Schindler's List (2004, DVD)

I. INTRODUCTION & PLOT SUMMARY

A. Introduction:
This review begins with a somewhat dry, but straightforward synopsis of the movie's plot, (please skip this if you've seen the movie; you'll be glad you did.) It then goes into a discussion of my "critiquing parameters," then moves to a discussion of its score and concludes with a discussion of the effect Spielberg's direction had on its overall production.

B. A Dry, But Straightforward, Plot Synopsis:
"Schindler's List" is based on the true story of German businessman and Nazi sympathizer, Oskar Schindler's personal transformation from a womanizing, materialistic playboy into a selfless, dedicated and philanthropic hero. Schindler, (Liam Neeson) a German businessman in 1938 Poland, sees the Nazis' rise to power as his opportunity to make a fortune. He begins a cookware and utensil company, and applies his natural skills as a social shmoozer and a conman to flatter and bribe his way into acquiring a series of Nazi military contracts. He brings in accountant and financier Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to help run the factory, but more importantly, to serve as a liaison through which to supply his factory with a dependable, unpaid labor force of Jews who had been herded into Krakow's ghetto by Nazi troops. Stern, realizes working for Schindler could mean survival for himself and the other Jews. However, in 1942, when Krakow's Jews are assigned to Plaszow, a Forced Labor Camp run by Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), their survival is once again in jeopardy. Schindler by shmoozing with Goeth, is able to arrange the continued use of Polish Jews in his plant. Schindler now realizes that he and his factory, are the only barrier between his labor force and the Nazi death camps. Schindler completely abandons his previous desire to generate a fortune, and uses his remaining finances as bribes to procure more Jewish workers and maintain the factory's current staff. By the time the allies defeat Germany, Schindler's fortune is wiped out, but he has saved 1100 people from imminent death.

Many people who saw this movie, exited the theater feeling quite certain they had seen an all-around masterpiece of a film. Unfortunately, I was not one of them. I realize there are those who may claim I'm an anti-semite for blaspheming this movie with my less than lavish critique, but in fact, it's because I am not an anti-semite that I believe that this movie's presentation of the Schindler saga does an injustice to the sacred memory of the Holocaust.

C. Great Expectations
I attribute much of the harshness of my overall assessment of this film to my disenchantment with the affected manner in which Spielberg treated its historically important subject matter. Let's face it; this film is no "Jaws." The folks who put this blue chip production together were thinking "Oscar" right from the get-go, and I don't mean the "Schindler" kind. This movie was given every possible benefit a future classic could ask for. I figure this raises the movie's "critical bar" a little higher than it might be for a comparatively low budget action/adventure flick like "Jaws."

I think because of his particular style of directing, that Steven Spielberg was the wrong choice to direct a movie of such historical significance. I have nothing personal against Spielberg. "Jaws" is one of my favorite movies of all time. However, "Jaws" is the type of film in which Spielberg's style shines. Specifically, it is a movie with an unknown, nightmarish, perhaps mythical, common enemy. It is a movie without a complex storyline; one whose "us against them" (or "it," as the case may be,) is black and white. A directorial attempt to explore any perceived "shades of gray," would only have watered down the "fairytale-brought-to-life" flavor of its horrifying magic.

It is precisely this style; a style which was such an asset to the storytelling in "Jaws," that proves to be a liability in "Schindler's List." As Roger Ebert, put it: "...Spielberg (is a) stylist whose films often have gloried in shots we are intended to notice and remember... ." The key word here, is "intended." The images I was apparently intended to notice and remember, were not so much of the compassionate Schindler bargaining for human livestock, or of the pain of the Jewish victims being separated from their families, but rather of the stereotypical sadism of Nazis scouring the Krakow slums for hidden prey; Comandant Goeth randomly shooting at human targets, then gratuitously swinging like a human pi ata, from the noose by which he is hung. As horrible and tragic as the Nazi extermination may have been, stereotypically dehumanizing all Germans involved in the war in this manner, cheats the viewer of the crucial recognition that we are all in some way, at some level, guilty of our own prejudices and personal judgments, and perhaps not so worthy of pointing the finger of guilt as Spielberg would have us believe.

