Claude Lanzmann's Les Quatre Soeurs (The Four Sisters) clockwise from top left - Ruth Elias in Le Serment d'Hippocrate (The Hippocratic Oath); Hanna Marton in L'arche De Noé (Noah's Ark); Ada Lichtman in La Puce Joyeuse (The Merry Flea); Paula Biren in Baluty
During the 55th New York Film Festival in 2017, Claude Lanzmann presented the World Premiere of The Four Sisters (Les Quatre Soeurs) in the Special Events programme. At Lincoln Center prior to the public screenings, I spoke with David Frenkel, the producer of the four films, edited by Chantal Hymans. Frenkel is also a producer for The Last of the Unjust with Jean Labadie, Kurt Stocker, and Danny Krausz (Maria Schrader's Stefan Zweig: Farewell To Europe).
David Frenkel: "What's great working with Claude is that he always surprises you. It was the same with The Last of the Unjust and Benjamin Murmelstein. He was so striking.
During the 55th New York Film Festival in 2017, Claude Lanzmann presented the World Premiere of The Four Sisters (Les Quatre Soeurs) in the Special Events programme. At Lincoln Center prior to the public screenings, I spoke with David Frenkel, the producer of the four films, edited by Chantal Hymans. Frenkel is also a producer for The Last of the Unjust with Jean Labadie, Kurt Stocker, and Danny Krausz (Maria Schrader's Stefan Zweig: Farewell To Europe).
David Frenkel: "What's great working with Claude is that he always surprises you. It was the same with The Last of the Unjust and Benjamin Murmelstein. He was so striking.
- 7/8/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
This latest film by Claude Lanzmann, the foremost cinematic chronicler of the Holocaust, concerns the only documented rebellion by Jewish prisoners at a Nazi death camp. Composed almost entirely of an interview filmed in 1979 with Yehuda Lerner, who took part in the insurrection at Sobibor when he was 16, it was originally going to be part of Lanzmann's epochal documentary "Shoah" until the filmmaker decided the subject matter deserved a film of its own.
It was a wise move; contradicting the widespread impression that all of the Jews went willingly to their deaths, the film tells a compelling, important story. Showcased recently at the New York Film Festival, "Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4:00 P.M." is playing a commercial engagement at New York's Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.
By now, Lanzmann's technique is familiar. He uses no newsreels, no archival footage and no dramatic re-creations. Instead, he simply trains the camera on his subjects and lets them talk. Other than close-ups of Lerner's impassive but highly expressive face, the film uses only contemporary footage of the locations in which he suffered his experiences, from the cities of Minsk, Belarus, and Warsaw, Poland, to the landscapes of rural Poland. There are only discreet reminders, in the form of monuments and museums, to the horrors that took place there.
Lerner, barely revealing any emotion, is a marvelous interview subject, relating his story with a calm demeanor and an extraordinary eye for pungent detail. An example of the latter is his description of how the Nazis used the deafening noises of flocks of geese to cover up the screams of the inmates. And his account of the uprising, led by a group of Soviet prisoners of war, is mesmerizing.
One wishes, however, that the director was a little less exacting in his methods. In this film, Lerner tells his story in Hebrew, which is then translated into French by an unseen female interpreter with a monotone voice, with subtitles accompanying her translation. The result is not only distancing but also taxes the patience as it lengthens the proceedings. But this is a minor quibble with an otherwise invaluable historical document, made more moving by its concluding recitation of a detailed listing of the various groups that made up the more than 250,000 people who were murdered at Sobibor.
SOBIBOR, OCTOBER 14, 1943, 4: 00 P.M.
New Yorker Films
Director: Claude Lanzmann
Photography: Caroline Champetier, Dominique Chapuis
Editors: Chantal Hymans, Sabine Marnou
Sound: Bernard Aubouy
Color/stereo
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
It was a wise move; contradicting the widespread impression that all of the Jews went willingly to their deaths, the film tells a compelling, important story. Showcased recently at the New York Film Festival, "Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4:00 P.M." is playing a commercial engagement at New York's Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.
By now, Lanzmann's technique is familiar. He uses no newsreels, no archival footage and no dramatic re-creations. Instead, he simply trains the camera on his subjects and lets them talk. Other than close-ups of Lerner's impassive but highly expressive face, the film uses only contemporary footage of the locations in which he suffered his experiences, from the cities of Minsk, Belarus, and Warsaw, Poland, to the landscapes of rural Poland. There are only discreet reminders, in the form of monuments and museums, to the horrors that took place there.
Lerner, barely revealing any emotion, is a marvelous interview subject, relating his story with a calm demeanor and an extraordinary eye for pungent detail. An example of the latter is his description of how the Nazis used the deafening noises of flocks of geese to cover up the screams of the inmates. And his account of the uprising, led by a group of Soviet prisoners of war, is mesmerizing.
