Schindler's List is a multiple Academy Award-winning 1993 film based on the book Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally. The movie, adapted by Steven Zaillian and directed by Steven Spielberg, relates the tale of Oskar Schindler, a Sudeten-German Catholic businessman who was instrumental in saving the lives of over one thousand Polish Jews during the Final Solution. The title refers to a list of the names of 1,100 Jews whom Schindler hired to work in his factory and kept from being sent to the Nazi concentration camps.
Schindler's List is consistently ranked amongst the best movies of all time. It is currently ranked as the 8th best domestic film by the American Film Institute [1], and, as of June 27, 2007, rated number six on the top 250 films on the Internet Movie Database with an 8.8/10 rating [2].
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Plot
* 2 Cast
* 3 Production
* 4 Response
o 4.1 Awards
* 5 Controversies
* 6 MPAA
* 7 References
* 8 External links
[edit] Plot
The film begins with the relocation of the Jews to Krakow in September of 1939, shortly after the beginning of World War II. Oskar Schindler, an unsuccessful businessman, arrives from Czechoslovakia in hopes of using the abundant slave labor force of Jews to manufacture goods for the German Army. Schindler makes a very good impression early on, being a member of the Nazi Party, and lavishes bribes upon the army and SS officials in charge. His wife, Emilie, comes to visit him in his new home, and is shocked when another woman answers the door. Schindler tells her that if she wishes to stay, it is up to her. She offers to stay, provided there is no further philandering; Schindler waves goodbye to his wife at the train station.
Sponsored by the military, Schindler acquires a factory for the production of metal wares and gains a contact in Itzhak Stern, a functionary in the local Judenrat (Jewish Council) who in turn has contacts with the now underground Jewish business community in the Ghetto. They will loan him the money for the factory, and he will give them a small share of products produced for trade on the black market. Opening the factory, Schindler pleases the Nazis and enjoys his new-found wealth, while Stern handles all administration and uses his position to suggest to Schindler to hire Jews instead of Poles, because their labour is for free. Workers in Schindler's factory are allowed outside the ghetto, and are certified as "essential workers", guaranteeing that they will not be rounded up at night by the Gestapo. This last point is key, and Stern falsifies documents to ensure that as many people as possible are deemed "essential" by the Nazi bureaucracy. Schindler becomes aware of what is going on, but takes no action to stop it.
We are introduced to an SS officer named Amon Göth who arrives in Krakow to initiate construction of a labor camp, Płaszów. He eagerly appeals to Schindler that the Jewish population is a "virus". While surveying the construction of a new building at a concentration camp, a female Jewish engineer urges him to redo the improperly laid foundation for the barrack. Göth immediately mandates her murder and, in the next breath, Göth orders that everything she requested be done. In due course, Göth razes the Krakow ghetto, sending in hundreds of troops to clear the cramped rooms and shooting anyone who cannot or will not leave. Schindler watches the massacre from the hills overlooking the area, and is profoundly affected, especially when he spots a little girl in a red coat. He meets Göth during a dinner with other important SS officers, and is careful to befriend Göth, keeping his disturbances private, and patiently agreeing with Göth and other Nazis' rambling statements about Jews. Having earned his trust, Schindler convinces Göth to let him keep his workers for considerable bribes and pay-offs. Schindler, now reluctantly sheltering people who have very few skills, starts losing money.
In the labor camp, the Jewish prisoners are made to strip naked and to run around the camp's central square while being "physically examined" by physicans as useful laborers or not, with the clear purpose being to separate those capable of labor from those who are too old, too young, or too frail, and will be disposed of. To Amon Göth's considerable consternation, and to Schindler's horror, an order arrives from Berlin commanding Göth to exhume and destroy all bodies of those killed in the ghetto razing, dismantle Płaszów, and to ship the whole population to Auschwitz. He explains to Schindler that he is being asked to do this immediately, and it is the administrative burden that horrifies him, not the thought of having to destroy "every rag": saying to Schindler that, "the party is over". Schindler is further horrified when he observes the same little girl in the red coat seen during the ghetto massacre, her now lifeless body being wheeled to the pit to be consumed and destroyed by fire. He now realizes the abhorrent evil around him and reaches an epiphany. Schindler prevails upon Göth to let him keep his workers, so that he can move them to a factory in his old home of Zwittau-Brinnlitz, in Moravia, away from the Holocaust, now fully underway in Poland. Göth acquiesces, for a payoff of millions of Reichsmark. So that his workers can be kept off the trains to the killing centers, Schindler, with Stern, assembles a list of them.
