Topic: Schindler’s List (1993)

[Kathy]

Kathy why did you delete your post ?

I decided it was too sad - I hate sounding so depressing.

[Touti]

There's nothing wrong with expressing feelings, I think you should ask Karsten to put it back.

[Antares]

As to his skills as a film-maker in general, I hold him in very high regard, where you clearly don't! Looks like it really is another Tarantino. 

Actually, I hold him in much higher regard than I do Tarantino, Spielberg has made some good films in his career without resorting to sampling and plagiarism. 

I am not saying that Spielberg is not a master of his craft, quite the contrary, he 's a master at mesmerizing an audience through imagery and special effects. But when it comes to the use of subtle statement, he's quite amateurish.

Let's take for example, the scene where the Germans are rounding up the children for transfer. Spielberg tracks the shot of one child running through the camp searching for a place to hide. Every nook and cranny he comes to is already taken by another child desperately hoping to avoid detection. Finally he jumps through the open hole of the camp latrine and into the malodorous muck of human waste. Now you would think that this would be enough of a statement of desperation that no further exposition would be necessary, but you would be wrong. Spielberg now cuts to inside the trough, at eye level to the child, to bring the audience down into the horrendous hiding spot. We see the child covered in human excrement, shivering in fear and then a cut to other children who are already there, telling him that he has to leave.

Now, wouldn't this scene have been just as powerful if he had employed a little restraint by doing it this way...

The scene would play out exactly as before, except when we reach the point where the child jumps through the hole. Now instead of cutting to the child in the waste pit, the camera stays at the hole entrance. There is a slight moment of silence, then we hear the voices of the other children telling him to leave. The camera then pans to the open door of the latrine and we watch the chaos ensuing in the campground.

Well, what do you think? A lot more subtle, yet just as powerful without the cheap visual statement.

The implication, I'm sorry to say, is that if you learned anything from Spielberg's 'movie', you must be a gibbering moron.

  Once again Jon, I have to red card you. Never once in my review or my postings have I made that kind of statement.

[Antares]

Yesterday when I read Antares' review I didn't like it because of the first sentence which seemed like it was saying "Anyone who doesn't agree with me is wrong and didn't look at it the right way, if they had they could only come to the same conclusion I did".

  You read into something that was not there, and never my intent.

The op says "in a purely cinematic point viewpoint".  What is that ?  How does one watch and evaluate a movie from a purely cinematic viewpoint ?  Does it mean that I am supposed to block out everything the movie talks about and only look at the colors, the acting, the script and other technicalities ?

 

What I meant by that, is exactly what we have been discussing over the last few pages, the deification of this film as a de facto documentary of the Holocaust.

I reviewed this film from a viewer's standpoint, I took the blinders off and judged it for its artistic merit. The blinders being the general atmosphere surrounding this film that you could not criticize it because of its subject matter or who made it. Jon's earlier response of the films lofty position only enhances my statement. You may disagree, but I don't see it as a truly great film. And that is my whole point, its a good film, not a great one.

Everyone (talking in general, not necessarily about everyone here) seems to think that Schindler's list shows the holocaust and the horrors of WWW II and what the Nazi's have done.  I've never looked at it that way.  I think it's a movie showing that not everyone living in countries occupied by the Germans just put their head in the sand and willingly ignored what was happening.  Some were trying to do something and that's what this movie tells us.

Agreed 

[Kathy]

Wich post? She posted the 16th message and I haven't seen nothing after.

But Kathy if you have post a message to disagree on something we have posted it's ok (note that I've no idea of what message Eric talk about). We are between adults and friends here, everyone of us can say his/her opinions whatever it may been...

So Kathy please repost it, your point of view is as important than my point of view or the point of view of Jon.

I deleted it and have no idea how to get it back. Karsten if you can get it back I don't mind if you re-post it. It wasn't that interesting - just a sad story of my friends and families experiences during this time.

[goodguy]

I deleted it and have no idea how to get it back. Karsten if you can get it back I don't mind if you re-post it. It wasn't that interesting - just a sad story of my friends and families experiences during this time.

On the contrary, I found it to be very interesting and moving. Thank you for sharing that. I have no idea if Karsten can restore it, but I can offer this copy from my browser cache:

Although I found this film interesting it did not, or maybe it could not, impact me the way it has some of you. It might very well be because I am a lot older than most of you and my experiences were quite different.

My family was impacted directly by the atrocities that occurred during this time. The impact was far reaching and an entire generation or two was lost or altered forever. I have family and acquaintances who fought in WWII including former POWs. I was raised with an acute realization of the impact this war had on individuals as well as the world.

