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Schindler's List [1993]
![Schindler's List [1993]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418PH0YVWVL._SL160_.jpg)
By employing Jews in his crockery factory manufacturing goods for the German army, Schindler ensures their survival against terrifying odds. At the same time, he must remain solvent with the help of a Jewish accountant (Ben Kingsley) and negotiate business with a vicious, obstinate Nazi commandant (Ralph Fiennes) who enjoys shooting Jews as target practice from the balcony of his villa overlooking a prison camp. Schindler's List gains much of its power not by trying to explain Schindler's motivations, but by dramatising the delicate diplomacy and determination with which he carried out his generous deeds. As a drinker and womaniser who thought nothing of associating with Nazis, Schindler was hardly a model of decency; the film is largely about his transformation in response to the horror around him. Spielberg doesn't flinch from that horror, and the result is a film that combines remarkable humanity with abhorrent inhumanity--a film that functions as a powerful history lesson and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the context of a living nightmare. --Jeff Shannon
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Steven Spielberg had a banner year in 1993. He scored one of his biggest commercial hits that summer with the mega-hit Jurassic Park, but it was the artistic and critical triumph of Schindler's List that Spielberg called "the most satisfying experience of my career." Adapted from the best-selling book by Thomas Keneally and filmed in Poland with an emphasis on absolute authenticity, Spielberg's masterpiece ranks among the greatest films ever made about the Holocaust during World War II. It's a film about heroism with an unlikely hero at its center--Catholic war profiteer Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), who risked his life and went bankrupt to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps.
Editorial
Synopsis
Based on a true story, Schindler's List is Steven Spielberg's epic drama of World War II Holocaust survivors and the man who unexpectedly came to be their saviour. Unrepentant womaniser and war profiteer Oskar Schindler uses Polish Jews as cheap labour to produce cookware for the Third Reich. But after witnessing the violent liquidation of the walled ghetto where the Krakow Jews have been forced to live, Schindler slowly begins to realise the immense evil of Nazism. When his employees are sent to a work camp, they come under the terrorising reign of sadistic Nazi Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes). With the help of his accountant, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), Schindler creates a list of 'essential' Jews. Bribing Goeth, Schindler manages to get 1,100 people released from the camp and brought to the safety of his munitions factory in Czechoslovakia. Spielberg's glorious film is wondrously evocative, visually stunning, and emotionally stirring.
A dedication
Review date: 2008-06-16 Rating: 10 out of 10
Oskar Schindler was a maverick Sudeten German industrialist, who put his life and livelihood on the line to save 6,000 Jews from the Nazi death machine.
This is his story, but not his story alone. It is also the story of the 6 million Jews who perished in Hitler's holocaust, and the 6 000 who where saved by Oscar Schindler.
The movie is masterfully portrayed, and was indeed true to the book by Thomas Keneally.
It is three harrowing hours about the unspeakable horrors visited upon the Jewish men, women and children who Hitler and his Nazi Party had decided had to die.
The images that take place in the movie will stay in your mind forever.
The antagonist to the compassion of Oscar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is the sadistic monster, the SS Commandant Amon Goeth. Schindler and Goeth are both members of the Nazi Party in high standing, who mixes in the same circles, and both make splash at the debauched Nazi parties held at Goethe's villa. But their reaction to the merciless slaughter is diametrically opposed. It brings out the man of compassion in Schindler, and the psychopathic demon in Goeth.
During the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto, we see even the difference in their mistresses. After Schindler and his mistress Ingrid have gone for a morning ride, they observe from a hilltop the horrors the SS are visiting among the Jewish population of the Warsaw ghetto. And Ingrid visibly upset says " Oscar, let's get out of here"
Goeth on the other hand is taking pot-shots at the Jews on the streets below with his hunting rifle. His mistress Majola, simply sighs and says `Amon, you are such a dammn child.' irritated that she has been woken by the gunshots, and that she is not receiving Goeth's attention, but completely cold to the slaughter going on around her.
But two scenes stood out most in my mind.
That of as beautiful Jewish girl child, of about four years of age, in a bright red jacket, which is the only colour plate in the black and white movie. Schindler observes this angelic child making her way through the crowds of Jews who are being herded out the ghetto by the Nazis. We see the little girl hiding under a bed, terrified, and that is the last time we see her, before we see later in the movie, her mangled little body, being wheeled to the crematorium on a trolley, identified by her red jacket.
The story of the little girl in red made me think of another child. A beautiful and vivacious child, who was murdered 60 years later by Arafatian terrorists at Adura in Judea, as she hid terrified under her parent's bed-Danielle Shefi.
G-D bless the lovely souls of the angels - the little girl in red who died at Auschwitz, and of Danielle Shefi, who died at Adura. . G-D bless the souls of all Jewish children murdered by the enemies of the Jews and of Israel.