The French author Flaubert once wrote that, "(a)n author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere." This is the ideal Spielberg should have aspired to in this film. He should have focused on the evil of the Holocaust; told the incredible story of "how it was robbed of some of its intended victims." It is this he fails to do by consciously and obviously making it a "them versus us" stereotypical melodrama.

True, Schindler's List was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won seven; Best Picture and Best Director included. Yes, I believe that some aspects of this movie were excellent, perhaps even great. The acting of its three leads: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes, was flawless and inspired. Its art direction, its cinematography and its special effects were well above average. However, my dissatisfaction with this film is a result of its directing; it's presentation of its story material.

II. THE "SCHINDLER'S LIST" SCORE

A. John Williams' Score Is Like An Aeolian Harp
For me, the highlight of this movie was its hauntingly beautiful score. If you're a music-ruled soul, as I am, the score, by John Williams, does for the audio story, what Spielberg, could have and should have done for the video side of the tale. As I try to think of what I might compare it to, I'm reminded of a time I was in England's pastoral "Lake" District, visiting the home of Romantic poet, William Wordsworth. One of the exhibits was a recording of an "Aeolian Harp". I put on the exhibit's headphones and listened, momentarily hypnotized by the desolate peals of "slide whistle"-like, eerie mournfulness, which seemed to combine the soft, yet strident, metallic underwater-echo of communicating whales, with the distant wail of a grief-stricken spirit's siren-song as the strains of her melancholy dissonance intermittently rise above storm-driven wind gusts. I recognized this instrument's sound only one time in a movie's soundtrack: Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" incorporated an Aeolian Harp's dreary whine with lethal acumen to convey the otherworldly, isolated surreality experienced by the alienated American soldiers on their ill-fated jungle-trek search for General Kurtz.

B. Painting With Music
Though "Schindler's List's" sound track does not incorporate any Aeolian Harps, its darkly ethereal dreariness conveys a remarkably similar experience. Williams seems to intuitively sense he must musically paint in the three-dimensional hues and shades lacking in Spielberg's "black & white" depiction of the Schindler story. He does so by wielding violinist Izhak Perlman's soul-piercing violin solos like the brush strokes of a Renaissance master. He blots in the dark mauves and violets of malignant alienation pervading the Krakow ghettos and daubs in the icy blues and jaundiced yellows of the suffocating apprehension experienced by the condemned as they are carted off by train to the Nazi death camps. At times, his musical influence is purposefully vague, like a fleeting pang of elusive apprehension. At other times it commands the emotional forefront of the drama, overwhelming the senses with its painful bittersweetness. In this way, Williams score provides for the Schindler production, a depth of story illustration which is not supported or evidenced in the stilted stereotyping of its visual counterpart. Williams received a well-deserved Oscar for this virtuoso soundtrack. I highly recommend music-enthusiasts purchase it on CD.

III. WHO WOULD I HAVE CHOSEN TO DIRECT SCHINDLER'S LIST?

[Rather than criticize without offering a constructive solution, I've herein included a discussion of SL director-alternatives. Though the focus appears to be on directors, I use the discussion to indirectly flesh out a number of SL's pros and cons.] My "Schindler's List" director-selection pool would have been composed of directors whose bodies of work show an aptitude for emphasizing a movie's "storytelling" forest for its "individual-character" trees. Consequently, my selection would have had to be able to present the historic Schindler story material in one of two ways:

EITHER,

1) It would have to tell a very basic, straightforward story using its main characters as generic, "this-could-be-you," "everyman"-type mouth and action pieces for the story, none of whom were either particularly good or evil; just people responding within the range of potential human reponses given each character's respective set of surrounding circumstances,

OR

2) It would have to tell a broad, multilayered story, having each concurrent layer represent the individual, limited perspective of that sub-aspect of the overall story that each of the three or four main characters brings to the forward movement of the plot as a whole. This story structure is metaphorically similar to the manner a competent conductor blends the confluence of competing "individual-storytelling" musical sounds generated by the various instrument sections that comprise a symphony orchestra, into one all-encompassing, harmoniously-balanced, "overall-storytelling" composition. By way of the same metaphor, Spielberg's telling of SL sacrifices its proverbial orchestra's woodwind and string sections in favor of its brass and percussion sections, to conduct a symphony that history composed to be played by the full breadth and measure of the orchestral spectrum.

