SCHINDLER'S LIST Movie Review

1993 Steven Spielberg

Any filmmaker who chooses to deal with the Holocaust faces several serious problems. The first is deciding which story to tell. Conventional heroics are impossible; a realistic look at the horror is too appalling. In Thomas Keneally's fact-based novel, Steven Spielberg found the right balance of redemption and sorrow.

Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is an ambitious businessman who realizes that there is money to be made in war. In a masterful opening montage, Spielberg mixes the forced transfer of Polish Jews to cities after the Nazi occupation with Schindler making his own moves. As families register with bureaucrats who sit at folding tables and make their tidy lists, Schindler matches suits and ties, selects the right cufflinks, and pockets a hefty bankroll. The Jews are forced into their ghetto; Schindler goes to a nightclub where he wines and dines high-ranking Nazis. The two worlds come together when Schindler meets Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) and offers him a deal. Since Jews cannot own businesses, they should work together. Stern's contacts can provide financial backing. Stern himself can provide the expertise to run a business. Schindler will bring “panache.” “That's what I'm good at,” he says. “Not to work … the presentation.”

It may not be a fair deal, but once Schindler signs contracts to provide the Wehrmacht with cooking utensils, he is able to open an enamelware factory that provides several hundred Jews with jobs. Those jobs, and the documentation that goes with them, give the men and women a measure of safety as the Nazis' plans for the “final solution” grind inexorably forward to the March 13, 1943 liquidation of the Krakowghetto. That is one of the most harrowing series of scenes ever put on film, and it is matched by the concentration camp sequences that follow. In those scenes of mass chaos and slaughter, Spielberg uses a single spot of color to highlight one little girl. In the black-and-white world, her coat is red. It's almost the same shade as the jacket worn by the young protagonist of Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, in a similar situation when he's alone in a mob and trying to find his way home.

In those same scenes, Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) is introduced. Goeth is a flabby sociopath who comes to embody the evils of Nazi racism. He is in charge of the camp where the workers are housed and so must be bribed and pampered if Schindler is to stay in business. Goeth's excessive cruelty is also part of the reason that Schindler is transformed from war profiteer to crusader. The exact moment of that change is not shown, and it should not be shown. Though popular films are built around such epiphanies, that scene would be out of place in this careful film. Instead, it's an accretion of layered awareness that makes Schindler what he becomes. Though he is a selfish, undisciplined man who drinks too much and sleeps with too many women, he is moved by the mounting barbarism, cruelty, and savagery that surrounds him. Neeson's performance is built on a combination of self-confidence, indecision, and doubt. Though some have criticized Steven Zaillian's script on the grounds that it makes Schindler more altruistic than he really was, it does stick closely to historical fact in the numbers of people that Schindler saved from the Holocaust. In the same way, the real Goeth was even more monstrous than he is in the film. But if the full scope of his atrocities had been shown, the film would have been unbalanced. As it is, Spielberg pushes the limit, showing as much of the horror as the screen will bear.

That horror is alleviated, slightly, by Janusz Kaminski's stunning black-and-white cinematography. It gives the violence an abstract, dreamlike quality that no form of color could have matched. He won an Academy Award for his work, and the American Society of Cinematographers placed the film at number five on its best-shot (1950–1997) list. John Williams's somber, almost unnoticed score adds to the melancholy tone. Any viewer might be able to find shortcomings somewhere in the collaborative effort, but to what point? Schindler's List demonstrates the potential of Hollywood filmmaking that is so rarely achieved. When the full financial resources of the industry and its best creative people are put in service of an important story, the results can be staggering.

Cast: Liam Neeson (Oskar Schindler), Ben Kingsley (Itzhak Stern), Ralph Fiennes (Amon Goeth), Embeth Davidtz (Helen Hirsch), Caroline Goodall (Emilie Schindler), Jonathan Sagalle (Poldek Pfefferberg), Mark Ivanir (Marcel Goldberg), Malgoscha Gebel (Victoria Klonowska), Shmulik Levy (Wilek Chilowicz), Beatrice Macola (Ingrid), Andrzej Seweryn (Julian Scherner), Friedrich von Thun (Rolf Czurda), Norbert Weisser (Albert Hujar), Michael Schneider (Juda Dresner), Anna Mucha (Danka Dresner); Written by: Steven Zaillian; Cinematography by: Janusz Kaminski; Music by: John Williams; Technical Advisor: Leopold Page. Producer: Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig, Kathleen Kennedy, Amblin Entertainment; released by Universal. Awards: Academy Awards '93: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Director (Spielberg), Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Original Score; American Film Institute (AFI) '98: Top 100; British Academy Awards '93: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director (Spielberg), Best Film, Best Supporting Actor (Fiennes); Directors Guild of America Awards '93: Best Director (Spielberg); Golden Globe Awards '94: Best Director (Spielberg), Best Film—Drama, Best Screenplay; Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards '93: Best Cinematography, Best Film; National Board of Review Awards '93: Best Film; New York Film Critics Awards '93: Best Cinematography, Best Film, Best Supporting Actor (Fiennes); National Society of Film Critics Awards '93: Best Cinematography, Best Director (Spielberg), Best Film, Best Supporting Actor (Fiennes); Writers Guild of America '93: Best Adapted Screenplay; Nominations: Academy Awards '93: Best Actor (Neeson), Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Sound, Best Supporting Actor (Fiennes); British Academy Awards '94: Best Actor (Neeson), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Kingsley), Best Score; Golden Globe Awards '94: Best Actor—Drama (Neeson), Best Supporting Actor (Fiennes), Best Score; MTV Movie Awards '94: Best Film, Breakthrough Performance (Fiennes). Budget: 25M. Boxoffice: 317.1M. MPAA Rating: R. Running Time: 195 minutes. Format: VHS, LV, Letterbox, Closed Caption.