American Cinematographer - February 1990 - 52

Photos by

Roland Neveu

Triumph of the Spirit:
Survival at Any Cost
by David Heuring
"The idea of genocide took on a
completely different meaning in
the 20th century with the premedi¬
tated, calculated and systematic

annihilation of

an

identifiable

group of people simply because of
who they were. Dispassionately.
It's not as if it were done in a state
of rage. This was an exercise in
technical proficiency; there were

ing."

Triumph of the Spirit direc¬
photography Curtis Clark is
still hushed and intimidated by
that fact after spending five
tor of

months of his
life in constant
contact with the

the

passionate and eloquent Clark
expounded on specific filmic
methods of communicating the
death camp experience, the nature
of entertainment, and the place of
a

holocaust film in the world of

James Bond, Lethal Weapon II, and
Batman.

Produced

Clark,

by Arnold Kopelson

and Shimon Arama

originally from

Directed

Houston, atten¬

production problems. 'How can
we increase productivity?'
"Birkenau, the largest
death camp complex, at its peak
was able to 'process', or annihilate,
26,000 people a day. That's an

45-year-old
physical rem¬

abstract number, 26,000. But when

from the obvious, is that the pur¬

assemble 26,000 people and
look at what that concretely means,

pose of his visit was to communi¬
cate, through the recreation of one

rector Bob

family's internment, the experi¬

and Extremities. His recollections of

of human life reduced to the
base instinct of self-preservation;

Triumph of the Spirit begin with the
physical camp itself: Auschwitz-

you

in terms of sheer calculated effi¬

ciency of killing, and you think
about that as a daily occurrence, it
doesn't take too

50

Birkenau. Four million died there
in the place where we were film¬

nants of that

overwhel¬

mingly horrific
era.
Perhaps one

there, and in
reason,

aside

ence

that

to the screen? In a recent

Cinematographer

February 1990

England, be¬
his career

gan

survival at any cost.
How can this be

American

ded film school
in

photography,

stand the

long to under¬
magnitude of death, and
four million people died at

by Robert M. Young

Curtis Clark, Director of

1983 returned to the United States.
He collaborated with Triumph di¬

Young on two critically
praised films, Dominick and Eugene

Birkenau, in southern Poland.

brought

interview,

"We

are

the

only people

to date who have been allowed to



American Cinematographer - February 1990

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 1990

American Cinematographer - February 1990 - 1
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