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DVD Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition)
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.
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 dramatizing the delicate diplomacy and determination with which he carried out his generous deeds.
As a drinker and womanizer 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
Review(s): DVD Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition)
SPIELBERG'S VERY BEST
The genius that is Spielberg at his best. So many moving scenes, especially the children seeking shelter from the Nazi's. What really stands out in my mind, is the little girl wearing the red coat in an all black-and-white film. Her fate is followed to the end. A very sad end. Nothing from Spieleberg, or any other director had ever been portrayed with such powerful effect. No other film even comes close to the horrors portrayed with such realism. Liam Neeson seems ten feet tall in the role of Oskar Schindler. How freely man is willing to unload his deadly weapon upon a fellow human being, when blinded by prejudice. And the real truth, is that nothing can even begin to tell the horrors that really went on.
Tremendous teaching tool
As a World History teacher I highly recommend this video for teaching the Holocaust. It makes you feel as if you are actually there. If you are interested in using it as a teaching tool parts maybe chosen to present to students to demonstrate the various aspects of the Holocaust. I have used it several times in the classroom to demonstrate various points about the Holocaust. You can show a ten minute selection from the film and then have the student write about their impressions of the clip they just saw. Personally the video when watched in one setting had a tremendous impact on me - I don't say this about many movies.
A Very Important Film
I guess the title of the review says it all, but I'll be a little more specific for an information hungry audience. If you look at the top 10 films on The American Film Institute's Top 100, you'll find that none of the films were made past the 1970's. In fact, only one of them is even made in the '70s. Eight of the films weren't released after the '50s. The only film in that top 10 to bypass those two eras is this film (which is at #9). Why though? This isn't the first or last film about the Holocaust. Is it because it's one of the most commercial of those films? No. Is it because Steven Spielberg is in the director's chair? Again, no. There are many contributing factors to this film's popularity and brilliance and few of those reasons are because of something you may think. To make a completely accurate film that displays every horror of the Holocaust would be impossible. It's the same with September 11th, which is why two films (United 93 and World Trade Center) have built stories around the event...Which is exactly what this film does. It takes a tragic event and instead of using it as the plot, merely uses it as the setting. It builds from this, the story and plot. The main character, Oskar Schindler, is played in an Oscar-worthy performance by Liam Neeson. An actor most people may know by now as Qui-Gon Jinn in "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace." Schindler had no success in business before or after the holocaust and if not for his braveness, would no doubt not be remembered today. Schindler lives in Poland and is a part of the Nazi party. When we meet Schindler he is at a nightclub filled with Nazi officers. He sends them drinks and is soon sitting at tables with them. Spielberg (or is it screenwriter Steve Zaillian) makes it clear from the beginning, without really telling you...Schindler is a conman. As thousands of Jews are killed left and right, Schindler begins planning on opening a factory. The factory will make pots and pans, the workers will be jews. They won't be paid a cent and he will profit from it. He sounds like your typical Nazi, which is exactly what his Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley, who is amazing) thinks as well. You probably already know this, but I'll tell you anyway. Schindler's plan was not to make money off the Jews, but to save them from death.
It's a big con that Schindler doesn't admit to until the end of the film. If Schindler looked into the camera at the beginning of the movie and explained himself, rather than just being presented as we watch his con unfold, this film wouldn't work as well. Every film, no matter how small, contains it's hero and it's villain. The villian in this film should be the Holocaust, but they focus is on a character...In this case it's Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes, who plays the character perfectly). It's clear from when we first meet Goeth, that he's not sane. To quote Roger Ebert, "War masks his underlying nature as a serial killer." You could easily rank Goeth right up there with Hannibal Lecter, on a list of Evil Characters in Film. (Ironically, Fiennes played a serial killer in the prequel to "The Silence of the Lambs,"
Red Dragon.) With the exception of the opening of the film and the ending,
the film is shot entirely in black and white. I don't know if color would have made the film any different, but if that was the case then we would lose one of the most haunting scenes of the film. The only color that appears between the beginning and the end is a young girl wearing red clothing. She, herself, is black&white but her clothes are bright red. This scene could've been erased from the film, but the way it's done will cause you to remember. This film contains one of the most uplifting and amazing stories ever set to film, with amazing acting, and (most importantly, I think) it's entertaining. Is it the 9th best film ever made? I don't know about that. Is it one of the hundred most important films ever made? No. It's probably one of the fifty most important films ever made.
GRADE: A
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