DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
PRODUCER: Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig
STUDIO: Amblin Entertainment
DISTRIBUTED BY: Universal Pictures
SCREENPLAY: Steven Zaillian
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Janusz Kaminski
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| Liam Neeson |
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| Ben Kingsley and Liam Neeson |
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| Ralph Fiennes |
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| "It is Bach?" "No, Mozart."; the explicit juxtaposition of Nazi's high intellectual culture and inhuman brutality during the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto |
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| Doppelgängers: the psychopath and the savior |
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| Children frolic in what appears to be snow, but is actually ash from human remains |
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| Fiennes and Neeson meet in Hell |
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| What some critics have called the most "terrifying" scene in cinematic history- the shower scene at Auschwitz |
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| The most powerful example of the film's motif of water as salvation |
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| It takes several kicks to break the stool from under Göeth- meant to recall the earlier scene in which he tries desperately to shoot a worker with a gun that doesn't work |
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| Actual surviving Schindlerjuden march together toward his grave in Jerusalem |
I have spent several years putting off watching
Schindler's List, before and after I made it a mission
to watch every film on the 1998 AFI 100 Greatest American Films list. The truth is, I've basically watched every "fun" movie on the list, so now I'm left with the epic war films, courtroom dramas, and holocaust movies. The reason I decided to finally give in and let myself experience the horrors (and wonders) of
Schindler's List is because on August 14th, 2017, waves of white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched on the University of Virginia campus without hoods or masks to bar their identities, brandishing weapons and torches, calling out slogans of the Nazi party, and even resorting to violence when one of the "alt-right" protestors rammed his car into a group of nonviolent counter-protestors, injuring hoards and killing a young woman named Heather Heyer. Since the 2016 American election, there has been
an undeniable increase in hate crimes targeted toward people of color, Jews, Muslims, women, and other marginalized communities. I have been watching these events unfold in absolute horror and deep, penetrative sadness. Once I witnessed the events in Charlottesville, I knew that it was time to stop protecting myself from the uncomfortable truth of the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes that occurred just over seventy years ago. I knew that it was time to remind myself of the genocide that was made possible by a combination of government ineptitude, Nazi sympathizers, and the silence of non-threatened white, Anglo-Saxon protestants.
Steven Spielberg's
Schindler's List is, though a fictionalized account of real-life events, probably the most detailed, honest mainstream cinematic representation of the Holocaust in existence. There have been many films made about the Second World War and the Holocaust, but no Hollywood film dealing with this subject matter has made such an indelible mark on society and the way it remembers this history. In my opinion,
Schindler's List is a rare perfect film, one that manages to flawlessly balance the scale between entertainment and cinematic excellence. I could not take my eyes off the screen throughout the film's three hour and fifteen minute runtime, which I forced myself to interrupt between two nights in order to sleep. That being said, it is one of the most difficult-to-watch films I've ever seen; more than once I found myself pondering how the thousands of extras, most of whom are native to Eastern Europe and had close connections to the Holocaust, could bear to reenact the events of the mass violence. That they did- always with genuine emotion displayed- is what gives the film a backbone of documentary-like realism, in addition to its obvious black-and-white cinematographic goal.
The symbolism of the film is, while at times obvious, beautifully interwoven into the plot. While the main intellectual puzzle of the film is to unpack protagonist Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) and his motivations, the viewer is also given delicious juxtapositions and doppelgängers, such as Schindler's frequent visual pairing with his evil twin, Amon Göeth (Ralph Fiennes), and his conscience, Stern (Ben Kingsley). We also have the visual treats of the black and white cinematography, devoid of all color and light (an intentional directorial decision made in an attempt to emphasize the Holocaust's extreme lack of hope), and the quick flashes of color, such as the Girl in the Red Coat, a symbol of Schindler's character development from self-serving con man to sympathetic protector, and the flames of the Sabbath candles, symbolizing the solace and hope of religion. Cinematographically, the film is a masterpiece, regardless of how obvious its visual symbols may be.
I have a lot of feelings about
Schindler's List, ranging from my bare emotional feelings of legitimate depression to my scholarly opinions of the film's cinematic merits. I know that most of the criticism surrounding the film comes from academia, which places serious concerns around the implications of Hollywood capitalizing on potentially exploitative films about the Holocaust. I think that these concerns are entirely legitimate, just like the very real criticisms of Holocaust films' historical accuracy. Personally, however, I feel as though
Schindler's List is probably the most important Hollywood film I've ever seen, if not for being an amazing movie than for its visual representation of the atrocities inflicted by Nazis during World War II. Cinemas around the United States are not going to release the actual footage taken by Eisenhower's soldiers during the liberation of concentration camps, but that history needs to be shown, explicitly and uncensored, to every American.
Films like
Schindler's List do this job, by demonstrating to audiences how terrible this history is, so that we cannot deny it, cannot forget it, and cannot repeat it. Thankfully, Steven Spielberg managed to handle the very sensitive and extremely difficult task of creating a film that honestly and respectfully depicts the Holocaust maturely and with buckets of humanity and empathy.
It is, at this point, beyond immature to deny that we are living in a society that has begun to re-embrace the hateful ideologies of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi party- it's irresponsible. I believe that it is every American's duty to educate his or herself about these groups and the wide scale violence they have inflicted over the past centuries, in and out of America. There are
many ways to educate yourself about painful and shameful history; the best and easiest way to do this is probably to visit museums like the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., which seek to preserve history and educate people about its consequences. But if I know people, I know that many are more apt to turn to the entertainment society is feeding them than the scholarly truth available to them by the good work of organizations. Because this is the case, I would encourage people to watch films like
Schindler's List- to actively and intentionally make themselves uncomfortable by viewing the dark history of an era that seems to be creeping back, and in doing so, pledge to make sure it never happens again.
Sources:
“Schindler’s List” review by Roger Ebert (1993)
“Schindler’s List” from Wikipedia
“Schindler’s List: Darkness Visible” from the book The Cinema of Steven Spielberg: Empire of Light by Nigel Morris (2007)
“The Cinema Animal: On Spielberg’s Schindler’s List” by Geoffrey Hartman, published in Salmagundi, No. 106/107 (Spring, 1995)
“Between Exploitation, Rescue, and Annihilation: Reviewing Schindler’s List” by Robert Gellately, published in Central European History, Vol. 26, No. 4 (1993)
“Watching Schindler’s List: Not the Last Word” by Geoff Eley and Atina Grossman, published in New German Critique, No. 71 (Spring-Summer, 1997)
“Movies: The ‘Schindler’s List’ Effect” by Michael André Bernstein, published in The American Scholar, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Summer, 1994)
“Herr Director: Biography and Autobiography in Schindler’s List” by Clifford J. Marks and Robert Torry, published in Biography, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Winter, 2000)
All photos from FilmGrab.com, all GIFS from GIPHY
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