The social importance of a Hollywood film comes to the forefront every few years. It must be marked with a sense of gratitude for the movie to be made. It is not just about content, but also the artistry that comes with it to convey those strong messages speaking to us on injustice from a dark chapter in history. World War II is a continuing fountain for such stories because of the depths of heroism and evil that touched everyone in the conflict, especially regarding the Holocaust. There are many films set on that subject and for Steven Spielberg, it was personal to him as a Jewish man. It was a film that took him a decade to get prepared emotionally for and he almost lost the film to his friend, Martin Scorsese. But, in 1993, after finishing Jurassic Park, Spielberg went to Poland to tackle this personal project.
The result was a masterpiece and one of the greatest films ever made in Hollywood. It made Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes major stars and introduced cinematographer Janusz Kaminski as one of our best cinematographers. Spielberg took a chapter from this dark moment in human history and converted it into a candle that still remains flickering. In a single jump cut, the candle that gets snuffed out sends us back to 1939 Poland. He brought back into the consciousness of America, and the world, the need to remember such crimes against humanity so they will never be duplicated again. Rather than preach about it, he adapted Thomas Kenneally’s book about Oskar Schindler (Neeson), the German manufacturer who went from war profiteer to savior of 1200 Jews who was bound for death until he paid for their survival.
The black-and-white visuals reflect the only thing being seen in newsreels. Noticeably, there are no crane or dolly shots. In keeping with the newsreel-like shooting, it was predominately handheld or on a tripod. Outside of the beginning and the end, the only thing in color is a little girl wearing a red coat which catches Oskar’s attention twice. Unlike previous films, Spielberg portrays in its horrible gore what victims were forced to do and how they were killed. He looked away when they filmed the scene of elderly Jews who had to run naked and show they were still fit. They built replicas of actual locations near where they originally stood and came up with the film’s epilogue while they were in the middle of principal photography.
In Steve Zailian’s script, he gives Schindler’s story in two parts. In the first half, he is all about keeping himself a successful businessman and finding beautiful women to be with, even though he is a married man. The first time we see him is in the club where he buys a Nazi officer and his date a drink. It is the first step of the process *in which he becomes the center of attention because of charisma, leading a waiter to tell an inquiring official with excitement, “That’s Oskar Schindler!” The second half is about a man who gradually realizes the extent of the Nazi’s cruelty and plan for the Jews. He is on horseback watching the liquidation of the ghettos and is deeply affected by the roundup and the mass killings, which is where the first sight of the girl in a red coat catches his eye. It is not instant, but his conscience shifts as it becomes more evident that the Germans will lose the war and all Nazi members, like him, will be found out.
Then, there is the personification of evil in Amon Goth (Fiennes), a psychopath who will kill anyone at random. He is bluntly misogynist and randomly kills for sheer sport. The blood runs cold through him, yet he develops a relationship with Schindler, even protecting him after he kisses a Jewish girl, which is illegal. But Goth is also a realist and not a zealot who fights to the end when he tells Schindler, “the party is over,” as the army is retreating from the east and people have to be evacuated towards Auschwitz. He is the one who asks Schindler how much each of his workers and their families are worth to him before Schindler gives the names to his accountant, Itzhak Stern, who types them.
In these scenes, the citizens affected by the occupation of Poland are forced into the ghetto, and their liquidation drops in the middle of what these harrowing moments were like. Families being forced to share a bedroom apartment, Nazis verbally abusing their captives, and the efforts they go to hide when the liquidation happens. Even the children get involved in the emotional turmoil as they even turn on themselves and reject rumors of the real truth, their extermination, in the camps. The story is about them as much as it is about Schindler and his change of heart. Their survival, how lucky they were, and the uncertainty afterward when a Russian soldier tells them they’ve been liberated, but says to neither go East nor West because Jews are still hated.
The reason Spielberg decided to push on with this project was because of the amount of Holocaust denial he was seeing. Tragically, this can be said about now with more anti-Semitic incidents in recent years. Spielberg refused a salary because he thought of it as, “blood money,” making a profit off the tragedy, and believed it would be a flop anyway. (It grossed $322 million from a $22 million budget.) The success of the film would not just give Spielberg his first Oscar for Best Director, but it would intensify the awareness of the Holocaust and why it has to be remembered. Thirty years after its release, the same emotions it invokes in those who see it are the same and is Spielberg’s finest artistic achievement.
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