The other scene that brought tears to my eyes, was at the end of the movie where the Schindlerjuden march in the direction of Israel singing a hauntingly beautiful rendition of Yerushalayem Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold), before we see the Schindlerjuden and their children and grandchildren, in real life, placing stones on the grave of Oscar Schindler at the Christian cemetery in Jerusalem.
This movie must be shown to all high school students, so that they can be equipped to answer so many questions that are thrown at us today: Why did the Jews not rise up? , Why did the Nazis do what they did? Why did the people of Europe allow it to happen? Why do we need the State of Israel?
We are living through a time when the same hatreds are rising again. Hatred of Israel is the new form of anti-Semitism that has shown it's hideous face again. I look at the scene, near the beginning of the movie, where the Jews are being herded into the ghettoes , and a young Polish girl of about 11, is shouting `You bad Jews, you bad Jews'.
And I think of all the anti-Israel demonstrations taking place today, where the same voices of hate, and bloodlust are being raised.
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Reviews
Well worth watching, but lacks emotion for most of the film
Review date: 2008-06-05 Rating: 6 out of 10
It's taken me 15 years to watch this film and I'm pleased that I have, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) essentially puts together a list of 1,100 Jewish people whom he has used his personal fortune to essentially buy from the Nazis.
For me the first 2 hours mainly goes by without much incident and feel that much of this could easily have been cut from the general release at least, after this however this does get better with the final half hour being by far the most interesting and emotional part of the film.
This should have been a very emotional film, but for the best part lacks heart, Liam Neeson puts in an excellent performance, particularly in the final third, Sir Ben Kingsley is effective (if under used), but the letdown was the casting of Ralph Fiennes who just isn't a good enough actor for such an important role and film, he's okay, but that's it.
I'd recommend that you watch this film as it's such an important part of history, millions of Jewish people were slaughtered, Oskar Schindler was responsible for saving 1,100 Jews and deserves respect and our thanks for this act of human kindness, sadly his life after the war both financially and relationship wise were really quite bad.
I know this is a bit picky, but when Oskar Schindler asks for 3 minutes silence to be observed the "silence" in the film did not even last a minute, out of respect I think that this should have been honoured in it's entirety.
I've given this 3 stars, 2 for the first 2 hours and 4 for the last hour.
A tangible realistic portrail of the Holocaust
Review date: 2008-05-01 Rating: 10 out of 10
We all have a concept of the shoal or holocaust, learnt in school from santitised history books. I once visited the concerntration camp at dachau just outside Munchen, even walking through the entrance to the camp with the title 'arbiet macht Frei' emblazoned on the gates, or seeing the cramped bunks or the piles of shoes, hair and suitcases or seeing the massive showers that doubled as a gas chamber, this did not truely bring home fully the horrors of the final solution to me. Your imagination could try and fill the gaps of what is being shown to you, but your mind can not imagine the horror of what happened and how it must have been to find oneself caught up in this.
In reality we don't want to really know. This films fills those reality gaps that we find difficult to take in. The suffering and callousness that is portraed sets our knowledge of the holocasts into stark reality and gives us a realism of what it was like. It gives our learnt concept of the holoocaust a right old reality kick and makes one appraise what it was really about but alligned to that is the uplifting story of the actions of Oskar Schindler, who as a member of the Nazi party, womaniser and a blackmarkteer, become a hero by becoming determined to make a difference by saving over 1100 jews from certain death. It shows that even in the most desperate and forbidding times someone can stand up and make a difference.
If you haven't seen it it should be top of your to see list. The script setting, acting and photography combine to create one the greatest films of all time. I know for one it really created a better understanding of what occured
"Whoever Saves One Life, Saves The World Entire."
Review date: 2008-02-16 Rating: 10 out of 10
After his many commercial blockbusters, it may have seemed odd that Steven Spielberg would turn his Midas-touching hand to something as 'serious' as Thomas Keneally's non-fiction novel 'Schindler's Ark' (1982). Amazingly, Spielberg started working on it before JURASSIC PARK had even been completed, and edited both simultaneously using a Warsaw TV station and a satellite link. Some artistic licence was taken, though; both Ben Kingsley's character `Itzhak Stern' and his actions were actually a composite of three men: Itzhak Stern (Schindler's accountant), Mietek Pemper (Amon Göth's stenographer) and Abraham Bankier (DEF's manager) - these latter two are not mentioned at all in the film - whilst the mercurial Marcel Goldberg (Göth/Plaszow's personnel clerk) was the one who actually drew up The List.
Both effort to the highest production values and attention to even the minutest detail in the making of this film were - and still are - impressive. Being shot in harsh but crisp black & white lent a noirish 'docudrama' effect. Cloying sentiment is deliberately absent, save for Itzhak Perlman's mournful violin and `Red Genia;' alone and bewildered, running around aimlessly during the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, she is there to tug at the viewer's heartstrings ... and does so successfully. Both the portrayal and 'quality' of the gunshot executions is uncomfortably brutal and realistic (eg. Diana Reiter, the female University of Lublin engineering graduate). SCHINDLER'S LIST was filmed entirely in Poland. Dialogue coaches were brought in to get the pronunciation and syntax of various central and eastern European accents exactly right - both those of the former Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans living in enclaves abroad) and of the Axis partners alike. Like John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) said in the dinosaur movie, "Spared no expense ..."
