Year: 1993
Rating: 
(out of )
Rating: 9.9 (out of 10)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathon Sagalle, Embeth Davidtz
Novel by: Thomas Keneally
Screenplay by: Steven Zaillian
Duration: 187 minutes
References: James Berardinelli, Roger Ebert, Franciszek Palowski, Robert G. Ware
The following was delivered as an oral presentation:
The French author Flaubert once wrote that he disliked Uncle Tom's Cabin because the author was constantly preaching against slavery. "Does one have to make observations about slavery?" he asked. "Depict it; that's enough." And then he added, "An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere." That would describe Spielberg, the author of this film, Schindler's List. He depicts the evil of the Holocaust, and he tells an incredible story of how it was robbed of some of its intended victims by Oskar Schindler. Spielberg does so without the tricks of his trade, the directorial and dramatic contrivances that would inspire the usual melodramatic payoffs. Spielberg is not visible in this film. But his restraint and passion are present in every shot.
This film is set in World War II, and Oskar Schindler is a proud member of the Nazi Party who's only interest is himself. When war erupted he seized his opportunity to move to Nazi-occupied Poland to obtain Jewish investment, employ cheap Jewish slave labour and a clever Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern, to establish an enamelware factory. Stern walks around Krakow hiring people, because working for a Germany-orientated business saves you from death, at least for a little while. If you consider all Spielberg's great films, he hasn't had the need for complex stories, and yet he can constantly captivate audiences, even if the films are about three hours. In Jaws three men go to sea to kill a shark. In Close Encounters, aliens make contact. In E.T. an extra-terrestrial tries to go home. In Saving Private Ryan eight men are on a mission to find a paratrooper. Schindler's List is no exception. Nevertheless Steven Zaillian's adaptation from Thomas Keneally's novel is superb. This film has three main, simple stories. First and foremost it is about the Holocaust, its horrors, its atrocities. Second is the story of Schindler, who, in the worst of times, changed his perspective on racial prejudices and saved more than 1000 Jews. The third is the story of Amon Goeth, the evil commandant. As perhaps the most sophisticated villain ever characterised, Goeth, as with many other men at the time, had been transformed by the war, and was on the brink of madness. As Schindler says in the movie, "War brings out the worst in people, never the good, always the bad. Always the bad." The film implies, though it is not for certain, that Goeth probably would have been an ordinary man before the rise of Hitler, but that war had given him the power to kill for enjoyment. Schindler was a living contradiction to what he said. He, as with other men, toiled through the rough waters of the confusions of war. But he was one of only a handful who surfaced from the chaos, and generations will remember him for what he did.
[Excerpt from film] This sequence we are about to see is one of the countless significant scenes of the film. It encompasses three important and distinct aspects of the film. It is for one pivotal to the plot - this is the turning point of Schindler's personality, where he changes gradually and almost unnoticeably from a selfish lover of alcohol and women and money to one who would risk all he had to do all he could do to save Jews. Two, this scene opens the discussion concerning the use of black-and-white. And three, this episode also discloses the level of artistic and technical detail that Spielberg works with. Here we see a man being shot. We hear the stutter of the machine gun after the man collapses. Light travels faster than sound. Spielberg acknowledged that. Not a frame is wasted, and every scene is constructed with meticulous detail. For the first time since the opening, we see colour. A little girl named Genia is wearing a red coat and walking down the street while the ghetto is being liquidated. While the girl walks across the middle of the screen later, we see other stories forming or ending in the foreground and the background. In a moment you will see, in the bottom left hand corner, the conclusion of such a story. German soldiers had ordered 150 young Jewish men to race around the block. The first 75 were chosen to work, and the latter 75 executed. To save on ammunition, the Jews were lined up in groups of six and a Nazi with a rifle shot through them. In the last group, only four Jews perished so another Nazi drew out a pistol and shot the remaining two. These are stark images. To Spielberg, life is symbolised by colour. The Holocaust could never be filmed in colour because it was devoid of life. Genia is the only source of life in three hours of carefully filmed brutality. She is the purity, the innocence, walking unnoticed through the Nazis, and witnessing their every crime.
The score composed by the renowned John Williams is mesmerising. He has composed for all but one of Steven Spielberg's feature films. In that scene we just saw the song sung by a children's choir reinforces the innocence of Genia. However, for most of the rest of the film the music is quite melancholy for obvious reasons. Williams won another Oscar to add to his four. He has been nominated 36 times. Some of the music pieces required solo violins, and these were recorded by one of the most celebrated violinists of our time - Itzhak Perlman. One would suppose he probably performed free of charge given his faith.