Since my time machine is on the fritz, John Ford, Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock and, more recently, Hal Ashby, drop off the list. Alfred Hitchcock has always been my favorite director. He's the most "thought-provoking," and based on his amazing sense of humor, a pure artist, but I think his brilliant, microcosmically-focused manner of telling the macrocosmic story would be wasted here. I worship Martin Scorsesi for his ability to blend hard realism with a sort of brooding urban romanticism, and for his unwillingness to compromise his intense, personal vision. Yet I don't see this approach befitting the "Schindler's List" director's chair either.

The director I hired would have had to be capable of bringing out the more baroque intricacies and elusively subtle facets of a multifaceted, socially-relevant historical incident, without compromising the fidelity of its broader overall perspective. Three "1993-active" directors who I believe could have portrayed the Schindler incident without getting preachy or sanctimonious about it, thus to whom I might have awarded the "Schindler's List" director's chair, are Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now) and Terrence Malick ("The Thin Red Line.") Each of these directors possesses the "impartial-conductor" storytelling styles and qualities I feel Spielberg lacks. To my knowledge, they avoid Spielberg's simplistic, one-dimensional, all-or-nothing, "the good guys wear white hats, the bad guys wear black hats" treatment of thematic issues and ideas. Spielberg's directing talent is better applied to portraying simple, but dramatic storyline, Disney-esque fantasy, action/adventure and children's stories. "Schindler's List" should have been more preoccupied with "history;" not "his story" (i.e., Spielberg's.)

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IV. OPTIONAL READING-- SCHINDLER'S LIST "COMMENT/RESPONSE" DISCUSSION:

COMMENT by Paiceyjohn (06.10.2002 13:16)

"A masterful review of this film, Sir. You have provided us with some fine insights into a film that was obviously made with the express purpose of tugging at the heartstrings (see below.) Although it's been some time since I saw this movie, I seem to remember having that familiar "rooting for the good guys" feeling, while at the same time wondering whether feeling that way was a little incongruous. I think you've just explained it for me.... Above all I get the impression that Spielberg has been fighting the Nazis within his movies for the best part of 20 years. A noble cause indeed, but the inhuman barbarity of the holocaust is something we don't have to be constantly reminded of, it's indelibly imprinted on our all our consciences and will be for a long time to come. But that's another discussion. Cheers, Paiceyjohn."

RESPONSE by 29th_Candidate (06.11.2002 01:05)

Paiceyjohn, thanks for your always prescient perspective. I just want to fine-tune one item you mentioned: --Though heavy topics like "the Holocaust" can get tedious (like anything else) when it's overdone or commercially exploited... (I don't think that's the case here.) My gripe relates to the ol' "Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right" school of ethical theory. How can one rationally claim to have "learned from the Holocaust," if all one has ACTUALLY done is switch sides from "hunted" to "hunter?" I suggest that one has learned absolutely NOTHING (and less) from the Holocaust if one's message; intentional or implied, is: "The 'good guys' have been liberated, now it's time to turn the 'bad guys' into human pi atas!" Call me blind, but I just don't see what separates the "evil" barbarians from the "enlightened" civilians here. The line between "justice" and "revenge" is not nearly as invisible as it is made conspicuous by its absence here. Don't get me wrong; "peace with honor" and "walk softly, but carry a big stick," have always been my mottos (even if JFK and T Roosevelt, respectively, said them first,) but I have a real problem with "blame-seeking." Logically, if both sides are "equal" (as it's been my understanding, all human beings are supposed to be treated,) then what makes it wrong for one side to "play Hitler," but right when the other side does it? Exactly where does History's tedious merry-go-round of righteous indignation stop, or doesn't it? There's no "...lest we forget" here; only a "we never learned in the 1ST place." I object to "pro-Hitler" movies; the symbol AS WELL as the person. NAZI propaganda is more destructive than Hitler ever was, or will ever be, because it is deathless. Though SS's Schindler clearly stands for the proposition that "history is written by the victors," this doesn't mean that history's facts change; nor the conclusions to which those facts inevitably lead.... --29th