Schindler rescues one of his workers
Schindler rescues one of his workers
"Schindler's List" comprises these "skilled" inmates, and for many of those in Płaszów camp, being on it means the difference between life and death. Almost all of the people on Schindler's list arrive safely at the new site, with exception to the trains carrying the women, which is accidentally redirected to Auschwitz. Schindler rushes immediately to Auschwitz and stops their gassing. He bribes the camp commander, Rudolf Hoess, with a cache of diamonds. Hoess reluctantly agrees and the women are spared. As the women board the train to the site of the factory, several SS officers attempt to hold some children back and prevent them from leaving. However, Schindler, who is there to personally oversee the boarding, steps in and demands the officers release the children, giving as his reason that their small hands and fingers can clean the insides of small shell casings. Once the Schindler women arrive in Zwittau-Brinnlitz, Schindler institutes firm controls on the Nazi guards assigned to the factory, permits the Jews to observe the Sabbath, and spends the rest of his fortune bribing Nazi officials. In his home town, he surprises his wife while she's in church during mass, and tells her that she is the only woman in his life. She goes with him to the factory to help out with the inmates. He runs out of money just as the German army surrenders, ending the war in Europe.
As a German Nazi and self-described "profiteer of slave labor", Schindler must flee the oncoming Soviet Red Army. After dismissing the Nazi guards to return to their families, he packs a car in the night, and bids farewell to his workers. They give him a letter explaining his actions and that he is not a criminal, together with a ring engraved with the Talmudic quotation, "He who saves the life of one man, saves the world entire." Seeing his luxurious car, Schindler is consumed with guilt, realizing he could have bribed Göth for ten more Jews with it. Panged with the regret of not having done more, Schindler breaks down in front of his workers, then leaves with his wife. The Schindler Jews, having slept outside the factory gates through the night, are awakened by sunlight the next morning. A Soviet dragoon arrives and announces to the Jews that they have been liberated. The Jews walk to a nearby town in search of a place to go. As they walk abreast, the frame changes to another of the Schindler Jews in the present day at the grave of Oskar Schindler in Israel. In the ensuing epilogue the execution of an indifferent Göth by the Red Army for War Crimes is shown.
The film ends by showing a procession of now-aged Jews who worked in Schindler's factory, who reverently set a stone on his grave. The actors portraying the major characters walk hand-in-hand with the actual persons they portrayed, placing stones on Schindler's grave as they pass. The camera pans to the left, revealing a long line of people consisting of not only those portrayed in the film but also their families. Ben Kingsley walks to the grave holding the hand of Itzhak Stern's widow. The movie then imparts that the survivors and descendents of the approximately 1,100 Jews sheltered by Schindler now number over 6,000. It then mentions that the Jewish population of Poland, once numbering in the millions, was at the time of the film's release approximately 4,000. In a final scene, a man (the unseen face of Liam Neeson) places a rose on the grave, and stands contemplatively over it.
[edit] Cast
Actor Role
Liam Neeson Oskar Schindler
Ben Kingsley Itzhak Stern
Ralph Fiennes Amon Göth
Caroline Goodall Emilie Schindler
Jonathan Sagalle Poldek Pfefferberg
Pawel Delag Dolek Horowitz
Embeth Davidtz Helen Hirsch
Malgoscha Gebel Victoria Klonowska
Andrzej Seweryn Julian Scherner
Norbert Weisser Albert Hujar
Daniel Del Ponter Josef Mengele
Harry Nehring Leo John
[edit] Production
The girl in red
The girl in red
Roman Polanski was asked to direct the film. However, he passed on it, having survived the Kraków Ghetto himself. He felt it would be too personal, and would bring up too many hard memories that he was not prepared to deal with at the time. In 2002, he did direct a Holocaust-themed movie, The Pianist, which earned him an Oscar for Best Director. Martin Scorsese was another prospective director, but feeling it should be made by a Jewish director, he traded it to Spielberg in exchange for the rights to remake Cape Fear, which Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment produced. When Steven Spielberg finally signed on he refused payment for making this movie, saying that it would be like "taking blood money."
Steven Spielberg later spoke of the making of the movie as affecting him deeply.[citation needed] It is shot almost entirely in black and white (with a color prologue and epilogue, a red coat in two scenes, and color candle flames in another). It stars Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern and Ralph Fiennes as Amon Göth. The publicity for the film used the tagline "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." Critically acclaimed, the film won praise for depicting — often in exceptional, graphic detail — the horrifying brutality of the Holocaust.
The film is very long, for films of that era: 3 hours and 15 minutes. Parts of the film use a multi-repetitive technique: after a common situation is shown repeated among 3 groups of people, it is extended to be shown among 10 groups. Hence, the emotional impact is prolonged using that technique: so that extending similar scenes A, B, C, yields scenes A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J. The repetition of similar situations is repeated over and over and over.
