Schindler's List
Reviews
Mayurpanchamia
Directed by Steven Spielberg, the name is enough. He enjoys immense love and justified appreciation. It’s not just a rumour, but his name transcends to million footfalls to theatres and multiple OTT replays. But this movie is special because as a Jew Spielberg felt the pain of Holocaust and thus this was personal. Spielberg’s paternal grandparents were Jews from Ukraine. I really hope things cool down very soon in Ukraine and somebody someday make a film on the crisis in Ukraine. After watching “The Kashmir Files” I felt like watching the list because I wanted to see how we can make better movies without the propaganda. The Kashmir Files is necessary minus the very few political flaws and propaganda it subtly injects into its viewers. Asking the questions is not anti-national and not all JNU people come with an agenda. Kashmir Files tells many truths and ought to be told but also hides a lot of the actual/factual truths. Just like a dictator it blatantly shows only the side they want to without any iota of balance. But Schindler’s List is different because it never lets the bleakness of the Holocaust overwhelm its important theme of fighting for the common good. The director says, “My primary purpose in making Schindler’s List was for education. The Holocaust had been treated as just a footnote in so many textbooks or not mentioned at all. Millions knew little if anything about it. Others tried to deny it happened at all.” Keneally’s best-known work, Schindler’s Ark was published in 1982; also known as Schindler’s List and film released in 1993, tells the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than 1,300 Jews from the Nazis. . Liam Neeson plays very well Schindler however shows his true side that he was a playboy and so on. He was not a saint. He cheated on his wife, drank excessively and spied for Abwehr, the counter-espionage arm of the Wehrmacht (German army), in Czechoslovakia. But the true characteristics of human beings cannot be spliced even in the most fascist regimes. Sometimes character flaws bring in real joy, excitement and belief. Steven Spielberg’s movie, Schindler’s List, while important, impressive and admirable in many respects, tries to show the true face of propaganda and mass bullshit and how an entire nation can be mass brainwashed to fuel hatred amoung it’s people and bring a great nation down. Something India and Indians need to really ponder upon. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Oskar Schindler sets up an enamelware factory in Krakow that used a combination of Jewish workers interred by the Germans and free Polish workers. His initial interest, of course, was to make money. But as time went on, he grew to care about his Jewish workers, particularly those with whom he came into contact on a daily basis. In addition, helping Jews became a way to fight against what he viewed as disastrous and brutal policies emanating from Adolf Hitler and the SS. Oskar Schindler convinced German authorities his factory was vital and that he needed trained workers. But Schindler did not author or dictate the list instead, Marcel Goldberg, a Jewish “clerk” compiled it. There is a line in the movie which goes like, “That’s not just good old fashioned Jew hate talk. Its policy now” and it hits hard and makes us aware that nothing has changed in present too. Itzhak Stern, played in the movie by Ben Kingsley was one of the most powerful character more of culmination of lot of people at that time. Oskar Schindler was a great man publicly and a not so great man privately but he saved the lives of more than 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust and that’s why a movie has been made on him. The imperfections in his character and the nuances in the historical record only make his story more remarkable. The movie’s budget was just $22 million. No one had ever made a profitable film about the Holocaust. Spielberg himself didn’t take a salary, calling it “blood money.” Something Vivek Agnihotri and makers of “The Kashmir Files” should ponder upon. As I write this Kashmir Files has already touched 250 Cr. Such sensitive films should come with not just spontanity but also empathy which is found in Spielberg and lacks in Agnihotri’s. This movie reminded me of another Spielberg movies which moved and caved in Bridge of Spies. Bridge was about the fine art of negotiation and the List is about the fine art of “Gratitude” you will hear this word a lot in the Schindler’s List. I felt both the movies very similar and fantastic. The use of black and white cinematography also makes me think of “KOTA FACTORY” both shot in black and white to resemble the dark and hollowness of the subject material. Art does make you uncomfortable and that’s it’s Dharma and Karma but propoganda does give you only the bigoted narration with giving the example that his master is always a good guy. In one scene, Schindler implores Goeth to spray water into the cars on a hot day to help the dehydrated Jews inside. Goeth tells him that to do so would give false hope—a clear implication that the trains deliver Jews to