My maternal side of my family is German. My grandmother and her sister were born in the same house - one was born in Austria, the other Germany. They were forced to leave everything they had to come to America. My great grandmother and great grandfather would not talk about what they saw during this time. They were traumatized for the rest of their lives and refused to discuss anything that occurred before they came to America - that time ceased to exist.

On my paternal side, my grandparents were driven out of Poland and also were forced to leave everything behind. When they came to America, they even dropped their name - Tarapacki became Harris. It wasn't until my grandfather was about to graduate from high school that he took back a piece of his heritage. Denial of the past affected this side of my family also. It wasn't until very late in their lives that this side of my family started to open up about what happened.

I have found that people who lived and survived this period of time find it very difficult to discuss that part of their lives. It takes a long time and lots of trust to get them to discuss what happened. The reality of what they lived through was so much worse and can never be adequately brought to the screen - not by anyone who wasn't there, who didn't survive. Documentaries are the only medium, in my opinion, that can scratch the surface of the realities of that time.

Some of the most poignant moments of my life has been taking my friend's father, who was a POW, to his Veteran reunions. He opened up to me because, after multiple surgeries including the removal of most of his neck, shoulder and his tongue, I was one of the few who could understand him talk. He never discussed his past with his family - not ever. But, when he wanted to go to his first reunion after surgery he asked me to go to translate for him because of his disability. On the long drive there he opened up to me about that terrible time.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, most of his buddies were able to understand him. But he always wants me to take him and so I do - every year. All I do is nothing - nothing but listen and cry - it is the least I can do. 

[Najemikon]

Thank you for finding that, Matthias. And thank you for posting it in the first place, Kathy, and being so open. It's important to hear stories like that. While I don't want to open another discussion, it reminds me of Spielberg's reasons for making Saving Private Ryan. He said how his father would never speak of what happened, except when his friends would visit and even then, only between themselves.

As to his skills as a film-maker in general, I hold him in very high regard, where you clearly don't! Looks like it really is another Tarantino. 

Actually, I hold him in much higher regard than I do Tarantino, Spielberg has made some good films in his career without resorting to sampling and plagiarism. 

I am not saying that Spielberg is not a master of his craft, quite the contrary, he 's a master at mesmerizing an audience through imagery and special effects. But when it comes to the use of subtle statement, he's quite amateurish.

Let's take for example, the scene where the Germans are rounding up the children for transfer. Spielberg tracks the shot of one child running through the camp searching for a place to hide. Every nook and cranny he comes to is already taken by another child desperately hoping to avoid detection. Finally he jumps through the open hole of the camp latrine and into the malodorous muck of human waste. Now you would think that this would be enough of a statement of desperation that no further exposition would be necessary, but you would be wrong. Spielberg now cuts to inside the trough, at eye level to the child, to bring the audience down into the horrendous hiding spot. We see the child covered in human excrement, shivering in fear and then a cut to other children who are already there, telling him that he has to leave.

Now, wouldn't this scene have been just as powerful if he had employed a little restraint by doing it this way...

The scene would play out exactly as before, except when we reach the point where the child jumps through the hole. Now instead of cutting to the child in the waste pit, the camera stays at the hole entrance. There is a slight moment of silence, then we hear the voices of the other children telling him to leave. The camera then pans to the open door of the latrine and we watch the chaos ensuing in the campground.

Well, what do you think? A lot more subtle, yet just as powerful without the cheap visual statement.

The implication, I'm sorry to say, is that if you learned anything from Spielberg's 'movie', you must be a gibbering moron.

  Once again Jon, I have to red card you. Never once in my review or my postings have I made that kind of statement.

No, you're right, you didn't make that statement, but you did allude to it, even when you said that List was protected by political correctness. Honestly, in the UK, I have never come across anything like that and by suggesting it is, you're making me and others who say they were affected by it complicit in some degree. Either that or we're too daft and easily led to see what must be obvious. Eric did pick up the same vibe. To be honest, normally I wouldn't give a damn and I'm sure I've said similar about other films, but you're treading on what for me is a very special film.

I like Spielberg's style and I do think it is a lot more than just special effects in all his films. At his best, he is very David Lean-ish, no accident considering the urban legend about his love for Lawrence of Arabia. As for that scene, well, it won't surprise you to know I think it well judged and powerful, like the rest.

I know what you mean about your version of the scene, but there's a solid honesty about Spielberg's staging and he is always about detail (see the amount of work that goes into the most briefly used sets in any of his films). It's important that we switch almost to the child's POV to see the others though because the narrative emotion is following the child and if we only heard the other voice, it may feel like the film, in fact us, were rejecting the child. The other children's ruthlessness would be lost as well.

