Multimedia Collection
Jud Süss
DVD
95 min
1940
PT2611 .E85 .J722 2008 DVD
Long recognized as history's most incendiary film, Jud Süss was the cultural centerpiece in Joseph Goebbels' campaign against the Jews. Released in 1940, it was a box office sensation across Germany and Europe; alongside the movie's theatrical distribution, it became a staple of Nazi propaganda evenings organized by the Hitler Youth, SS and others. At once a rousing melodrama and murderous antisemitic incitement, the movie draws loosely from historical events from the early eighteenth century, when "Jud Süss" Oppenheimer, finanical advisor to the Duke of Württemberg, was subjected to a sensational trial and gruesome execution. The film depicts Süss as a figure of cynical cunning and malign will, a sexual predator sowing corruption everywhere; his promotion of Jewish emancipation brings Christian Württemberg to the brink of moral and social ruination. That these qualities are conveyed through Ferdinand Marian's stunningly charismatic performances as Süss suggests something of the film's disturbing power - even as it acknowledges Jewish misery, Jud Süss argues for still more lethal, pitiless solutions to the "Jewish question." A key historical document of the twentieth century, Jud Süss remains a deeply unsettling cinematic experience.
Cast: Ferdinand Marian, Kristina Söderbaum, Heinrich George, Werner Krauss, Eugene Klöpfer, Albert Florath.
In German with optional subtitles in English, French and Italian.
Distributed by International Historic Films.
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