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In Reply to: Schlinder's List on DVD posted by townsend on March 10, 2004 at 16:40:08:
This was the movie that made me decoide to get a minor in history...well one more course to go this summer and I can say I have the minor. Naturally I foussed it on this period.I was going in thinking that I would probably find things to pick and to my surprise I actually ended up liking the film a LOT more because of the very subtle points the film makes as a side discourse that are so "UP" on even current debates between the some very notable historians such Christopher Browning and D.J Goldhagen. Schindler's List manages to take a more centerist view which considering the Director is Jewish and had an obvious close tie to the subject matter manages to stay detached.
There are three scenes where criticism often comes for this film and all three I consider to be brilliant moves by the director. Spielberg uses one long colour sequence with a girl in a Red Dress. We see her twice. The first time it is used to offset innocence from evil - this scene was highly stressed from testimony used for the Thomas Keneally's novel, and to serve Oscar Schindler's REAL look at what was really going on. Yes there is war and there is the wholesale slaughter of fellow citizens. Historians argue that many Germans didn't "know" what is going on - or didn't want to see. Well Schindler did...this scene opens up - in combination with several others - another complaint people have which was Schindler's break-down at the end of the picture. The "I could have done more" speach which never actually happened - well not at that time.
Spielberg did his homework. Well after the war it is strongly indicated that Schindler was never the same man - he felt an enormous amount of guilt, became an alcohic and lived off handouts from Jews until his death. Spielberg took those after war events and placed that into the final scene. Some argue it but if you know his life after the war it make sense...because in fact he COULD have done more. I can't imagine a worse guilt than knowing you could have sold a few meaningless trinkits to save someone's life.
The third scene some grumbled about was the Gassing scene where the woman were not gassed and just sprayed with water. This actually did happen to the Schindler Jews and I think it was a vry strong sequence. Spielberg doesn't need to show what happened here - Instead he uses a woman to glance back at that stacks leaving the rest for imagination - which is more tasteful.
Certain characters were combined. Itzhak Stern for example was a real Jewis Accountant but his actions in the film are composites of several Jews. The obvious reason to combine several people's actions into one man makes obvious cinematic sense - and since the character was also serving as Schindler's conscience - this too is acceptable historical maneuvering. It's the big picture we're after so long as the small things aren't twisted to throw us off.
Some complained that Amon Goethe should have been a German just following orders and torn up about commiting these acts. While that would have made a deeper Camp commandant cinematically I don't think Spielberg could bring himself to lie for cinematic reasons. Amon Goeth's history suggests that he entirely enjoyed what he was doing.
In fact Spielberg and Fiennes bring an incredible amount of undeserved "niceness or charisma" to Amon that I doubt from the records was actually there. Amon Gothe did far more horrendous things than this film portrayed. There is a scene where the Jewish mechanic is cleaning the road of suitcases. In the book that Jewish mechanic prior to that scen witnessed Amon throw a toddler in the air and shoot him. Something for obvious reasons which was not shown - but perhaps part of the editing room floor film.
Scenes where he attempt to shoot an old man and the guns keep sticking apparently were real as was the maid the target practice the lost chicken and mass shootings. Both the Browning and Goldhagen books wil support the mass shotting of innocents of even regular German citizens in Police Battalions.
Naturally, no 3 hour film can cover this subject matter in full but it manages to cover a heckuva lot of the essential parts and the progression highly effectively. Spielberg uses Fiennes and we see a LOT of charisma in the man - sadistic. But we get a glimpse as to why people followed the Nazi Regime or even got sucked into it. After all joining you would get a new big house money people to push around. for the 20-30 people in all societies who border on the psycho or sociopathic lines this is the group to join. And that doesn't even count the ignorant morons out there that just need to blame some group for their lot in life.
The Nazi engine was all about propoganda and image and of course hypocracy. They even get this in there when Amon who supposedly believes that all Jews are rats manages to fall for or at least get horny for one of these rats.
Fiennes I have down as my number one supporting performance of the 1990s for this role which is the lynchpin forthe whole thing working. He has to be both a sadist but he has to instill a hefty and scary amount of charisma. He has to create depth from a one dimensional sadist - and he does it better than I've ever seen it done frankly by anyone in any role IMO. But hey it did make his career.
Cinematically, it is simply a great looking film with unparallelled cinematography. There are shots in this film - on the balcony looking in - as if we are Jews looking at Amon and Oscar deciding our fate. Unlike Citizen Kane which Uses the Camera as a stunt which works to distance the audience from feeling, Kiminski has the Camera distanced from the events with a chilling view of what will come.
