Schindler’s List (1993)
By PaulThis list… is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.
I first saw Schindler’s List in the theater a few months into its initial run and just days before its sweep at the Oscars. When it was over, I witnessed something I’d not seen much in years of movie going. As the credits rolled and the lights came up, the audience filed out in an almost reverent silence, like mourners leaving a state funeral. Clearly, the film had the same impact on everyone else in the theater that it had on me.
Schindler’s List begins in 1939 as Nazi Germany solidifies its hold on conquered Poland. Failed businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) has a simple plan to make his fortune. He will exploit the insatiable needs of the German Army in wartime and employ less expensive Jewish workers from the Krakow ghetto. He hires Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to run the business while he acts as front man.
As the war progresses, the situation of the Jews in Krakow grows even more dire, until the ghetto is “liquidated” and the residents herded into a concentration camp run by Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes), a petulant sociopath who now has a government-endorsed license to kill.
Slowly, prodded by Stern, Schindler begins to protect his workers from Göth and the Nazis. When it is learned, late in the war, that Göth’s camp will be emptied and the inmates sent to Auschwitz, Schindler uses the fortune he has amassed during the war to bribe Göth to let him take as many of the Jews as he can to Czechoslovakia. Schindler directs Stern type of a list of the approximately 1,100 people who will be taken out of the camp and, it is hoped, saved.
While the stylistic flourishes at a minimum, there are still some very effective devices. In at least three sequences, at the beginning as Jews are herded into the ghetto, when Schindler and Stern make the list and finally when those on the list report to be transported to Czechoslovakia, there is a theme of the recitation of names. This repetition serves two very important purposes. It establishes the identity of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust as individuals, and not a faceless mass of statistics. It also clearly establishes the trait that binds them to a common fate, their Jewishness. I don’t think its an accident these sequences are included, as director Steven Spielberg says that directing this film helped him rediscover his heritage.
Another aspect of the film that intrigues me is the triangular relationship between the three central characters. Each one, Schindler, Stern and Göth seeks approval from another member of the trio. Göth sees Schindler as possessing the worldliness and sophistication that he aspires to. Schindler sees Stern’s basic humanity and seeks confirmation that he, too, is a good person. Stern requires Göth’s approval simply because his disapproval is a death sentence.
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About the author:
Paul's cat has violent mood swings between ennui and apathy.
January 22nd, 2006 at 7:13 am
I saw Schindler’s List ages after it was released on the big screen. I avoided seeing it because of all of the hype. I figured, “why see it? I’ll only be disappointed because no film could possibly live up to the rave reviews that it is receiving.”
Needless to say, when I finally did see it, I was impressed and pleasantly surprised.