their deaths.The lists become increasingly ominous during sorting exercises to determine who is fit to work or who is “essential” and who is not. Those deemed “unessential” are placed on the list to be evacuated to extermination camps. Stern’s name appears on a list sending him to Auschwitz. When Schindler saves him, an SS officer mentions that it doesn’t matter which Jew gets on the train, and that keeping track of names just means more paperwork. This disregard for names and particularity symbolizes the extent to which the Nazis dehumanized Jews. Schindler’s list is one that saves lives. The Nazis’ lists represent evil and death, but Schindler’s list represents pure good and life. In an ironic twist, the final list in the film is a list that Schindler’s workers give to him—a list of their signatures vouching for Schindler as a good man, to help him if Allied soldiers catch him. The saved in turn become saviors. The one-armed man who thanks Schindler for employing him and making him “essential” is shot in the head by an SS officer as he shovels snow the next day. Blood flows from his head, staining the surrounding snow. In a later scene, Goeth orders the execution of a Jewish woman engineer who tells Goeth of a fatal construction error. Her blood, too, pours from her head and darkens the snow around her. The blood pouring from the victims’ heads is both literally and metaphorically the lifeblood being bled out of the Jewish race. In yet another scene, Goeth attempts to execute a rabbi working at the Plaszów labor camp. The rabbi stays kneeling as Goeth again and again attempts to shoot him in the head. But the gun jams, and the rabbi is spared, symbolizing the tenuous protection the Schindlerjuden had and the fine line between life and death. The film talks about the corruption of not just money but hearts and minds too. It shows us privileges and different aspects of life while keeping humanity before profits and ideologies. Intricacies of personal and professional lives are intertwined here for the good sake. The film ends with – “WHOEVER SAVES ONE LIFE, SAVES THE WORLD ENTIRE.” The actual Oskar Schindler died in 1974 and was buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. He is the only former member of the Nazi Party to be honored in this way. He and his wife Emilie were named Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government in 1993, something that would be hard to believe could happen without the film highlighting his life. As we all know, Spielberg and the film went on to win several Academy Awards for Schindler’s List, including Best Picture and Best Director. The film also won for Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing. Spielberg would win another Best Director Oscar for Saving Private Ryan five years later, but for him what happened with Schindler would be his crowning achievement. Schindler’s List is a rare movie whose legacy is just as important as its existence. Perhaps the lasting legacy of the film, aside from tolerance, is the image of the girl in red. During the liquidation of the ghetto scene, we see a little girl wandering. She serves as the person Schindler and the audience fixate on. The weight of the atrocity that we carry as viewers.When prompted to talk about one of the only color moments in the film, the girl in red, Spielberg told USA Today, “In (Thomas Keneally’s) book, Schindler couldn’t get over the fact that a little girl was walking during the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto. While everyone was being put on trucks or shot in the street, one little girl in a red, red coat was being ignored by the SS.” For Spielberg, that came to symbolize the blind eye world leaders turned to the murders going on in Europe. “To me, that meant that Roosevelt and Eisenhower—and probably Stalin and Churchill—knew about the Holocaust… and did nothing to stop it. It was almost as though the Holocaust itself was wearing red.” Same repeats in Ukraine too. Spielberg helped develop and found The Shoah Foundation. It furthered the education and established “The Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation” to document the testimonies of thousands of survivors. For Spielberg, he wanted future generations to have these eyewitness accounts to serve as a permanent record. He hoped that there would never be a time we saw Nazism and fascism on the rise again. The project has collected the testimony of more than 55,000 survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust as well as other atrocities. “It wouldn’t have happened without Schindler’s List,” he said. “The Shoah Foundation wouldn’t exist.” Something the Hypocritic Vivek Agnihotri should think about. I still stand by that “The Kashmir files” should be shown to everyone without propoganda and only one agenda that this atrocities and “Genocide” should not be repeated on any one anywhere. The film is available on Netflix. Go, watch, think. https://letterboxd.com/mayurpanchamia/film/schindlers-list/ https://mayurpanchamia.wordpress.com/2022/03/27/schindlers-list/ https://www.themoviedb.org/review/62405d62706e56005dc24c03
CinemaSerf