Overall I think it is superbly constructed. The way certain characters are followed and brought together is so graceful, and he shows excellent judgment on pacing. Yes there are 'cinematic' moments, but for me they never feel out of place. Where they are not needed, it is horribly stark. I always get the feeling that it is a journey into hell as it starts with some black humour (the family forced to move and thinking they have a large room for themselves; Kingsley getting stuck on the train), but such scenes gradually continue to give way; almost as if the characters are holding onto hope, but finally they have to give up and admit the sheer scale is too much. At that point, Schindler is well into his operation, so the narrative finds a new release for the viewer as we concentrate on his incredible efforts. But it is never glossed over that the wider situation is hopeless.

Why there is still discussion about movie versus documentary, I don't know. I've never seen it as anything other than a superb film and I'll say it again, a stepping stone to humanize the documentaries.

[Antares]

No, you're right, you didn't make that statement, but you did allude to it, even when you said that List was protected by political correctness.
Honestly, in the UK, I have never come across anything like that and by suggesting it is, you're making me and others who say they were affected by it complicit in some degree.

Maybe in the UK it has been that way, but over here in the States it definitely has not. It's as if this film is surrounded by a thick teflon veneer that you are not allowed to scratch.

Larry David, in an episode of Seinfeld, took a shot at this premise. Remember the episode where Jerry is caught by Newman making out with his girlfriend in the theater. Yes, the thought of making out during a film with a subject so horrifying is reprehensible, but David's point is that it is only a movie, and the thought that you must conform to the emotions of the masses around you in the theater is equally frightening.

Now if you feel that my opening statement is implying complicity, then I'm sorry, it wasn't my intent, but your false assumption.    

Look, let's just agree to disagree.
You think it's great, I think its good.
We both obviously like the film, who cares to what degree. 

[Touti]

Spielberg obviously wasn't only making a movie here, he wanted to convey a message.  If this will be done through a movie and it has to attract people and the only way to do that is to add some "cinematic moments".  I think the concept is pretty simple here, make a movie that will attract the mass and hope that a reasonable portion of it will see past what hits the eye.

Because of what I've said in my first post in this topic I think this movie is important and that there should be more like it.  We've seen countless movies in the last 60 years about the Allies and the Nazi's but there isn't that many about the unknown heroes of that war, those who have done unbelievably courageous things, outside of the armies and risking their own lives, people that hardly anyone ever heard of.  Their stories should told and remembered, it's important.  I knew such a man and tell my friends about him whenever I have a chance.

[Najemikon]

Look, let's just agree to disagree.
You think it's great, I think its good.
We both obviously like the film, who cares to what degree. 

Fair enough...

Spielberg obviously wasn't only making a movie here, he wanted to convey a message.  If this will be done through a movie and it has to attract people and the only way to do that is to add some "cinematic moments".  I think the concept is pretty simple here, make a movie that will attract the mass and hope that a reasonable portion of it will see past what hits the eye.

Because of what I've said in my first post in this topic I think this movie is important and that there should be more like it.  We've seen countless movies in the last 60 years about the Allies and the Nazi's but there isn't that many about the unknown heroes of that war, those who have done unbelievably courageous things, outside of the armies and risking their own lives, people that hardly anyone ever heard of.  Their stories should told and remembered, it's important.  I knew such a man and tell my friends about him whenever I have a chance.

Another excellent summation, Eric. But I'm intrigued to know about the man you knew.

[Antares]

Look, let's just agree to disagree.
You think it's great, I think its good.
We both obviously like the film, who cares to what degree. 

Fair enough...

Thank God, I was getting carpal tunnel from all the responses I was typing. 

[Touti]

Another excellent summation, Eric. But I'm intrigued to know about the man you knew.

All I know about his time in Europe is what my mother told me, I've known him since the age of 5 and until he died 20 years ago but I never discussed it with him.  As Kathy stated earlier today, many don't want to talk about it, I suppose it brings back memories.

Well anyway, here's what I know of him, his name was Max and you better get yourself something to drink because this is gonna be a long read.

He was born in a Romanian Jewish family during the first war or shortly after.  When he was around 18 he left Romania and moved to France where he became a doctor.  If I'm not mistaking, in the late 1930's the Nazi's were using the medias to lure Jews that had left back into the country by making false promises of jobs and a better life.  I am not sure this is related to that but at some point he received a letter from his father who was telling him not to believe anything he'd hear on the radio or read in the papers, to stay in France and never go back to Romania.  So in France he stayed.  When the German armies invaded and occupied France, he joined the resistance to fight the Nazis.  I don't know the circumstances but he got caught by the Germans with his friends and was sent in a camp in Belgium.

