Schindler’s List
Bottom Line: Schindler’s List is a must-see. An emotional, poignant look at the Holocaust.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes
Steven Spielberg’s historical and biographical motion picture adaptation of Thomas Keneally’s Booker Prize-winning novel Schindler’s Ark is not moving, but rather changing the ways we view the Holocaust.
The film goes in very in depth with regards to facts about the Holocaust. It stars Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, the man who dedicated his life to saving as many Polish Jews as physically possible from being murdered tragically by German Nazis during World War II.
Aside from the first scene, the final scene, and the strong emphasis on a girl in a red coat in one scene, all 3 hours and 16 minutes of SCHINDLER’S LIST are filmed at an Oscar-winning standard in pure black and white. Though black and white usually comes across to me as a beautiful and heavenly, the coloring is truly meant to emphasize the misery and agony of the Holocaust. And that’s how the black and white aspect impacts throughout the entire film.
Something else that supports the feeling of misery the film delivers is John Williams’s Oscar-winning score. Steven Spielberg and John Williams almost always work together as a director/composer team–in fact, the only two Spielberg-directed films thus far that were not accompanied by one of John Williams’s scores were THE COLOR PURPLE and TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. But I’d have to say that the collaborative effort made is excellent, and Williams’s compositions (especially the main theme) are just as effective as Spielberg’s directing.
In five words: SCHINDLER’S LIST is a must-see. Even the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. is nowhere near as informative or emotional as this; and anyone who feels that all they hear about the Holocaust is textbook information especially must see this.
Great post!