There's a powerful little low-budget effort with Ralph Richardson called "The Silver Fleet" (1943) that illustrates just how difficult it was for those in the occupied territories to continue to do what was right without looking like a collaborator and/or ending up against a wall of Nazi bullets. Well here, Steven Spielberg takes that dangerous occupation and scales it up somewhat as the eponymous Czech industrialist and arms manufacturer (Liam Neeson) finds his increasing revulsion to the brutality of their new occupying power driving him, with the able assistance of his Jewish factory manager "Stern" (Ben Kingsley), to find ways to keep them from being routinely slaughtered. Getting them out is not really an option, so he invents ways of convincing the authorities that they are more useful alive and decently fed/housed - even suggesting the usefulness of children's small fingers to polish shell casings - to avoid them being deported to the now fully functioning Auchwitz extermination camp. The story is history but the manner in which it is delivered here is poignant and potent. Schindler's gradual shift from a venally induced indifference to one of active concern is well handled by Neeson's considered performance and Kingsley works well as his low-level but crucial co-conspirator. Plaudits must also go to Ralph Fiennes with, I think, the best portrayal of his career as the odious Commandant Goeth who combines just about every element of the worst in human nature into one ghastly individual eliciting a palpable degree of loathing. Does it need to be 3¼ hours long? Well I'm not so sure about that, and there are times when the repetitive oppressiveness of their gruelling environment risks de-sensitising the message a little, but for the most part the abusive and terrifying lives led by the Jewish prisoners and the increasingly perilous path being taken by those trying to help is well held together with some stunning cinematography and an untypical John Williams score. It's definitely a big screen occasion - somehow television reduces it's impact, so if you can see it in a cinema. Either way, it does offer some salutary lessons in man's inhumanity, and humanity to our fellow man!
Zak_Jaggs
Emotionally powerful and historically very important. This film deals with possibly the hardest topic in human history, and it does it with class, purpose and excellent filmmaking. Liam Neeson is brilliant as Schindler; Fiennes is utterly horrifying as the terrible Goth and all the other character actors hit the mark brilliantly. The decision to make it black and white makes Schindler's List stand-out and feel distinct, it is a piece of genius. In the end this film is about the utter depravity that humanity is capable of, and the utterly brilliant heroism humanity is capable of, WW2 and the Holocaust in real life brought out the worst in us as a species and it bought out the best of us, this film captures that, but it also captures the complexities of the people at the heart of the most dramatic events in world history, no other film does this as well. Top quality and a very good start point for people who are unfimilar with the nitty-gritty of the Nazi regime.
GenerationofSwine
I don't know how I feel about this anymore. When it first came out I loved it. I thought it was a great film, but I was 13 and it played on my love for history. Now watching it, it's well done, direction wise I like it. But Mel Brooks did a better job with B&W lighting in Young Frankenstein. I know photography, I know film, and a lot of it I wouldn't have done that way. I wouldn't have done it that way and they are really simple lighting and contrast fixes. Some just comes down to a filter. And then Ralph Fiennes, you hated him in the movie, but you hated him because of who he was playing, and you were supposed to hate him. He's hardly in the film and he did the most memorable job. You almost forget that Liam Neeson is in it. Ralph he even outshines Ben Kingsley, and Ben's certainly made bad choices, but he's usually a good actor all the time. Watching it now, there's a lot that really should have been done better. I'm not 13 anymore, it's a AAA flick, there's a lot wrong with it now that I can't get beyond. It's not bad. I'd still tell you to watch it, it's still an important movie, but now it irritates me.
Movie Recommendation
The Godfather Part II1974-12-20In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.More...
Saving Private Ryan1998-07-24As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.More...
12 Angry Men1957-04-10The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.More...
The Green Mile1999-12-10A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.More...
Spirited Away2001-07-20A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.More...
Life Is Beautiful1997-12-20A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.More...
Pulp Fiction1994-09-10A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.More...
Shutter Island2010-02-14World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.More...
Parasite2019-05-30All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.More...
