Two Issues in Serge Daney's Tracking Shot:1

Daney tells his story about the “tracking shot” in the 1959 film Kapò, which is about a group of Jewish people led by a girl to escape from a concentration camp in WWII. He talks about representation of history through cinema and the deals with being a “moral issue” of a tracking shot which was argued back then. There is also an important comparison between the two films Kapò (1959) and Night and Fog (1955) or rather the attitudes towards the representation of the events that occurred in camps. I cannot differ the tracking shot and showing the things with their nakedness from each other in terms of being “just”. There is also an atmosphere intended to be created through the wonderful music by George Delerue, through a text, a narration and an editing in Night and Fog. I think it is relative to choose between this two today as the facts are known today, but back then it was a different argument as cinema was not used as an instrument of informing the world about what is happening over there; as there are very few footage about the crimes of humanity. Nevertheless, it was not only the cinema that was in silence; with all the instruments of civilization, the world kept its silence for a time in terms of reacting to the horrific situation. This is an issue still used as a criticism of civilizations, most of the time a criticism of German civilization, in cinema too. In recent examples The Reader(2008), we see that there is an argument occurs among the German law students of the first generations after the WWII in the academy of law about the inaction against the systematic tortures of Nazis against the Jewish race in Nazi Germany and the places it invaded.


Of course people did not approve the cruelty, however, they maybe could not, but for me, did not do anything about it. I know it is easier to say than it is done of course, there were different circumstances back then. This is dealt in the 9^th episode of “Band of Brothers” (2001) named “Why We Fight”. Of course these are two examples from American cinema that has an attitude of looking things from a bossy perspective like “we had to come over there to save your asses, therefore we can deal with it in the way we want” or “we fought as nobles to save the humanity, and when we fight we fight for noble reasons” maybe trying to justify their actions nowadays etc.


However, after all, this is an issue should not be forgotten about human in general and for me it should not bother people to see the Holocaust, remember it from time to time. Even if the perspectives change, even if the style of narration changes, even if it is not sincere and has different theoretical intended meanings under it; even if these are all thought to be constructs, it is secondarily for me how you deal with it, I think it is an issue about dealing with it and world is still trying to purify itself by constantly doing that as it did not at the time of war.