COMMENT by willgould (06.15.2002 22:39)

A very well written and thoughtful opinion BUT!! (oh god, you say) i disagree with your criticism that Spielberg should have given more history and less story. When it came out there was disagreement over his approach as it was not the definitive Holocaust movie many expected it to be. For it to accomplish what you want it would have to be much, much longer. Secondly i dont think that the Nazis are stripped of humanity as you suggest especially after Fiennes conversation with the boy who he lets go and then murders. The self questioning expression and puzzlement on his face as he makes the sign of the cross has surely got to count for something. The faceless comic book nazis of Indiana Jones ashamed Spielberg and he made a special effort to make Schindlers list as mature, adult and humane as possible. I think that the undeniable humanity of the Nazis who still commit the Krakow massacre make it all the more impossible to watch- if anything Spielbergs message was that we are all human and capable of inhuman acts. Rather than fishing for Oscars he used his own Jewish background and his talent as a moviemaker to give his impression, rather than a comprehensive documentary of the Holocaust. A very deep and thought provoking opinion. willgould.

RESPONSE by 29th_Candidate (06.20.2002 00:06)

Will-- Regarding:

["i disagree with your criticism that Spielberg should have given more history and less story;"]

That was not, in fact, what I wrote. You omitted a crucial word from my quote that changes its entire meaning (and logical value.) What I ACTUALLY said was:

["...Spielberg should have given more history and less *HIS* story."]

"History" IS "STORY!" It is, quite literally, the story of man's past actions. Consequently, my statement as you've quoted it, conveys a logical contradiction, mate. I'll readily admit to being stupid, but illogical, Will? That's not blawdy cricket, ol' sport! --lol.

On the contrary, MY ACTUAL statement conveys a desire for less "Spiel;" less editorializing and propagandizing of historical material. It is compelling and interesting on it's OWN merits! SHOW me Stevie; don't TELL me. For the price of my ticket, the least you can do is indulge my fantasy that I have a brain in my head, thus am capable of drawing my OWN conclusions, and therefore, don't have to adopt the ones you insist on sledgehammering through me girlish eye sockets! Ironically, it was on account of Josef Goebbels' Spielberg-like "diabolical flair for orchestrating mass fervor and ecstasy with sober calculation," that Hitler appointed him as his Reich Minister of Propaganda immediately upon rising to power in 1933. Based on Spielberg's Goebbels-like genius for whipping his SL audience into a foaming bloodlust for the swinging goethe-pi ata, (my audience leapt up and raucously cheered,) I don't doubt that Spielberg could have put Goebbels out of a job, had he been around at the time. Hey-- Der Fuehrer was Jewish too!

This movie was supposed to be about Schindler's transformation and how it enabled a group of people to survive. What SL is NOT, (or at least what SL *SHOULDN'T* have been to the extent it is,) is a movie about Amon Goethe's ("AG's") fascinating cruelty. Technically-speaking, AG's functions for the forward movement and development of the SL plot are twofold:

1) He is a prop for bringing out Oskar Schindler's ("OS's") inner-thoughts/perceptions, and,

2) He provides SS with an HS off-setting "foil;" a "Schindler-ennobling" inhuman contrast.

All the points you've raised in your comment are valid and persuasive, but I think they fail to recognize some crucial aspects of Spielberg's ("SS's") story presentation method, most particularly, SS's use of AG in the capacity of "#2," as set forth above. Even if we restrict the scope of our discussion to the two "goethe scene" examples you reference, I believe I can convincingly demonstrate how both scenes convey the diametric opposite of that which you contend they show, and I quote: ["...(SS) made a special effort to make Schindler's List as mature, adult and humane as possible."] To whit; in BOTH examples you cite, SS uses Amon Goethe (and symbolically, the Germans,) to conspicuously underscore-by-contrast Schindler's gradually developing humanity. However, in contrast to Schindler, AG (as you've acknowledged,) DOES brutally murder the boy! If SS's portrayal "did not...," as you contend, "...strip AG/the Germans of their humanity," at a minimum, he would have refrained from making such a gory, dehumanizing, circus sideshow of AG's ignoble failure to find any reason to refrain from murdering the boy during AG's inevitable, (or so we are led to believe,) return to target-shooting humans out of sheer boredom!