The Shawshank Redemption1994-09-23Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.More...
The Godfather1972-03-14Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.More...
Forrest Gump1994-06-23A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.More...
Your Name.2016-08-26High schoolers Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives. But one night, they suddenly switch places. Mitsuha wakes up in Taki’s body, and he in hers. This bizarre occurrence continues to happen randomly, and the two must adjust their lives around each other.More...
The Pianist2002-09-17The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.More...
The Dark Knight2008-07-16Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as the Joker.More...
Léon: The Professional1994-09-14Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.More...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest1975-11-19A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.More...
Dead Poets Society1989-06-02At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.More...
Braveheart1995-05-24Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.More...
A Beautiful Mind2001-12-14From the heights of notoriety to the depths of depravity, John Forbes Nash Jr. experiences it all. As a brilliant but socially awkward mathematician, he made a groundbreaking discovery early in his career and stands on the brink of international acclaim. But as the handsome and arrogant Nash accepts secret work in cryptography, he becomes entangled in a mysterious conspiracy. His life takes a nightmarish turn and he soon finds himself on a painful and harrowing journey of self-discovery.More...
Similar Movies
Perfect Days
2023-11-10Hirayama is content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, books, and taking photos of trees. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.Spitfire Over Berlin
2022-05-13August 1944. With the American Eighth Air Force poised to strike over Nazi Germany, British Intelligence learns that they could be flying into a deadly trap. With only hours to spare, Flight Lieutenant Edward Barnes must fly a life and death mission over Berlin in his unarmed Spitfire to obtain photographic evidence and save the lives of 1200 men.العمر أيام
1964-05-17There is no descriptionHeld for Ransom
2019-08-29HELD FOR RANSOM tells the true story of Danish photojournalist Daniel Rye who was held hostage for 398 days in Syria by the terror organization ISIS along with several other foreign nationals including the American journalist, James Foley. The film follows Daniel’s struggle to survive in captivity, his friendship with James, and the nightmare of the Rye family back home in Denmark as they try to do everything in their power to save their son. At the center of this crisis, we find hostage negotiator, Arthur, who plays a pivotal role in securing Daniel’s release.Lost in Translation
2003-09-18Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.The Party 2
1982-12-08A young French teenage girl after moving to a new city falls in love with a boy and is thinking of having sex with him because her girlfriends have already done it.The Good German
2006-12-15An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.Lucky Number Slevin
2006-02-24Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma.Braveheart
1995-05-24Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.To Be or Not to Be
1942-03-06During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.Dead Poets Society
1989-06-02At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.Man of Marble
1977-02-25A young Polish filmmaker sets out to find out what happened to Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer who became a propaganda hero in the 1950s but later fell out of favor and disappeared.Boys Don't Cry
1999-09-02A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.The Blue Angel
1930-04-01Prim professor Immanuel Rath finds some of his students ogling racy photos of cabaret performer Lola Lola and visits a local club, The Blue Angel, in an attempt to catch them there. Seeing Lola perform, the teacher is filled with lust, eventually resigning his position at the school to marry the young woman. However, his marriage to a coquette -- whose job is to entice men -- proves to be more difficult than Rath imagined.The Cabinet of Dr. Ca...
1920-02-27Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.The Godfather
1972-03-14Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.Via Gobi and Khingan
1981-10-06About the events of the final stage of the Second World War — the defeat by Soviet and Mongolian troops of the selected Kwantung army. Bacteriological weapons were created in the laboratory of Japanese General Ishii Shiro. Experiments were conducted on prisoners of war and political prisoners. Epidemiologist Dmitry Sokolov was assigned to solve the mystery of this laboratory. At the cost of his own life, he completed the task. The march of Soviet and Mongolian formations through the Gobi sands and the Khingan spurs was not only a brilliant military operation, but also a warning of the use of bacteriological weapons by Japan.Skokie
1981-11-17A dramatization of the controversial trial concerning the right for Neo-Nazis to march in the predominantly Jewish community of Skokie, Illinois.The Bridge
1959-10-21A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge. The film is based on a West German anti-war novel of the same name, written by Gregor Dorfmeister.Chicago
2002-12-10Murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.