The film was not without controversy, of course. The Muslim world refused to allow its screening - Malaysia initially gave it a release, then withdrew that after 'suggestions' from brethren Muslims elsewhere. And of course the neo-Nazis, career-Revisionists and standard-issue anti-Semites regarded it as science-fiction anyway. Even in the Western world there were those who felt that using emaciated Croatians recently released from Serb 'concentration-camps' as nude extras for the degrading scenes of running around Plaszow camp ... was pushing the bounds of good taste.
I saw this film on a rainy afternoon in the once-great ABC cinema in Norwich, several weeks after release when the mad rush had subsided. There were only ca. fifty people in the auditorium, spread out. During some of the more horrific scenes (such as Amon Göth's potshots off the balcony [in reality he did so from a nearby hill] and his farcical 'execution' of rabbi Levartov [the hinge-maker] ... clearly, Göth rarely bothered to maintain his pistol's serviceability) one was able to observe other viewers' reactions. With the exception of one lady a few rows in front of me, it was the stoïc resignation (or so it appeared in the gloom) of a consumerist society inured to cinematic violence and brutality. But this one lady flinched with every gunshot, gasped at every callous act, and wept openly during the final rock-laying tribute. Unusually sensitive? Perhaps reliving personal experiences? Actually, I quietly applauded her ... for not losing her humanity, nor her ability to be shocked by scenes however well-filmed, and for Feeling Something.
SCHINDLER'S LIST is about the Krakow Jews, but is a simile for what was happening throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. The barbarity of the Endlösung - the scenes of the piles of chalked suitcases, stacks of shoes, shelves of precious metal ornaments and jewelled trinkets, and boxes of extracted gold teeth - reminds us of the large-scale organized theft of property as well as the deliberate, state-sponsored theft of Life (there were even efforts to use human body oils to produce ersatz soap, but manufacture thereof proved to be "un-economic"). Particularly harrowing - for us, the audience - is the frightful anticipation when the anguished and terrified women, misrouted to Auschwitz instead of to Brünnlitz, are shorn of their hair, have to strip naked and crowd into a shower-room ... but instead of the expected Zyklon-B ... it is a shower. Less fortunate are a column of others, entering a building above which towers a large chimney belching smoke ...
It is unfair to hold the excesses of the Second World War (and there were so many) against the German people. The vast majority of Germans, reeling from humiliation at Versailles and utter impoverishment following the 1923 and 1929 economic crises, were mesmerized by dazzling promises of progress into a never-never land of perceived achievement(s), to the extent that the 'downside' - never mentioned by Goebbels' all-pervasive Ministry of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment until Russian artillery was pulverizing Berlin - was overlooked. And the most inhuman Germans were not alone in their anti-Semitism: auxiliaries from the Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania and Latvia - and even Poles (eg. the hatred in the little Polish girl's cries, "Goodbye Jews ... Goodbye Jews ...") - often outdid German SS guards in reaching indescribable depths of sickening cruelty and sadism at such generally-unknown places as Vilnius Fort No. 9, Ponary and Maly Trostinets. An entire people are never evil ... only individuals are evil.
Could it happen again? Well, as long as there are Human Beings on the planet ... yes. Unfortunately, ignorance, intolerance, bigotry and spite are very much human traits. L.P. Hartley said, "The past is another country, they do things differently there," whilst Hegel reminds us that, "He who does not learn from the past is doomed to repeat it." For there have been several such repeats since 1945: Pakistan-India, Tibet, Zaïre, Vietnam, Cambodia, Moçambique, Kurdistan, Eritrea, Somalia, Burma, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Rwanda, East-Timor, Kossovo, Israel/Palestine, western Sudan ...
I wish I could give it less stars
Review date: 2007-11-26 Rating: 8 out of 10
OK, everyone knows how harrowing this film is. It's in Black & whits, except for the schmaltzy over the top "if you haven't cried yet, this'll really get you" ending where loads of people file past the Schindler's grave, it's just too hollywood and overstated, I'd also like to dock it points for stopping Stanley Kubrick from making his film which was in pre production about the holocaust, apparently he pulled the plug when he heard that Spielberg was making SL - what a pity.
I'd like to mark it down for many many reasons, but I can't because it's brilliant.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Ralph Fiennes
Embeth Davidtz
Caroline Goodall
Liam Neeson
Ben Kingsley
Creators:
Liam Neeson (Primary Contributor)
Ralph Fiennes (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Universal Pictures UK
Manufacturer: Universal Pictures UK
EAN: 5050582333268
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, PAL,
Release date: 2006-02-20
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 187 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1993
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: Turkish (Original Language)