Sophomore students had the opportunity to dive deeper into a piece of literature they read earlier this year, on Jan. 14 in Gordon Parks Arts Hall. Alicia Sams, producer of the documentary “Disaster is My Muse,” presented her film and led a Q&A session with the students. The documentary follows Art Speigelman, the author of “Maus,” in his process of creating the award-winning graphic novel.
“Maus” is a true story about the Holocaust, following Mr. Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, as he maneuvers being a Jewish person during that time. All sophomores are assigned to read “Maus” as part of their English 2 curriculum, and the entire sophomore class attended this assembly.
A large part of Ms. Sams’ journey in making the documentary was ensuring it would be easily understandable to viewers while still emphasizing the importance and complexity of this moment in history.
“‘Maus’ is a very personal and accessible account of the Holocaust, because of its comprehensible form and because Art’s voice is so honest,” Ms. Sams said in an interview after her presentation.
Throughout development, Ms. Sams and her team faced many difficulties, but she says the hardest was trying to contain so much information in a form that viewers would be able to digest.
“The most challenging thing is to get 77 years into an hour and a half,” Ms. Sams said, “and Art is not a man of few words. He knows so much and he feels so much, so the real challenge is distilling that into something people can watch.”
For sophomore Analia Arias, watching “Disaster is my Muse” expanded her understanding of “Maus” by providing more insight into its author and creation. Specifically, the documentary helped her understand Mr. Speigelman’s perspective in the book more thoroughly.
“During the book, when I was reading interactions between Artie and Vladek, I found myself being annoyed at Artie and his actions,” Analia said. “But then, watching the film I got to see into his brain, so I had a better understanding.”
Throughout the documentary, recent and current events such as 9/11 are mentioned and related to the Holocaust. Ms. Sams hopes that students especially will connect her documentary to current events.
“I think the lessons of Maus are really relevant for what we see in our world today,” Ms. Sams said. “At first Art was a little wary of talking about current events, but then we decided it’s too important not to talk about.”
Ms. Sams explained that the documentary’s organization stemmed from curiosity about Mr. Spiegelman and his work.
“In general, I think most films start out with a question,” Ms. Sams said, “but then you keep working and developing, and then it eventually finds a form.”
