Filmmaker who bore witness to Holocaust
Claude Lanzmann created “Shoah” (1985), that iconic act of cinematic witnessing that decades ago revised the way people view the Holocaust. Lanzmann, the film’s chain-smoking, tireless interviewer, is 86 now, and his celluloid image is hard to reconcile with the man who visited Harvard for two days last week (March 22 and 23). In events to promote his memoir (“The Patagonian Hare,” freshly translated into English) and to screen his latest film (“The Karski Report,” 2010), he appeared before packed auditoriums looking hunched, florid, and weak from a fever and cough. At each event, “I am sick” were his first words. But then came the flashing insights, the sharp opinions, and the impatient brushing off of questions he deemed stupid. This is the same tough-minded Claude Lanzmann, after all, who for 12 dogged years pursued the witnesses for “Shoah,” ex-Nazi, Pole, and Jew alike. He also arranged to film much of his...