Great soundtrack by one of the great violonists - great performances throughout. Fiennes was robbed of an Oscar, Kingsly and Davidtz were robbed of nominations, and Neeson, if he was going to lose, should have only lost to Anthony Hopkins in Remains of the Day. But what does the academy award know. At least they got the film right which IMO has happened twice since 1990.
IMO, Schindler's List is the best film of the 1990s to current and quie frankly there isn't anything that I find even close as a total moviegoing experience.
Follow Ups:
The German did know what was going on. NO doubt. They just did not want to see.
The common tenor is..When we should have said something we would have been killed ourselves.
That is a point.
But NO point for civil courage.
No German soldier or otherwise was ever killed during any part of world war II for not following orders to kill Jews.The general public was in fear no doubt because of propoganda.
I highly recommend both the Christopher R Browning(Ordinary Men) and Daniel J Goldhagen (Hitler's Willing Executioners) books on the general public's attitudes during this time. Both books were around the same time and after Schindler's List and it is quite interesting how well Schindler's manages to stay impartial - and Keneally too a decade before for tht matter.
In fact some of the batallions that were ordered to go out and shoot Jewish kids in the forrest were given the option not to. These were not soldiers or Nazi's but police battalions. 11 out of 500+ opted out with no punishment. The rest were quite happy to one presumes.
Killed or not ( who could swear that nobody was killed for refusing this order), no but they used " freiwillige "..( volunteers ).
Not only of the propaganda...They could get a certain time in KZ or jail!
I know the book but my experience of 35 years in Germany and all the questions and answers that I asked are more important to me!
The nazis did some others things..Like lynching US pilots who have been caught as PO.
Deletations were common too.
The " Wehrmacht " did also horrible crimes.
Oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to suggest people were not afraid of the Nazi's. I have no doubt people may have thought they'd be killed or detained for helping Jews. The Nazi's kept outstanding records however of everything. Two things they get credit for. Record keeping and propaganda. You say the same lie loud enough long enough people will start to believe it.For example: The Nazis claimed the Jews were dirty lice riddles people like verman. They were spoutingthis well before 1939. At the time of course People would not have seen this to be the case. But after kicking the Jews out of their homes giving them little to no food and stealing all their money and possessions and having 12 to a room for 4 years well - they began to look dirty had lice and met the descriptions the Nazis were spouting the entire time.
A great two part diary from Vitor Klemperer is a fascinating read because unlike the less weighty Anne Frank(which is more for average Shmoe) Klemperer was an Academic teaching at a University in Germany. Victor was classed as a Mischling because he was married to a German woman so the Nazis were slower and different in their treatment to them. His accounts which span 1939 to the end of the war are highly fascinating and carry a lot of historical weight from yet another perspective.
I agree with most of what you're saying. But remember Schindler's List is not directly ABOUT the Holocaust - it is about one man that managed to save lives during this period and THAT can't be forgotten either. Because if one man can do that in that time under that threat against those odds -- that means something.
About your comments on the condition of living of the Jews that was true for the one living in the Ghettos.
I have the books.
Slower until the Wannsee conference. ( there is avery good film on it, as you will certainly be aware of )
Not directly*? I think one can dispute your point of view. In my eyes it was!
For the rest I agree entirely.* Actually Schindler was in the yes of the storm.
PS: Nuit et brouillard and The sorrow and the Pity
I found this one particularly chilling.
Yes, and more as a documentary as a film.
It just sounds " true ".PS : Have you see " The Gathering Storm " I saw it twice and it was even getting better the second time, a real good performance of one of Britainīs best actor.
I have not seen this but will keep an eye peeled for it. Thanks.
and one who ran the show brought his pregnat wife along to watch the shootings...pictures say so much.
Schindlers widow, who acted as a consultant for the film, painted a very different picture of the man than the one that was portrayed by Spielbergs direction
The saccharine image that Ralph Fiennes played was a pale shadow of the actual man and a gross inaccuracy
Spielberg should have stuck to the facts and it would not only have made for a better story; but given the seriousness of the subject, accuracy should have been a given and the distortion of those same facts is unforgiveable (the Nazis themselves were masters of distorting facts to suit their agenda)
Spielberg does the same thing again in "Saving Private Ryan", he gets the dry cough of an MG machinegun, the sidevalve V-8 roar of a landing craft and accuracy of uniforms and equipment down frighteningly pat then serves up endless flaky dialog that no WW2 grunt would have ever uttered(!)
Spielberg knows his target audience and is quietly taking a perverse delight at heaping on his own ersatz spin of the ball
He should have stuck with fantasy and fiction rather than historical portrayals that require a less fanciful touch
Upraised middle finger to Mr. Spielberg!
