cinema under the Hays Code

Aarón Rodríguez Serrano
Universitat Jaume I
Bio

Published 2019-07-31

Keywords

  • Holocaust,
  • Mise-en-scène,
  • Motion Picture Production Code,
  • Hays Code,
  • Brutal acts,
  • Nazism,
  • Hollywood.
  • ...More
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Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the points of friction between the representation of violence and the fictionalisation of the Holocaust under the restrictions of the Hays Code. With reference to the Code’s explicit prohibition against the detailed representation of “brutal killings”, I will explore the formal strategies applied by different directors (Douglas Sirk, André de Toth, Stanley Kramer, Edward Dmytryk, and Fred Zinnemann) in an effort to present the systematic shootings carried out by the Einsatzgruppen or, going further still, what happened in the extermination camps. To this end, I will use a textual analysis method focusing mainly on the processes of mise-en-scène, especially in relation to the revelation/concealment of the violence perpetrated on the victims.

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