Nominated for twelve Academy Awards, it won seven, including the coveted Best Picture and the Best Director award for Spielberg (his first, although he had previously received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award). Composer and conductor John Williams also won the Academy Award for Original Music Score, which features violin solos by Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman. Ralph Fiennes' performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. While he didn't get the Oscar, he did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award, which is the British equivalent. Liam Neeson was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, but did not win.
[edit] Response
* Roger Ebert's review of Schindler's List
* James Berardinelli's review of Schindler's List
Viewers consistently vote Schindler's List among the top ten movies on the Internet Movie Database Top 250, and the American Film Institute voted it #9 on their AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies series, and in 2007 was voted in at #8 for the tenth anniversary list. In addition, the American Film Institute voted Liam Neeson's Schindler as the 13th greatest movie hero of all time, while Ralph Fiennes' Göth was voted the 15th greatest villain in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains series. In 2006 it was selected as the 3rd most inspiring movie of all time by AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers. In 2004, the Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Initial critical reception was overwhelmingly positive, as Schindler's List was widely lauded as not just a rare achievement of movie-making but a significant cultural event.[citation needed] In addition to its compelling dramatic themes, Schindler's List was viewed by high-school classes throughout the country to impress the horrors of the Holocaust and serve as fodder for discussion of anti-Semitic attitudes ranging from mild suspicion to overt violence.[citation needed]
Schindler's List won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, but did not win.
In addition, Schindler's List also featured on a number of other "best of" lists, including the Time magazine's Top Hundred as selected by critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel, Time Out magazine's 100 Greatest Films Centenary Poll conducted in 1995, Roger Ebert's "Great Movies"' series, and Leonard Maltin's "100 Must See Movies of the Century". In addition, The Vatican named Schindler's List among the top 45 films ever made (In the Values subsection).
Following the success of the film, Spielberg founded and continues to finance the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, a non-profit organization with the goal of providing an archive for the filmed testimony of as many survivors of the Holocaust as possible, so that their stories will not be lost.[citation needed]
[edit] Awards
Possessing the cultural and emotional impact that it did, Schindler's List was recognized by a considerably large number of award organizations for its excellence for both its content as well as its presentation.
Academy Awards
* Best Picture - Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen
* Best Director - Steven Spielberg
* Best Music, Original Score - John Williams
* Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Allan Starski, Ewa Braun
* Best Cinematography - Janusz Kaminski
* Best Film Editing - Michael Kahn
* Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium - Steven Zaillian
BAFTA Awards
* Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Ralph Fiennes
* Best Cinematography - Janusz Kaminski
* Best Editing - Michael Kahn
* Best Film - Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig
* Best Score - John Williams
* Best Screenplay, Adapted - Steven Zaillian
* David Lean Award for Direction - Steven Spielberg
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards
* Best Cinematography - Janusz Kaminski
* Best Director - Steven Spielberg
* Best Film
* Best Supporting Actor - Ralph Fiennes
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
* Best Cinematography - Janusz Kaminski
* Best Director - Steven Spielberg
* Best Picture
* Best Screenplay - Steven Zaillian
* Best Supporting Actor - Ralph Fiennes
Golden Globes, USA
* Best Director, Motion Picture - Steven Spielberg
* Best Motion Picture, Drama
* Best Screenplay, Motion Picture - Steven Zaillian
Other Awards
* Amanda Awards, Best Foreign Feature Film
* Awards of the Japanese Academy, Best Foreign Film
* BMI Film Music Award - John Williams
* British Society of Cinematographers, Best Cinematography Award - Janusz Kaminski
* CEC Award, Best Foreign Film
* DFWFCA Award, Best Director - Steven Spielberg; Best Picture; Best Supporting Actor - Ralph Fiennes
* DGA Award, Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures - Steven Spielberg
* Evening Standard British Film Award, Best Actor - Ben Kingsley
* Grammy, Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture - John Williams
* Hochi Film Award , Best Foreign Language Film
* Humanitas Prize, Feature Film Category - Steven Zaillian
* KCFCC Award, Best Director - Steven Spielberg; Best Film
* Kinema Junpo Awards, Best Foreign Language Film
* London Critics Circle Film Awards, British Actor of the Year - Ralph Fiennes; Director of the Year - Steven Spielberg; Film of the Year
* LAFCA Award, Best Cinematography - Janusz Kaminski; Best Picture; Best Production Design - Allan Starski
* Mainichi Film Concours, Best Foreign Language Film
* Motion Picture Sound Editors, Best Sound Editing
* NBR Award , Best Picture
* NSFC Award, Best Cinematography - Janusz Kaminski; Best Director - Steven Spielberg; Best Film; Best Supporting Actor - Ralph Fiennes
