ABSTRACT
The chapter offers several portraits of witnessing someone else's trauma, which take up in an analysis informed by the strong poetry of Roger Simon. It argues that Monsieur Lazhar contains scenes of characters seeking witness to their testimonies regarding emotional and historical trauma. In Monsieur Lazhar, the film distinguishes between bearing witness to emotional trauma, historical trauma, and trauma told through literature as the characters grapple with bearing witness, requesting witness, and even failing to witness. The chapter suggests that the calls are punctuated by Lazhar himself bearing witness to testimony through literature. It focuses on the three titles in the film that fit with Eppert's definition. All three forms of witnessing that the film draws attention to-emotional trauma, historical trauma, and literature of historical witness-erupt in this final scene. The chapter traces the absence of Indigenous strong poetry bearing witness to genocide.
