Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust

Though it feels a touch small-screen (it was originally made for AMC), this solid, clip-heavy history of Hollywood’s narrative efforts pushes past sobriety to arrive at some tough ideas, particularly the Wiesel-worthy notion that representing evil poorly may, in itself, be disrespectful. All the big scenes are here, from Rod Steiger’s silent scream in The Pawnbroker to Spielberg’s inevitable little girl in the red dress. More stunning is footage from a syrupy 1953 episode of This Is Your Life with an Auschwitz survivor, or scenes from the glib 1978 miniseries Holocaust, greenlit in the wake of Roots.