Sylvie Lindeperg's 'La Voie des images' Examines WWII Film Footage

Sylvie Lindeperg's book 'La Voie des images. Quatre histoires de tournage au printemps-été 1944' (Verdier) rehabilitates filmed images in historical analysis. The work studies films shot during spring and summer 1944: in the Vercors maquis, during the Paris insurrection, in Terezín camp-ghetto (Czechoslovakia), and Westerbork transit camp (Netherlands). Lindeperg combines two approaches: treating images as documents with hidden possibilities (per Siegfried Kracauer) and tracing their historical trajectories. She examines the iconic image of Anna Maria 'Settela' Steinbach, a Sinti girl filmed by Rudolf Breslauer at Westerbork in May 1944, later used by Alain Resnais in 'Night and Fog' (1956), shown at the Eichmann trial (1961), and revisited in Cherry Duyns' 'Settela. Visage du passé' (1994). Lindeperg critiques contemporary filmmakers like those of the TV series 'Apocalypse' for mixing Nazi propaganda footage with Eva Braun's private films. She denounces the 'confusion between public and private spheres' and the replacement of historical understanding with emotional manipulation, exemplified by Rose Bosch's film 'La Rafle' (2010). The book also analyzes the staged documentary at Theresienstadt, directed by Jewish internee Kurt Gerron, where prisoners subtly resisted by looking at the camera or covering their faces. A conversation with Jean-Louis Comolli closes the volume.