Famous film, neglected editor

When I was finishing my thesis on Shoah, Catherine Hébert and I had a discussion about editing in documentary cinema. Ziva Postec's role in the film's making was largely unknown and Catherine wanted to know more. Thst's how the idea of making this film emerged. After our first exchanges, I played the role of historical advisor for the film and introduced Catherine to Ziva in Israel. I also helped her get familiar with the Shoah archives and we went together twice to see them at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, where I had already spent many months during my thesis. On our second visit, Catherine decided to include me in her own film.

When it comes to Shoah, we often talk about the ways that Lanzmann managed to find and film Holocaust survivors and their persecutors, but we rarely talk about the editing. Nevertheless, it is essential. Of the 12 years it took to make the film (1973-1985), editing took half the time (1979-1985). Without benefit of a script, Ziva Postec built a narrative structure for the film and gave cinematic form to the material Lanzmann had shot. Catherine Hébert's film also comes at a time when researchers in the history of memory as well as the history of cinema are now keen to bring out figures such as the editor, who have long been obscured. The film is part of this new relationship to the past.

Yes, it is. When the film was first released, Lanzmann took up a lot of space. For him, Ziva Postec had been essential during the editing of the film, he was dependent on her, but he freed himself from this dependence as soon as the film was finished. And she had a hard time swallowing that. Nevertheless, in Catherine's film, we talk rather positively about the creative process that the editor and director shared. It must be said that Postec has long put any bitterness towards Lanzmann behind her.

Yes, these two aspects are intertwined, that is to say we learn here to reevaluate the role of editing in film creation and at the same time we learn to see Shoah as the result of a complex creative process. As well, in this film we get to see excerpts from the rarely seen "rushs" of Shoah that are archived in Washington, accompanied by the editor's reminiscences that gives them new meaning.

Yes, the people in the audience may have got the impression that the protagonists in the story were speaking directly to them, but in reality there was a huge amount of work involved in editing the sound. As Ziva Postec often says, "It was like making lace."

A lot. It should be noted that Shoah includes excerpts of some 30 interviews, when in fact Lanzmann shot about 80. So even if we take into account the five films he made since then – from A Visitor from the Living in 1997 to The Four Sisters in 2018 – there are still many things that can be used creatively in other films.