The Hell of Auschwitz: Maus by Art Spiegelman
52m
Directed by Pauline Horovitz • Documentary • With Art Spiegelman, Annette Wieviorka, Tal Bruttmann • 2025 • 52 minutes
Filmmaker Pauline Horovitz was deeply affected by Art Spiegelman's comic book masterpiece, Maus, when she first read it at the age of thirteen. First a bookstore phenomenon with a whiff of scandal, then a Pulitzer Prize-winning international bestseller, Spiegelman brought the Holocaust into comics and, with it, into mainstream culture with his revolutionary graphic novel.
In Horovitz's documentary, The Hell of Auschwitz: Maus by Art Spiegelman, she interrogates the impact of Maus on the world, and, more personally, the impact on her own family, both as a granddaughter of survivors and a mother to a curious teenager. Using interviews with Spiegelman himself, plus new input from Shoah historians Annette Wieviorka and Tal Bruttmann, as well as commentary from comic artists, writers, & researchers Emmanuel Guibert, Joann Sfar, Tania de Montaigne, and Ole Frahm, The Hell of Auschwitz: Maus by Art Spiegelman delves into the history of portraying the Holocaust in the media, the appeal (and criticisms!) of Maus, and how the novel revolutionized comics to be considered a serious art form.