Schindler's List

I consider Steven Spielberg to be one of the best storytellers in the world of film, regardless of how many stars I give to Schindler's List. He is an excellent craftsman and storyteller. Some voices in the community of film fans sometimes argue that he is too commercial and that they only take Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan seriously from his work. I have the exact opposite feeling. Spielberg has always told fairy tales, whether for children or adults, and they are perfectly suited for relaxation and genre projects. Sci-fi, adventure stories, or fantasy from his workshop are usually treats. It's worse when he tries to enter the realm of high art and wants to do timeless, more serious work. Spielberg still uses similar or identical means as in his relaxation projects. In Schindler's List, several quite serious things bother me. First, the whole story is based on an artificially created myth, and even though its core is true, it ultimately sounds like Radio Yerevan reports. The facts are upside down here. Oskar Schindler was an adventurer, a Nazi not out of conviction but based on hard calculation, a manipulator, and a ruthless exploiter. Much negative can be said about him, and it would be much more accurate to despise and condemn him rather than admire him. Historical films usually approach the interpretation of historical facts languidly and only take from them what they need to achieve their goal or a partial effect. And usually, if it concerns distant history, viewers don't mind – except for historians and fans of historical science. But here it is so striking and concerns such a sensitive topic that it fundamentally bothers me. Schindler's real role has already been mapped by historians and completely contradicts everything Spielberg portrays in his film. In the labor camp, prisoners were mainly selected from the ranks of the Jewish police, collaborators, or those who had to pay. The conditions in the camp were very harsh, and its only advantage was that it was not systematically exterminationist, meaning that there were no gas chambers. Schindler was completely indifferent to the prisoners, and all he cared about was how to monetize their slave labor. By the way, neither Oskar Schindler nor anyone else saved any human lives. For those who were taken to the Protectorate, other prisoners had to be selected for liquidation… Another problem is Spielberg's typical squeezing of emotions, where possible, emotional manipulation, moving, blackmailing, and behaving like a typical blockbuster producer. Despite all this, he managed to convey the horrors of the Holocaust to the widest audience at a time when many decades had passed since the events and eyewitnesses were dying out, which is not insignificant. At the very least, the scene of the ghetto liquidation belongs among the memorable film moments. Overall impression: 60%. (01/18/2014)

If there is one single example of a film that is both excellent and thematically important, it is Schindler's List. Where else could you feel the indescribable horror and shame of the human deeds you have just seen, photographed in the most horrifying but at the same time most beautiful black and white composition imaginable? The scene with the little girl in the red coat, walking as a symbol of colourful innocence through pure hell, is probably the most powerful I have ever seen in a film, and it brings tears to my eyes every time; and even if it was the only one in the whole movie, I'd still never get this film out of my head – but it's not, not even close. Masterpiece. (05/05/2018)

What can I write about this film if I don’t want to just dryly pull out all of the superlatives and assign them to every single component of its filmmaking? Welles had Citizen Kane, Coppola The Godfather, Kubrick A Space Odyssey and Spielberg has Schindler’s List. Portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, Amon Goeth is the personification of the collapse of the human spirit responsible for the greatest tragedy in our history. John Williams’s score is the pinnacle of contemporary film music, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski is an idol to me as a lover of black-and-white composition and the extermination of the Krakow ghetto is one of the most horrifying scenes that I have ever witnessed in a film. With Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg fulfilled the purpose for which he became a director. And I would love to frame every shot from it and I wish that I could turn back time and prevent the events on which it is based. (05/27/2002)

I am sure I will only repeat what has been said many times about this immortal work of Steven Spielberg. For me, the film is actually perfect in every way. When strong emotions come, they do so without the need for manipulation, though of course it’s clear that given the subject matter, Spielberg had it easier in this respect at least – there is simply no emotional manipulation here either, we are "merely" being provided with the facts and it is up to each viewer how they can absorb these ancient facts or how the film ultimately affects them (how emotionally). In making Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg not only fulfilled his duty to the Jewish population, but also his duty to the entire world in ensuring that all generations of all nations are educated and informed about what man was capable of in the 1940s – both the most monstrous and the most noble. I waged an internal battle with the character of Oskar Schindler (the phenomenal Liam Neeson) for most of the film, and couldn't quite pin down his character or discern his intentions up until a certain point. The very respectable running time, in which there is not a single dead spot, gives a great amount of space to identify with the characters, their fates, and the fate they had to involuntarily accept. It's hard to say what Schindler's List would have been without Spielberg's evocative direction, likewise what it would have been without Zaillian's excellent screenplay, Williams' perfectly pitched soundtrack, or Janusz Kamiński's flawless cinematography. And did you notice that throughout the entire film, not once does the word "leader" appear in any language? (08/06/2011)

Someone once described Schindler's List as the building block of Holocaust film history. Its influence confirms this, of course. Nicky's Family is not the only project that has taken inspiration from it almost literally, as Steven Spielberg simply chose to speak a universal language for academics and ordinary people alike. (10/15/2022)