On
Thursday, May 8th, we went to see Long is the Road,
a movie about the Holocaust. It was filmed right after the end of
World War II in 1948. The actors were Jews who had survived the
war. The story was about a Jewish family who were relocated to
the Warsaw ghetto and later to a concentration camp. The film
also included a portrayal of the rebel partisans in Poland, and
life in the displaced persons (DP) camps. Alhough we felt that
the idealistic ending romanticized the post-war period, the film
was considered too harsh at the time that it was released.
Audiences felt that the scenes of the war and the camps were too
graphic.
Following the movie a discussion was
held. There were a few Jews in attendance that had been in
concentration camps, so we could discuss the situations in the
movie and how it really was to live in a camp.
Directed by Herbert B.
Fredersdorf & Marek Goldstein.
Written by Karl Georg Kulb & Israel Becker.
Based on a story by Israel Becker.
Photographed by Franz Koch.
With Israel Becker, Bettina Moissi, Berta Litwina,
Jakob Fischer, Alexander Bardini.
Filmed in U.S.- Occupied Germany, 1948, 70 minutes,
B&W, 35mm.
In Yiddish, German, Polish, with English narration and
subtitles.
Other reviews of Long is the Road (Lang ist der Weg)
Long is the Road is a forgotten classic and a film of passionate restraint, made by and about Jewish Displaced Persons. Produced in the American zone of occupied Germany in the aftermath of World War II, this first feature film to represent the Holocaust from a Jewish point of view has the power of a collective self-portrait. The young hero is deported in the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, jumps an Auschwitz-bound transport to take his chances in the countryside, and ultimately survives the war with a band of Jewish partisans to search for his family in the ruins of liberated Poland.
Israel Becker, who helped found
the first professional Yiddish theater in postwar Germany, wrote
the quasi-autobiographical screenplay and takes the central role.
Other cast members were drawn from the inmates of Camp Landsberg,
then the largest all-Jewish DP camp in Bavaria. Made in a style
both neorealist and expressionist that mixes newsreel footage
with dramatic recreation and incorporates Yiddish, German, and
Polish dialogue, the movie gives eloquent testimony to wartime
suffering and endurance as well as hope for a new world. Too
graphic for American audiences, Long Is the Road was recut in the
USA after a brief 1946 theatrical run and has been unavailable in
any version for many years. This historic and moving film has now
been restored and rereleased by the National Center for Jewish
Film.
Shot almost exclusively on
location, with extensive use of newsreel footage, this fiction
film has with the passing of time become a historical record
emblematic of the suffering of families during the Holocaust. Set
in Poland and Germany, it is the chronicle of a family separated
on their way to a concentration camp. The son, David, manages to
escape and joins the Jewish partisans, while of the others, only
the mother survives the camps. Along with Distant Journey
(Terezin Ghetto), Long Is the Road "was one of the first
fiction films to attempt to represent Nazi concentration camps
from the point of view of the inmates [in] scenes of Auschwitz,
starkly evoked in the studio through the use of stylization and
close-ups." (J. Hoberman) Shot in 1947 in U.S.-occupied
Germany, the film was based on writer-actor Israel Becker's own
experiences during the war.
Israel Becker penned this, the
first Holocaust feature film from a Jewish perspective, in 1947.
In this semi-autobiographical screenplay, Becker stars as David,
a young man who escapes the Warsaw ghetto transport to Auschwitz
and joins up with a group of Jewish partisans in the countryside.
Unique newsreel footage, combined with authentic cast
members/inmates from Camp Landsberg, increases the emotional
intensity. This rarely seen classic film has been restored and
re-released by the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis
University.
Previously unavailable in a complete version (the film was cut
because it was thought too graphic for American audiences), 'Long
is the Road' has been restored and re-released by the National
Center for Jewish Film.
The International Movie
Data Base entry for Lang ist der Weg.
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