Ideally, (i.e., to achieve the maximum effect of the "foil" device,) SS should have restrained his NAZI-bashing and stopped short at portraying AG as a spiritually colder, more indifferent representation of OS, in effect, providing the viewer with a sense of how OS might have been had HS not entered into his spiritual transformation. Much deliberate time, effort and "outrage-generating" was invested by SS in, not merely using AG as OS's foil, which he could easily and and more effectively have done had he restricted himself to a fraction of the "NAZI-baiting." Instead, he not only has AG FAIL to grasp any part of the concept of "mercy," but portrays AG as inhuman; utterly bereft of even the most instinctive and basic level of sensitivity needed to appreciate the value of life. This is fundamental to grasping any "humanity-related" concepts. If it had been as you contend, AG would "theoretically" as well as "actually," have failed to serve his function as OS's defining foil. His character would "theoretically" have obfuscated, rather than illuminated the development of OS's empathy.

Regrettably, SS's inability to exercise even a modicum of restraint on his enmity, caused him to overshoot the optimum mark by such a dramatically large margin, in his characterization of AG, that the "foil" device is rendered ineffectual because SS makes AG seem TOO monstrous and inhuman for the viewer to even remotely associate AG with OS, even BEFORE OS's transformation! Consequently, any crucial identification or connection SS might have established between the viewer and AG is destroyed beyond repair: "One is either a human being, like OS or a barbaric German, like AG." This flies in the face of the fact there are elements of both OS AND AG in everybody. Ironically, SS, by presenting his material in this manner, shows more of his "Amon Goethe" than he would care to realize.

Was Amon Goethe deserving of mercy, despite his spiritually-clueless inability to provide "that which he had no comprehension of," to the jews?

If "NO," then how is a person ever to learn mercy if he is deprived of the appreciation of mercy's benefits the very first time in his life his "being on the receiving end," puts him in a position where he might appreciate those benefits?

On the other hand, IS Steven Spielberg deserving of mercy, though he, unlike the NAZI commandant AG, demonstrates (i.e., via his depiction of the Oskar Schindler character,) his ability to understand and appreciate the virtues of mercy, but nonetheless, presumes to sit in judgment of AG, and unequivocally "pi ata-declare" that AG was unworthy of mercy?

As always, Clint Eastwood's taciturn wisdom (here, from his amazing "The Unforgiven,") provides us with some guidance-- Eastwood as "William Munny" responds to Gene Hackman's character's dying declaration:

GENE HACKMAN: "...but I don't DESERVE this! ...I was building a house!"

CLINT EASTWOOD: "'Deserve's' got nothin' to do with it..."

Staying with your examples, my interpretation (i.e., that the Germans/AG "are stripped by SS of any humanity") is further compounded by Spielberg's depiction of "WHY," as you put it:

["...Fiennes (has the) conversation with the boy who he lets go and then murders."]

Goethe's ONLY interest in attempting to understand OS's "mysterious" desire to refrain from killing for pleasure, is his admiration of Schindler's power, wealth and worldliness; not, as with Schindler, a discovery that there might be something more important and more meaningful than perpetual wealth/power-accumulation and self-gratification. In point of fact, OS realizes the only way he can even initially arouse AG's interest at all, is by framing the discussion in terms of "Alexander The Great's POWER;" not by appealing to AG's nonexistent capacity to appreciate "Alexander The Great's even greater humanity." Note Spiel's depiction of AG's inability to fathom OS's respect for and appreciation of Alexander The Great's mercy; AG shrugs his shoulders with indifference and begins shooting again.

With respect to your comment: ["The self questioning expression and puzzlement on his face as he makes the sign of the cross has surely got to count for something."]