* NYFCC Award, Best Cinematography - Janusz Kaminski; Best Film; Best Supporting Actor - Ralph Fiennes
* Nikkan Sports Film Award, Best Foreign Film
* PGA Golden Laurel Awards, Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award
* PFS Award, Human Rights
* SEFCA Award, Best Picture
* USC Scripter Award - Thomas Keneally (author), Steven Zaillian (screenwriter)
* WGA Award (Screen), Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published - Steven Zaillian
[edit] Controversies
According to Czech filmmaker Juraj Herz, the scene in which a group of women confuse a gas chamber with an actual shower is taken directly, shot by shot, from his Zastihla mě noc (1986). Herz says he wanted to sue, but was unable to come up with the money to fund the effort. [3]
On Sunday, February 23, 1997, the film was shown on television in the United States, being carried by NBC with a pair of intermissions by the Ford Motor Company (they consisted of the Ford logo on a black background, the film's soundtrack playing and a small clock indicating how long before the film resumes). Per Spielberg's insistence, it aired unedited and nearly uncensored, although the sex scene was mildly edited by removing nearly all of the "thrusting." The telecast was the first ever to receive a TV-M (now TV-MA) rating under the TV Parental Guidelines that had been established at the beginning of that year. Many fundamentalist and evangelical Christian groups, which had previously been squeamish about the movie [4], stridently objected to the film being shown on network television at all, due to scenes of nudity, violence, and the use of vulgar language which were not edited out of the TV production. Senator Tom Coburn, then an Oklahoma congressman, stated that NBC, by airing the film, had brought television "to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity," adding that airing the film was an insult to "decent-minded individuals everywhere." Under fire from fellow Republicans as well as from Democrats, Coburn apologized for his outrage, saying: "My intentions were good, but I've obviously made an error in judgment in how I've gone about saying what I wanted to say." He said he had reversed his opinion on airing the film, but qualified it ought to have been aired later at night, when there aren't, as he said, "large numbers of children watching without parental supervision." [5]. The film was re-broadcast on NBC on Sunday, March 14, 1999, also with two intermissions, this time by Metlife. In 2000 some PBS stations ran an uninterrupted broadcast.
[edit] MPAA
The film was rated R for "language, some sexuality and actuality violence" by the Motion Picture Association of America, making this the first Spielberg-directed feature film to be given an R rating (all previous Spielberg films were rated PG or PG-13).
[edit] References
[edit] External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Schindler's List
* Official website
* Schindler's List at the Internet Movie Database
* Schindler's List at Rotten Tomatoes
* The Shoah Foundation, founded by Steven Spielberg to videotape and preserve the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses.
Awards
Preceded by
Unforgiven Academy Award for Best Picture
1993 Succeeded by
Forrest Gump
Preceded by
Howards End BAFTA Award for Best Film
1994 Succeeded by
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Preceded by
Scent of a Woman Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama
1994 Succeeded by
Forrest Gump
v • d • e
Films directed by Steven Spielberg[hide]
Firelight (1964) • Amblin' (1968) • Duel (1971) • The Sugarland Express (1974) • Jaws (1975) • Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) • 1941 (1979) • Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) • Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) • The Color Purple (1985) • Empire of the Sun (1987) • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) • Always (1989) • Hook (1991) • Jurassic Park (1993) • Schindler's List (1993) • The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) • Amistad (1997) • Saving Private Ryan (1998) • Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) • Minority Report (2002) • Catch Me if You Can (2002) • The Terminal (2004) • War of the Worlds (2005) • Munich (2005) • Indiana Jones 4 (2008) • Artemis Fowl (2008) • Lincoln (2008) • Interstellar (2009) • Tintin (2009)
Academy Award for Best Picture: Winners (1981–2000)
v • d • e
[hide]
1981: Chariots of Fire | 1982: Gandhi | 1983: Terms of Endearment | 1984: Amadeus | 1985: Out of Africa | 1986: Platoon | 1987: The Last Emperor | 1988: Rain Man | 1989: Driving Miss Daisy | 1990: Dances with Wolves | 1991: The Silence of the Lambs | 1992: Unforgiven | 1993: Schindler's List | 1994: Forrest Gump | 1995: Braveheart | 1996: The English Patient | 1997: Titanic | 1998: Shakespeare in Love | 1999: American Beauty | 2000: Gladiator
Complete List | Winners (1927–1940) | Winners (1941–1960) | Winners (1961–1980) | Winners (2001– )
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Categories: Articles lacking sources from April 2007 | All articles lacking sources | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | 1993 films | AFI 100 Years films | Amblin Entertainment films | American films | Best Drama Picture Golden Globe winners | Best Picture Academy Award winners | Biographical films | Drama films | English-language films | Films based on actual events | Films based on fiction books | Films directed by Steven Spielberg | Films over three hours long | Films whose director won the Best Director Academy Award | Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe | History of Kraków | Holocaust films | Polish-language films | United States National Film Registry | Universal Pictures films
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