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A scene from “We Were So Beloved.”
Holocaust film a noble effort,
but length, pacing bog down
By Kevin Cowan
Senior Reporter
“Wc Were So Beloved,” Sheldon
Film Theater (Sec calendar for times)
Manfred Kirchheimcr’s “Wc
Were So Beloved” chronicles the
Flolocaust from the perspective of the
Washington Heights Jew — the Jew
whoemigrated from Germany before
Hitler’s escapades in mass murder.
Movie Review
The most important thing to note
about Kirchhcimer’s film is simply
that in five or 10 years a film like this
will not be possible. Let’s face it,
Jewish persecution started in 1933;
the people who were there — those
who fell the first tinges of oppression
— are not long for this world. So
documenting their accounts seems a
matter of prompt priority.
Kirchheimer accomplishes this
task with, to say the least, exhaustive
completeness.
Using members of his own family
ptnd residents of the Washington
Heights district, Kirchheimer gets
first-hand accounts of the initial so
cial violence experienced by the en
tire Jewish community. Bouncing the
accounts off quotes from Hiller’s
“Mein Kampf,” Kirchheimer forms
the necessary dichotomy. The quotes
bring out Hitler’s “magic essence” of
collective societal control. And the
interviews show just how well those
theories worked.
Unlike the nine-hour epic
“Shoah,” “We Were So Beloved”
concentrates on the people who
weren’t killed, just hassled. But all
those interviewed had family or
friends who were exterminated. Oth
ers had husbands who were lost sim
ply because the United States
wouldn’t let them in, so they had to
return to Germany or move on to
Belgium, never to see their family
again.
As vital documentation,
Kirchheimer’s film is humane and
noble. Howevgf, the 2 1/2 hour film
(ports added weight that renders it
.#How and redundant. While what the
German Jews have to say is emotion
moving and historically perti
ncnt, the way Kirchheimcr films
them — with straight-on camera
work and extremely sparse editing —
results in a film that, unless you are
incredibly interested in the persecu
tion perspective alone, will not hold
your attention. A few hundred feet of
celluloid on Kirchhcimcr’s editing
room floor would solve this problem.
Recounting the horror stories is truly
honorable, but you should turn the
camera off when the person isn’t talk
ing. Kirchheimcr may be aiming for
dramatic pause, but the end result is
like a lecture given by a foreign pro
fessor who talks in slow, broken and
incoherent English.
I feel somewhat obscene criticiz
ing such gallant work, and the subject
matter is, of course, significant as
well as delicate, but the film could
have made the same point with much
more impact if Kirchheimer had lost
some of the dramatic silence.
If the Zeitgeist plight of the Ger
man Jews interests you, “We Were So
Beloved” will strike you as “provoca
tive and riveting;” if your interest is
vague or unsparked, bring a pillow
and go simply for the knowledge.
’HankJr. named entertainer of year
By The Aisociated
former catfish cook Randy Travis
won three honors and veteran Hank
Williams Jr. was vot£d entertainer of
the £ear Monday-night at the 21st
annufl[ Country Music Association
Awarafc Show.
^Travis, #8, won his awards less
than three years after working as a
cook in’a Nashville nightclub where
he 414b sang part-time, ^k
His awards included mlc vocalist
* albuni^)f ^hc ^car for
“Alwayfr and Forever and single of
the y$ar for iForeycr^nd Ever,
.%Amep.”
“It’s a good night for me," Travis
said in accepting his male-vocalist
«*ward. ‘it’s great to be nominated
with people I’ve been a fan of for
years.”
The awards ceremony was tele
.vised nationally from Nashville’s
.ffiand Ole Opry House. %
^Williams, 38, the son of the coun
try-music legend, has an album at No.
<2 on the countr^music charts, “Bom
to Boogie ”fl^salbums “Hank Live”
and “MontanaOife” have both been
the charts lufing the past year. •
^^This is thcoftc. This is the one ol’
feocephus has been looking for. I’ll
guarantee you," said Williams in
accepting the entertainer-of-the-year
award. His nickname is Bocephus.
Reba McEntire, a former rodeo
barrel racer, won top female vocalist
for an unprecedented fourth straight
year. She broke the record set be
tween 1968 and 1970 by Tammy
Wynette.
“It’s absolutely fabulous,” she
said. “I’m thrilled to death ”
The Judds were voted vocal group
of the year for the third straight lime.
“I’m not going to say our music is
the most important thing in our life,
but it’s right up there with oxygen,”
said Naomi Judd, the mother in the
mother-daughter duo.