The Great Dictator Essay

How can someone fully understand a tragedy such as the Holocaust? Many say the event ineffable to anyone who wasn’t there to begin with, but people are still striving to achieve complete or near complete comprehension. In order to do this people have used multiple media like books and recordings but the one that gives “the greatest illusion of authenticity” is movies. The purpose of Holocaust-filmmaking is to help people get a grasp on what it felt like to be in the middle of such a horrific thing as the Holocaust. If this isn’t done, then the true emotions won’t influence the audience who won’t find a way to preserve the history of the Holocaust and memories that took place in those awful times will be lost forever. Many films of the Holocaust

The Great Dictator, Sophie’s Choice and War and Remembrance are some of these non-trivializing movies. The Great Dictator was written, produced and directed by Charlie Chaplin, a master of comedy. Nobody wanted to help fund the film because it was being created in the midst of WWII and was a satire against Nazi Germany and Hitler. In one of the scenes it shows Hynkle, the faux Hitler played by Charlie Chaplin, saying “dictator of the world” then playing with a blown up globe, almost like he’s dancing with it (Chaplin, C.). This represents how, during World War II, Hitler treated the world as his plaything. The scene ends with the globe popping, showing how if Hitler had the world in his hands, it would collapse. The reason the film is not trivializing is because of its satirical nature. It’s not supposed to be extremely accurate to the Holocaust or WWII because it’s supposed to make fun of Nazi Germany and Hitler. It emphasizes the mistakes and decisions Hitler and his associates made in order for people to see how illogical they were. Trivialization is more of not taking the extra step to show the truth than purposefully portraying truth falsely in order to get a point

The director of the series, Dan Curtis, actually recreated and rebuilt parts of Auschwitz and filmed in the camp. The series showed the mass executions of prisoners and how they filled trenches with their corpses along with how merciless the SS officers running the concentration camps were. Another site that made for an accurate camp recreation and series was the gas chambers. The prisoners were tricked into thinking they were going to the showers but instead were put into gas chambers. The screams of the prisoners in the film shows no dilution of emotion whatsoever and makes people feel empathetic towards the prisoners. The series almost feels like the audience is in the concentration camps from within the safety of their homes. The series was made honestly which means it has to be shown graphically because in reality it was extremely graphic. This combination of actual location and truthful gore contributed to creating one of the best portrayals of the Holocaust known. People were shocked into believing the truth about the Holocaust which once again, leaving a lasting impact on the