For one, the cover art used for each of these media formats is remarkably -- and perhaps not coincidentally -- similar. Spiegelman's graphic novel cover depicts a large white circle front and center. On this white circle is a Nazi swastika with a cat face at its center. The title "Maus" is written in a bloody red font, and below the white circle are characters -- perhaps Vladek and Anja. The cover art on Film Unfinished also has a circle -- a wheel occupying the background. This wheel is not white, but it is a film reel to represent the Nazi propaganda film in question. Just as the white circle on the cover of Maus sports a Nazi swastika, so to does the film reel. Below the film reel are crowds of people.
Both Maus and Film Unfinished use frame narratives to anchor present and past, and to impart the sense that there is an objective documentarian who is offering the reader (or viewer) tidbits of historical information and artifacts. For example, the opening scenes of both Maus and Film Unfinished involve the media itself -- film in the case of Film Unfinished and drawing in the case of Maus. Both Maus and Film Unfinished also use several crowd scenes that can be directly compared for their structure, content, and meaning. The crowd scenes are intense for many reasons. For one, the crowd scenes demonstrate the extent of anti-Semitism and the way it had seeped into the European consciousness. This is especially true in the scene about 40 seconds into Film Unfinished,...
Second, the crowds scenes depict the nameless faces of Holocaust victims, which ironically become humanized through interviews in the case of Film Unifinished and through memorials to actual people like Art Spiegelman's parents in Maus.
Postmodern interpretations of the Holocaust are warmly welcome, as they bridge the gap between erudite scholarship and the body of popular culture. As bridges of knowledge, information, and semiotics, these new representations of Holocaust memory are creative and necessary, because they represent the ways modern human beings conceptualize the world. Multimedia formats dominate public discourse, making it so that graphic novels can be as valid as textbooks and skillfully edited documentary films like Film Unfinished can be as valid as singular film reels stored in an academic database. Because so much about the Holocaust is still being revealed and unfolded, it becomes important to listen to all types of expression especially as they relate to direct experiences of the survivors who will not be long of this earth. Film Unfinished and Maus both pay tribute to the generation of survivors, making their stories relevant by packaging them in a media format suitable for the postmodern generation.
Works Cited
Hersonski, Yael. A Film Unfinished. [Feature Film]. Oscilliscope, 2010.
Kluger, Ruth. Still Alive. Feminist, 2003.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus. Pantheon, 1991.
