Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann (French: [lanzman]; 27 November 1925 – 5 July 2018) was a French filmmaker, best known for the Holocaust documentary film Shoah (1985), which consists of nine and a half hours of oral testimony from Holocaust survivors, without historical footage. He is also known for his 2017 documentary film Napalm, about a love affair he had with a North Korean nurse whilst visiting North Korea in 1958, several years after the Korean War.
Claude Lanzmann
27 November 1925
5 July 2018 (aged 92)
Filmmaker
1970–2018
Shoah (1985)
Simone de Beauvoir (1952–1959)
2
In addition to filmmaking, Lanzmann had also been the chief editor of Les Temps Modernes, a French literary magazine.
Early life[edit]
Lanzmann was born on 27 November 1925 in Bois-Colombes, France, the son of Paulette (née Grobermann) and Armand Lanzmann.[1] His family was Jewish, and had immigrated to France from The Russian Empire.[2] He was the brother of writer Jacques Lanzmann. Lanzmann attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand.[3] While his family disguised their identity and went into hiding during World War II,[4] he joined the French resistance at the age of 17, along with his father and brother, and fought in Auvergne.[3] Lanzmann opposed the French war in Algeria and signed the 1960 antiwar petition Manifesto of the 121.[5]
Personal life[edit]
Lanzmann was part of a leftist delegation which visited North Korea in 1958. Toward the end of the visit, he fell in love with a local nurse and had an illicit love affair, which was discovered by the authorities. Never forgetting the romance, he made a 2017 documentary entitled Napalm, as the nurse bore scars from American bombings during the Korean War.
From 1952 to 1959, he lived with Simone de Beauvoir.[13] In 1963 he married French actress Judith Magre.[14] They divorced in 1971, and he later married Angelika Schrobsdorff, a German-Jewish writer.[14] He divorced a second time, and was the father of Angélique Lanzmann and Félix Lanzmann.[15] Claude Lanzmann died on 5 July 2018 at his Paris home, after having been ill for several days. He was 92.[11][12]
Filmography
As subject
Books