New Arrival Shoah (#663)

Over a decade in the making, Claude Lanzmanns nine-hour-plus opus is a monumental investigation of the unthinkable: the murder of more than six million Jews by the Nazis. Using no archival footage, Lanzmann instead focuses on first-person testimonies (of survivors and former Nazis, as well as other witnesses), employing a circular, free-associative method in assembling them. The intellectual yet emotionally overwhelmingShoahis not a film about excavating the past but an intensive portrait of the ways in which the past is always present, and it is inarguably one of the most important cinematic works of all time.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED FOUR-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 2K digital restoration with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Three additional films by director Claude Lanzmann:A Visitor from the Living(1999, 68 minutes);Sobibr, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m.(2001, 102 minutes); andThe Karski Report(2010, 49 minutes)
• Conversation between Lanzmann and critic Serge Toubiana
• Interview with Lanzmann from 2003 aboutA Visitor from the LivingandSobibr
• Interview with Caroline Champetier, assistant cameraperson onShoah,and filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin
• All I Had Was Nothingness(2025), a new film by Guillaume Ribot, edited from previously unreleased footage and recounting the production ofShoah
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones and writings by Lanzmann

  Cover by Sam Smith