Schindler's List is based on the novel by Thomas Keneally, with the film released in the United States in December 1993. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the movie includes a cast of stars including Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagalle and Embeth Davidtz. It was produced by Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen and Branko Lustig, with screenplay by Steven Zaillian, cinematography by Janusz Kaminski and music by John Williams.
Schindler's List was the winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Liam Neeson, Best Supporting Actor for Ralph Fiennes, Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Original Score for John Williams. Further accolades include winning seven British Academy Awards, winning the Best Picture Award from the New York Film Critics Circle, winning the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Golden Globe Award and Spielberg winning the Directors Guild of America Award for directing the film.
Film Overview
The film is set in Poland in World War II, at the time when Poland was occupied by Nazi's. The primary theme of the film is the events of the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews. The central character is Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, a Nazi businessman who recruits Jews to work in his factory, saving them from death in doing so. While he begins the film recruiting the Jews only for his own needs, by the end of the film he is actively trying to save them, and saves the lives of over 1200 Jews. The film is essentially about the Holocaust, presenting the horror and truth of the holocaust to a modern audience by combining a number of stories into a film. The end result is a film that presents the human side of the Holocaust in all it's tragic reality.
The Story Told
Schindler's List does not tell only one story but combines several. The first story told is that of Oskar Schindler, the Nazi businessman who became a hero, saving over 1200 Jews. Schindler is not your typical hero and has few heroic qualities. He is a shrewd businessman, best at lying, bribing and his life to save these Jews. These are the heroic actions of an unheroic character. The general plot of the film is about the changes that Schindler goes through.
The second story in the film is the presentation of the horror of the holocaust. The movie is based on real events and the film ensures that the horror of this period of time is not lost on the viewer. It shows how the Nazi's yielded their power and how the Jews were cruelly slaughtered, the tragedy of these real historical events becoming quite clear.
The third story is that of Amon Goeth, a Nazi commander with intense hatred for Jews. Even with this hatred, he falls in love with a Jewish housekeeper, Helen Hirsch. We see his intense hatred for Jews as he lashes out at Hirsch, disgusted by his own behavior as much as anything. Goeth gives a human face to the Nazi cruelty. Rather than seeing the people who persecuted the Jews only as a group of Nazi's, Goeth allows this group of Nazi's to be seen as human characters. It is a striking effect in that the viewer is able to see the human struggle that existed in the Nazi's and the cruel motivations that fed them. The stories of minor characters throughout the film also add to the impact of the film. While knowing that thousands were shot should be seen as tragedy, the tragedy becomes more personal when we see how an individual suffered. The individual stories told through the minor characters include Danka Dresner and her mother who struggle to avoid death and to stay together, a Jewish couple who marry in the Plaszow camp and the rabbi who survives a very close encounter with the Nazi's.
It is these stories of the minor characters that create an emotional reaction from the viewer, the plight…
As with any production coming from Hollywood, the audience expects Schindler's list to present numerous false facts only because the director wants to add continuity to the film's plot. There are several cliches meant to captivate the audience and reach their hearts. The scene where Schindler watches the little girl dressed in red running through the crowd is clearly an act of fiction. Also, the episode in which the German
Hitler's anti-Semitism was an integral compound of German nationalist ideology in its radical form and his ideas of Holocaust and expropriations from Jews were met with enthusiasm of Nazi fanatics. Such practices led to the feudalist brutalism, as a majority of German military enterprises were using slave labor of Jews and Slavs, turning on of the most democratic European economies, into a totalitarian one, which practiced slave labor. Besides mercantilism
The interaction between the two is also symbolic of the innocence of the prewar state. Before the war, interactions and romantic interludes between Jew and Caucasian were no problem. During the war, however, Jews were marginalized to the point where they were no longer recognized as human beings. This is symbolized by the harsh treatment of an old Jewish man by a Nazi soldier, also during the beginning scenes.
War Films Taking Jeanine Basinger at her word would leave us with far fewer war films than we think we have. Basinger is a 'strict constructionist,' accepting as war films only those that have actual scenes of warfare (Curley and Wetta, 1992. p. 8; Kinney, 2001, p. 21). That means that the four films that will be considered here, and especially the two World War II films, are not war films.
Holocaust Studies Main characters in Schindler's List Oskar Schindler During the Holocaust, Oskar Schindler who is a womanizer, war profiteer, and a Nazi member becomes the unexpected savior and hero of approximately 1,100 Polish Jews. He is a swindler and a moderately successful businessman who takes advantage of wartime to gain financial success. His business includes buying an enamelware factory previously owned by a Jew and using ingratiation and bribery to get
Stylistically, the combination of documentary and what Spielberg was used to seeing in war films gives the picture a sark look -- not beautiful, not inviting, but touching nonetheless. Filmworkers, though, are now so used to filming in color that the production designer had to redo the sets to make them darker or lighter in contrast to the actors. The costumes, as well, had to be of a different color
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