It DOES, but NOT for any Spielberg-intended recognition of the mercy or spiritualism of Jesus Christ, as you seem to assert, Will. It counts as a further, damning show of how spiritualism and mercy utterly elude AG's comprehension. Once again AG figures, that maybe he's missing something; that maybe by his trying it, it might evoke or reveal something he couldn't see by attempting merely to mentally comprehend it. This is completely in character with AG's childlike bemusement with, and consequent attempt to adopt OS's suggestion that AG: "Choose not to kill, even though you can, because THAT is REAL power." Spielberg uses this additional gesture to further mock AG's inability to distinguish between "force" (which AG confuses for "power,") and the power of faith and spiritualism; in the ability to believe in something bigger than one's self, something more important than self-appeasement. This is intended by SS to provide a direct parallel and contrast to his depiction of OS's "transformation" from someone who, pre-transformation, was as morally and spiritually depraved as AG, but who, unlike AG, took the redemption-worthy fork in the road of Destiny. Spielberg attempts to show the viewer that there ARE people who, unlike OS, "just don't get it" when it comes to spiritual and humane concepts like mercy, and who consequently, (with Spielberg playing God,) "just don't get it," i.e., mercy, when their day of reckoning comes.

Your examples, as I read them, convey SS's belief that AG (the Germans) is a monkey with the gun who is confounded and stymied b/c "neanderthals" are incapable of grasping the idea that love and respect generate loyalty and sacrifice, while he is only capable of understanding/generating fear. Spiels' depiction of Goethe as a "not quite fully evolved" almost-human who looks upon the relatively basic concepts of "love" and "compassion" like a cannibal or an aborigine attempting to grasp Subatomic Physics. But the most damning aspect of SS's Schindler rendition; one that I think outweighs the various counterpoints you've cited in your comment, is the final "pi ata" scene. You may disagree, but this is TOO excessively inhumane, gratuitously vengeful and unnecessarily violent of a final statement with which to leave viewers in a movie meant to extoll the virtues of Schindler's HUMANITY and decry the desensitization to human suffering that enabled the Holocaust horrors in the first place. Regretably, it effectively "colors" and compromises all the scenes that precede it (i.e., the entire movie,) with not only the dehumanizing message of which I speak in my op, but one that insidiously suggests that gratuitous violence and abject cruelty are appropriate when used by the "good guys" do to the "bad guys" what the bad guys did to the good guys first. Ultimately, because of its placement and its unforgettable resonance, it shifts the overall message of the film to one of bloodlust and vengeance; not one of mercy and healing.

Re: your statement: ["For it to accomplish what you want it would have to be much, much longer;"]

--WHY? --HOW SO, WILL? ...On the contrary, I'm convinced it would actually result in the movie becoming SHORTER, because in my conception, "length" would be removed in favor of "depth." Any new input would be added concurrently; in layers (like a 3-D hologram.) Additionally, I would bring the central focus back more towards the conflicts and hardships encountered by the krakow jews and waste less story-time whipping up gratuitous hate using Commandante Goethe as my on-screen "punching-pi ata." This would free me up to chronologically cross-reference concurrently-running subplots thereby enabling them to fill in each other's plot progressions.

Your Thoughts? --29th

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This review was written for inclusion in the Reflections of Hope Write-Off, hosted by GinaHill and Angelabar, and whose actual post date was scheduled on May 15, 2001. Please take time to visit the other participants reviews which can be found at: http://www.pronetisp.net/~anjuliz/hope.html, a special webpage designed by Angelabar for this write-off. You might want to keep this page in your favorites as there are other Write-Off pages created by Angelabar - for past, present and future Write-Offs.

The participants include: 29th_Candidate, AdaDavis, Angelabar, danni_d, darkmistress, debbie26, Dr_Steph, Ed_Grover, ezreka, fallyn96, fjbpab, flamepillar, fragglemom, ginahill, hawgwyld, jankp, jkkelley, jo.com, khahn86351, kittyokc, mellkinwa, missy32, murasaki, nwinston, phineaskc, roark_8, Sordid-1, Sloucho, SurgRN911, Sumo_Rhino, Westerbear my apologies for the lateness of my posting time.

Thank you for reading and, as always, I welcome any comments; positive negative or otherwise.

Thank You For Your Thoughtful Read,

The 29th_Candidate