Since he was arrested in France with the resistance, the Germans didn't know he was Jewish so they kept him there instead of deporting him to a death camp.  During his stay there, as a doctor he was forced to care for Nazi's, mostly Gestapo and army officers.  As I understand it they didn't care much for the regular soldiers and they wouldn't mind letting one die of bad injury or disease to give priority to a Gestapo member or an officer regardless of how insignificant his sickness or injury was.

Once he told my mother the story of this German that they brought him, I think he had been in a tank that was shot or that he walked on a mine.  I don't quite remember but the point is that he was in very bad shape, almost dead, he used to say that he ressuscitated him a few times.  Max was forced to work on him for many hours during which a German held a gun near his head and repeatedly said "If he dies.........you die".  He told my mother that he came close many times of just killing him and be killed but what kept him going was that the Germans also let him take care of other prisoners.

As a doctor he had certain privileges because the Germans used him to care for their own.  One such privilege was that he'd get a small piece of bread with his soup.  He'd often give either or both to another prisoner who was in worse condition than him.  His rationale for healing the Germans was that as long as he was alive he could help others.

One of the ways he did so was by putting together an escape plan with a French Colonel.  I don't know the details but they organized a few escapes and many prisoners were able to escape and get to a safe country because of them.  One day, while they were getting ready for another escape, word came that one prisoner had told the Germans about them, he basically sold them for a bit of food and an extra blanket or something like that.  Fortunately another prisoner who had heard of it told Max and Delage (the French Colonel) and it was decided that they would escape as well before they were arrested.

When time to leave came, Max didn't want to, he wanted to give his place to someone else.  He was convinced that the Germans wouldn't touch him because they needed him.  Delage told him that it wouldn't work this way, that there was no way they would let him get away with that no matter that he was a doctor.  He told him they had to make an example of him.  Unfortunately Max was stubborn as a donkey, and he still wouldn't bulge on this so Delage knocked him out and carried him out of the camp.

Their escape plan took them to Spain through the Pyrenees.  It is during the escape that he met his wife, a Spanish woman who, with her father, helped people cross to Spain.  I was 14 when my mother told me that story and I remember how impressed I was by the cliff.  While they were in the Pyrenees the German armies were after them and they ended up on a cliff only a few inches wide with soldiers and dogs on both sides trying to find them.  Max held that woman all night so she wouldn't fall while holding himself on a rock with his other hand.  When they finally managed to get to Spain, the woman's father asked Max to take her with him and made him promise he would take care of her all their lives.

From Spain they got to Canada, once here and after he got his health back he wanted to join the Canadian Army and go back to fight but the Government wouldn't allow that.  He settled in Montreal, did his residency at a hospital which was required (and still is) for doctors who hadn't got their degrees here and then he opened his office and started practicing medicine.  

[Najemikon]

Thank you so much for sharing that, Eric. What a brilliant story and such a courageous man.

...after he got his health back he wanted to join the Canadian Army and go back to fight but the Government wouldn't allow that.

That just made my jaw drop. What spirit. To have escaped by the skin of his teeth and have the will power to want to go back. Someone make this film! 

[Touti]

Jon this man had the strongest will I've ever seen.  In the 60's my mother became his secretary and he was a big smoker, 4 packs a day.  One afternoon she walks into his office and tells him that it stinks, that he's receiving sick patients there and some with breathing problems.

He just looked at her and didn't say a word, she left his office thinking she had lost her job but at the end of the day he went to see her, thanked her making him see something that he had not realized.  He threw all his packs of cigarettes in the garbage and never smoked another one.

Once he was on a hunting trip with a friend who got sick of an acute appendicitis.  There was no road, they had been taken there by a plane which was going to pick them up 4 days later.  Like any good hunter they had brought booze so they had 2 bottles of gin.

He used most of one to get the guy drunk, used some to sterilize his hunting knife and used it to operate on the man.  He had no choice, the appendix had ruptured and the man would have died.  He sewed him back with regular tread and an ordinary needle and stayed awake 4 days and 3 nights (or maybe "only" 3 days and 2 nights) caring for him and making sure the wound wouldn't get infected.

Oh.........and he spoke 7 languages.

Anyway, I think the whole point is that there was hundreds if not thousands of men and women like Max during the second world war, true heroes who risked their own lives without hesitation and it's extremely unfortunate and frustrating to see how history is forgetting them.

If a movie like Schindler's list can make one of them be remembered I believe that in itself is worth it and should be above any other considerations.

[Najemikon]

It always reassures me to hear about such people. It proves no matter what disaster strikes or what evil we might face, there will always be a natural balance created by these "small" acts of courage. I got the same sense during the 9/11 coverage as the stories of what people did started to filter through even while it was still going on.