alexis blog

The two films Jew Seuss and the Eternal Jew are both historical films that attempt to capture the German people’s rampant anti Semitism The focus in comparison of these two films should focus less on their historical accuracy and more on why Jew Suss became a symbolic movie for Germanic pride and the Eternal Jew was scorned and harshly rejected. The historical accuracy becomes less significant when comparing the two films because of the role that Nazi cinema played in shaping the values and beliefs of the German masses before and during the war. Both films had the same goals and achieved very different outcomes. Jew Suss became a hallmark of Nazi propaganda. The goals were to further instill hatred of the Jews among the German people. Part of the mastery and skill of Goebbels’ propaganda plan was the subtlety of his tactics and this film was not an exception. The Eternal Jew simply went too far with its violent images that are not meant to persuade but reinforce the ideals that are already instilled. Robert Gibson makes a good point in his blog that “This issue of prior knowledge was at the heart of the correctly held view that the film’s failure was due to its forcefulness”. The knowledge and preconceived notions about the masses’ feelings towards the Jews were successfully played on in Jew Seuss and missed the mark in the Eternal Jew.

In Jew Suss, the film distorts some of the historical facts, but the facts are less important than the full blown anti Semitic message that the film portrays. The Eternal Jew however was a huge a flop because it had much more violent in-your -face images of hatred and anti Semitism. The film was a huge success also because of the way it delivers its anti Semitic message. Interestingly, the Eternal Jew is much more historically accurate as the film shows documented evidence and disturbing ritual slaughters of animals. The film was made to be a documentary film so its visual images are much more accurate to those of Jew Suss. Its visuals are much more violent and unavoidable and as Culbert argues in Art Culture and Media “ it (the film) is known for its relentless assault on everything Jewish: it argues for eradication of European Jewry”(148). Both films are about the same idea but go about showing it on film in radically different ways. Jew Suss’s success was also due to the “the mixture of sex and crime to the apolitical viewer”(153), while the Wandering Jew had a solely vulgar and graphic political message with “no room for emotional involvement” (153).