The Image of the Holocaust in the Television Documentary Drama Trilogy ‘The Chronicle of the Minsk Ghetto’

Abstract

The prevailing view in modern film studies is that television documentary drama (docudrama) is either a hybrid, a synthesis, or a documentary film genre. The author of the article hypothesizes that docudrama has long exceeded the boundaries of documentary films and asserted its own place in the system of screen arts on par with feature films, documentaries and animated films. The author claims that docudrama is a unique phenomenon generated by television and it combines all the modern innovations in cinema. Docudrama allows for the text information to be reformatted into an audio-visual experience in an emotional, spectacular and accurate way, therefore possessing the inherent features of other screen arts. Like other forms of screen arts, it forms an image capable of evoking certain emotions and makes the viewer think and draw their own conclusions. The combination of artefacts and quotes adds volume and artistic value to the image. The article explores the genesis and development of television docudrama and gives it a definition based on key characteristics. It shows how films of various genres can be created within docudrama, proving that docudrama is not a subgenre within the genre of documentary film but a new independent branch of screen arts. The author highlights that the reason for the popularity of docudrama lies in the fact that the historical and informative material, which can be interesting and useful to the viewer, is presented in a spectacular and lightweight form. This idea is supported through the analysis of the documentary drama trilogy The Chronicle of the Minsk Ghetto, in which an image of the Holocaust, the unspeakable tragedy of the Jews during the Second World War, is shown.