03-05-2016, 06:44 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-05-2016, 07:13 PM by Joseph McBride.)
Tracy Riddle Wrote:Joseph, you are aware that THE PAINTED BIRD was originally presented as autobiographical, and only later admitted to be fiction (or a hoax according to Norman Finkelstein)? A depressingly common phenomenon in Holocaust literature for some reason.
https://books.google.com/books?id=VuRh9O...ax&f=false
By some accounts, C.D. Jackson was one of the first to arrive at Buchenwald with an Army Psychological Ops unit to film a presentation of human skin lampshades and other dubious artifacts that most Holocaust scholars don't accept as real anymore. The Holocaust, like everything else, has been exploited for propaganda and political purposes.
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Yes, there was long confusion generated by Kosinski about the supposedly autobiographical nature of his book and much controversy about that.
The biography by Sloan discusses internal debate at the publishing house about how to present
it. It nevertheless is a great novel. And it could make a great film. Kosinski apparently appropriated
some of Roman Polanski's childhood experiences for the book. Polanski could direct the film but maybe
would not. Spielberg offered him SCHINDLER'S LIST, but he said it was too close (even for him), since
he had escaped the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto. Polanski later did THE PIANIST, however.