Director of Cinematography Janusz Kamiski's ability to capture the blatant horrors of the Holocaust with skilful use of lighting and shade is a sight to be experienced. Individual scenes are masterpieces of direction, cinematography, art direction, and acting. Spielberg's choice to make this movie in black-and-white was a conscious artistic decision. Before filming began Spielberg had long, heated debates with Universal studio executives about filming in black-and-white. Spielberg won eventually, and now that it's been made, it is hard to imagine the film to be in anything else.
This made way for some additional dynamic dimensions for cinematic creativity. The few occasions that colour comes into the film gain strength of another kind - suggesting the vivid vitality of the human spirit. The film's opening is in colour - the lighting of the candles for the beginning of the Sabbath. In moments the glow of a single candle burns down to a faint orange dot in a nearly dark field of grey black - and extinguishes, its dying grey smoke taking us into the black-and-white world of the Nazi occupation. Later we see the red coat of Genia, the little girl who ignited Oskar Schindler's interest in saving what Jews he could. When Goeth has been ordered to exhume and burn the ten thousand Jewish dead from Plaszow and the ghetto, Genia reappears as the corpse in a red coat passing by Schindler atop a cart full of bodies. After the move to Brinnlitz, Schindler invites the rabbi to hold the first Sabbath since their captivity; the candle flame again glows with colour - the warmth of life has begun to return to their spirits. Finally, there is that great moment when those liberated, younger Schindler Jews striding freely across an open field becomes a colour scene of the survivors walking across the Jerusalem plain in 1993 - a breathtaking sequence that creates a soaring sense of joy in the spirits of all who watch. Without the dynamic contrasts of having the black-and-white world against which these moments can play, their value to the drama Spielberg is relating would be diminished.
The chosen medium was by no means merely for the purpose of emphasising several scenes with the use of colour. According to Spielberg, the subject matter was only suitable for black-and-white because it is about the denial of humanity, about an effort to annihilate the soul of a people. He used the black-and-white medium because of its capacity to engage an audience vividly with the inner drama of the characters - the issue was not external spectacle but rather internal clarity. Spielberg deliberately used black-and-white film to convey dramas of intense personal character. As a result the film is so emotionally charged that a heartbreaking catharsis is required at the end to release all the emotions.
Until recently Spielberg has avoided using stars to play in his movies. He wanted the movie to be the star. This is basically the case in Schindler's List, apart from Ben Kingsley, who transfixed audiences with his Gandhi in 1982. The whole cast is uniformly magnificent. Liam Neeson, as Schindler, deserved the Oscar he was nominated for, though Tom Hanks got it for Philadelphia. Ralph Fiennes is simply brilliant as the complex Amon Goeth. He too deserved the Oscar although Tommy Lee Jones snatched it with The Fugitive. The power of the performance of Fiennes can be justified. He had asked an old Jewish woman, who had experiences with Goeth, about his character. As she informed Fiennes some of his character's attributes, Fiennes constantly changed his expression to fit with her descriptions. There came a point when she stopped talking, and couldn't look him in the eye. She started to walk away, unable to go on. Fiennes then removed the expression on his face and replaced it with his own, and comforted the woman. On another day, when another woman walked on the set and saw Fiennes' Nazi uniform and his expression, she almost fainted.
Ben Kingsley's Itzhak Stern was universally praised but for some reason wasn't even nominated. Probably all the Schindler's List votes for Supporting Actor went to Ralph Fiennes. All the actors in Schindler's List have received copious roles since. Liam Neeson has appeared in Rob Roy, Michael Collins, and you will see him in Star Wars Episode 1 in May 1999. Ralph Fiennes has appeared in Oscar-winning films Quiz Show and The English Patient. However, his transition to mindless Hollywood crap was done quite poorly with The Avengers. Embeth Davidtz, the attractive Israeli actress, who played Goeth's twisted obsession, has appeared in Matilda, Fallen, The Gingerbread Man, among others.
Schindler's List was nominated for 12 Academy Awards. It won seven, including Spielberg's first Best Director Oscar. This is not really a film to talk about; it is a film to be experienced. A 10,000-word essay could not do this film justice. This is not just another movie. They had a responsibility toward the world remembering the Holocaust. It is a film about conscience. And I think it is the greatest motion picture ever made.
For questions, comments, and criticisms... there's not much you can do except go to the Rotten Tomatoes Critics Discussion Forum, which I frequent.
� 1998, 1999 Michael Chen