The Holocaust is one of the worst showcases of the depths of unconscionable behavior in the history of the human race. You get a sickness in your stomach having to explain to a child that a group of people (the Nazis) attempted to murder an entire race of people (the Jews) from the planet because they were Jewish. So how does one create a captivating film about subject matter so bleak? Steven Speilberg, the auteur that he is, tells it by surrounding the atrocity with an amazing story of heroism. Schindler’s List finds the greatness of us around the darkness within us, and has been the defining film about the Holocaust since its release.
In Warsaw, while Jews are being placed by the Gestapo into the ghetto there, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a proud member of the Nazi party and savvy businessman, moves into town to open a factory. Seeing the Jews as essentially slave labor, Schindler hires Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to use his connections to the black market to open the factory on the cheap, so Schindler make his products and bribe the SS to leave him alone. Schindler’s mind starts to change with the arrival of Amon Goeth, (Ralph Fiennes). Goeth is in charge of building a concentration camp near Krakow. Goeth monstrously treats his maid Helen (Embeth Davidtz) and the other Jews in the Ghetto like object he can shoot or assault as he wishes. Schindler is horrified by this behavior, and turns his factory into a front that does nothing but keep Jews safe from the clutches of the Nazis.
The purging of the Warsaw ghetto is up there with the storming of D-Day beach as one of the most powerful scenes Spielberg has ever created from the director’s chair. A scene like can so easily be too disgusting (exploitative), too timid (undercutting the movie’s message), or too darkly funny (also undercutting the message). Spielberg navigates this minefield in amazing ways. There’s some mild heroism within the horror, like a Gestapo boy helping a girl he likes hide from the Nazis, and some dark, dark, dark, humor like an SS officer saying he can’t wait for the night to be over for a MUCH different reason than the residents there. Spielberg also keeps the point of view at Schinder’s level, so we are watching it from above, like an omniscient narrator, forced to take in all the disturbing images at once. Most importantly, like Jaws, the director utilizes his greatest learned asset: imply what is happening, because the audience will fill in the blank with a more powerful image than you can. So Spielberg sets us up with just cold-blooded murders in the morning of the purge, letting us know how depraved the SS officers were, putting the audience on edge for what might come next. And then we get to…nighttime, already making the scene scarier. There’s a scene where someone is quietly trying to escape and makes a noise, and then it happens: the soldiers enter the room but the audience doesn’t, and (this is a black and white movie) the blackness turns blindingly white with gunshots. Then the movie pans out, and we see that same image across multiple rooms and buildings…just stomach churning. That image haunted me weeks after I saw the film and I am impressed and horrified whenever I revisit the film. What Spielberg depicts these soldiers doing to those poor kids, wives, husbands for that movie stretch represents the key scene where the movie pivots, and Schindler’s character starts to change, much like we might were we in his position.
But Spielberg doesn’t stop there. Using an amazing script from Steve Zaillian, we get introduced to some amazing characters. Liam Neeson gives a star making performance as Oskar Schinder. Instead of beating his opponents into submission like he usually does, Neeson gives Schindler a charismatic persona, able to sell anything to anyone. But as he learns what is being done to his workers, he changes on the inside, but remains cognizant to keep the SS happy while he subtly undermines them. The scene where Schindler breaks down and wishes he could have helped more people is heartbreaking because of how well Neeson sells Schindler’s transformation. Ben Kingsley is subtly great is Itzhak Stern; Kingsley and Neeson talk around what they really want to try to convince each other what to do, without overtly saying it so they don’t get in trouble and upset the power balance, impressive to pull off. Embeth Davidtz gives a heartbreaking portrayal of Helen Hirsch, a woman completely trapped in a powerless situation. However, Ralph Fiennes is the breakest of breakout actors here with his portrayal of Amon Goeth. Fiennes doesn’t shy away from how reprehensible Goeth is, gleefully shooting Jews from his balcony and treating it like casual work. Then when Helen Hirsch shows up, Goeth is extremely attracted to her, and hates himself for liking a lesser creature in his eyes. Watching Fiennes inner conflict lash out in violent, terrible ways is so well executed it patterns behavior in closeted gay men, and provides a horrific man some complexity that at least humanizes the monster, sometimes making him scarier because we can relate.
A truly great movie changes you after you see it. There’s no going back. Schindler’s List is an example of a great movie. After watching Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece, you feel like you understand something better, and hope to be good enough to not repeat the mistakes of the past. This movie is also a great example of why rewatchability isn’t the most important factor in movie quality; in fact, if you immediately want to rewatch Schindler’s List, I have many questions for you…