Grins
I would not put too much weight on Schindlerīs widow. She was, I hink very frustated at her man many sexuals encounter with other women, and I think jealous on another level too.
She was in the film at the end. She doesn't deny what Schindler did other than giving food, which she can't know. And probbably that she wasn't represented as much in the film. Perhaps she's part of the over 1 hour they cut.
Or perhaps you too did not do your homework on a subject where "accuracy should have been a given"?
The SS officer Amon Goeth, the Commandant of the Plaszow labor camp, had made the final 'liquidation' of the Crakow ghetto and had experience at three death camps in eastern Poland, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.Did you get that impression from the mivie?
I thought he was frightening but more like a guy who'd whack a family for some pork bellies, not someone who was responsible for deaths of tens of thousands of people.
He liquidated the Cracow ghetto in the film. If your complaint is that Schindler's List - a film about Schindler and Schindler Jews and you think a different movie should have been made about Amon Goeth and the history of Amon Goeth then I missed something.Gas chambers, contrary to popular belief, was not the holocaust. Gassing occurred by many estimates as late as 1944. This film is about one group of people and what happened to them and their savior.
Amon during this specific period is the only thing that matterred.
A lot of people prefer the lone holocaust story from Single perspectives like Ann Frank or a film like the Pianist which have next to no detail on the holocaust or really any of the big picture. It makes for a better human drama - though the Polanski's film managed not to and of course making it a far weaker film in all respects. But that's another story.
Actually it was 1940! And generalised in 1942.
No show me where and who said this. Reports in 1940 were of gas vans. November 1942 is the early date of use from my references at established camps. Wide scale actual gassing came later - probably as late as when Hitler and cronies began to see the inevitable loss.
Chamber gas or chamber vans..I do not make no difference, the matter is when did the nazis started to kill this way, as or 1942 we both agree.
The thing is it's very difficult to pin down because there is no record of an actual order for the gassing written down anywhere. And from a group that was very very well documented.Much of the killing in Schindler's is cold blooded shooting. Harder than flipping a gas switch. Or it should have been. But they enjoyed doing what they did. No German was ever killed for disobaying an order to kill Jews. This little fact is rarely discussed and it's pretty big.
My psychologuy instructor once said 20-30% of a population borders on psychopathic and or sociopathic behavior. The Nazi's would draw such people. "I get to kill as many people as I want and not go to jail?" Great way to draw the puss of society to one group.
Zyclon B / 1941
Actually gas chambers was an inventions of commisars, in 1918, during Civil War in Russia. During 1918 - 1922, were killed millions of russians, ukrainians and others by "bolshevicks" - under Trozkiy, Sverdlov, Tuhachevskiy, Yagudi and so on... So Gitler didn't invent anything new- he just borrowed idea from "kommisars".Regarding racial theory and eliminations and "surgery" - it's was also stolen from USA "scientists". In 1930's were a lot of experiments and so on on real people, and it was (and is) even protected by the law in many USA states.. This practice was keeping until 1976 (last time in Sweden).
Needles to say, that everybody know that "Man of the year", by "Time" magazine in 1939, in USA was Gitler.
So, I'm just wondering, why people don't see to whom humankind should be grateful for mass-murder?
A resounding YES!
Of course not! But you can pinpoint where the " B " did go .
That no one was killed..Hum..I wonīt swear...Toward the end of the war a lot of soldiers have been killed mostly under the pretex of desertion...
I am not complaining about anything.
I didn't believe Fiennes performance in the role of Amon Goeth, that's all.
but I will stick to my guns; the portrayals and Keneally novel were engaging 1/2 truths when the subject was serious enough to warrant a grain or two more truth
Spielberg went to extreme efforts to ensure accuracy of costume and even locations; one scene has a steam train arriving through the gates of Auschwitz and I have stood on that platform when I visited Poland, what upsets me is that that level of accuracy was achieved, yet the story is fatally flawed as the portrayal of Schindler does not show this man as he really wasGrins
What in this movie are you picking on about the facts. For a start Emily Schindler did do much - and this was left out of the film...once again any history of an individual is never 100%. If you think ANY film on ANY history of anything is accurate you don't have competancy in history. Claude Lanzman film is 9 hours long and has about 1hour of actuyal historical merit the rest is deeply flawed - and proven so. Historically it's far worse than the small things that were "bent" for Schindler's List.There is no way for Emily Schindler to know what Oscar was doing 24 hours a day. Survivor's themselves provided much of the info on What Schindler did. Emily is 86 at the time of that interview.
She denied nothing of what he did other than providing food. Spielberg presented Oscar as an alcoholic and a womanizer cheating on his wife numerously. Nothing about him was a saint.
I kinda didn't pay attention to Neeson, since I didn't know his story was different.
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