One wishes, however, that the director was a little less exacting in his methods. In this film, Lerner tells his story in Hebrew, which is then translated into French by an unseen female interpreter with a monotone voice, with subtitles accompanying her translation. The result is not only distancing but also taxes the patience as it lengthens the proceedings. But this is a minor quibble with an otherwise invaluable historical document, made more moving by its concluding recitation of a detailed listing of the various groups that made up the more than 250,000 people who were murdered at Sobibor.
SOBIBOR, OCTOBER 14, 1943, 4: 00 P.M.
New Yorker Films
Director: Claude Lanzmann
Photography: Caroline Champetier, Dominique Chapuis
Editors: Chantal Hymans, Sabine Marnou
Sound: Bernard Aubouy
Color/stereo
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
This latest film by Claude Lanzmann, the foremost cinematic chronicler of the Holocaust, concerns the only documented rebellion by Jewish prisoners at a Nazi death camp. Composed almost entirely of an interview filmed in 1979 with Yehuda Lerner, who took part in the insurrection at Sobibor when he was 16, it was originally going to be part of Lanzmann's epochal documentary "Shoah" until the filmmaker decided the subject matter deserved a film of its own.
It was a wise move; contradicting the widespread impression that all of the Jews went willingly to their deaths, the film tells a compelling, important story. Showcased recently at the New York Film Festival, "Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4:00 P.M." is playing a commercial engagement at New York's Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.
By now, Lanzmann's technique is familiar. He uses no newsreels, no archival footage and no dramatic re-creations. Instead, he simply trains the camera on his subjects and lets them talk. Other than close-ups of Lerner's impassive but highly expressive face, the film uses only contemporary footage of the locations in which he suffered his experiences, from the cities of Minsk, Belarus, and Warsaw, Poland, to the landscapes of rural Poland. There are only discreet reminders, in the form of monuments and museums, to the horrors that took place there.
Lerner, barely revealing any emotion, is a marvelous interview subject, relating his story with a calm demeanor and an extraordinary eye for pungent detail. An example of the latter is his description of how the Nazis used the deafening noises of flocks of geese to cover up the screams of the inmates. And his account of the uprising, led by a group of Soviet prisoners of war, is mesmerizing.
One wishes, however, that the director was a little less exacting in his methods. In this film, Lerner tells his story in Hebrew, which is then translated into French by an unseen female interpreter with a monotone voice, with subtitles accompanying her translation. The result is not only distancing but also taxes the patience as it lengthens the proceedings. But this is a minor quibble with an otherwise invaluable historical document, made more moving by its concluding recitation of a detailed listing of the various groups that made up the more than 250,000 people who were murdered at Sobibor.
SOBIBOR, OCTOBER 14, 1943, 4: 00 P.M.
New Yorker Films
Director: Claude Lanzmann
Photography: Caroline Champetier, Dominique Chapuis
Editors: Chantal Hymans, Sabine Marnou
Sound: Bernard Aubouy
Color/stereo
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
It was a wise move; contradicting the widespread impression that all of the Jews went willingly to their deaths, the film tells a compelling, important story. Showcased recently at the New York Film Festival, "Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4:00 P.M." is playing a commercial engagement at New York's Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.
By now, Lanzmann's technique is familiar. He uses no newsreels, no archival footage and no dramatic re-creations. Instead, he simply trains the camera on his subjects and lets them talk. Other than close-ups of Lerner's impassive but highly expressive face, the film uses only contemporary footage of the locations in which he suffered his experiences, from the cities of Minsk, Belarus, and Warsaw, Poland, to the landscapes of rural Poland. There are only discreet reminders, in the form of monuments and museums, to the horrors that took place there.
Lerner, barely revealing any emotion, is a marvelous interview subject, relating his story with a calm demeanor and an extraordinary eye for pungent detail. An example of the latter is his description of how the Nazis used the deafening noises of flocks of geese to cover up the screams of the inmates. And his account of the uprising, led by a group of Soviet prisoners of war, is mesmerizing.
One wishes, however, that the director was a little less exacting in his methods. In this film, Lerner tells his story in Hebrew, which is then translated into French by an unseen female interpreter with a monotone voice, with subtitles accompanying her translation. The result is not only distancing but also taxes the patience as it lengthens the proceedings. But this is a minor quibble with an otherwise invaluable historical document, made more moving by its concluding recitation of a detailed listing of the various groups that made up the more than 250,000 people who were murdered at Sobibor.
SOBIBOR, OCTOBER 14, 1943, 4: 00 P.M.
New Yorker Films
Director: Claude Lanzmann
Photography: Caroline Champetier, Dominique Chapuis
Editors: Chantal Hymans, Sabine Marnou
Sound: Bernard Aubouy
Color/stereo
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 11/8/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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