Schindler's List
by Steven Spielberg
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Actor: Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagall, Liam Neeson, Ralph FiennesDirector: Steven Spielberg
Producer: Branko Lustig
Producer: Gerald R. Molen
Producer: Irving Glovin
Producer: Kathleen Kennedy
Producer: Lew Rywin
Writer: Steven Zaillian
Writer: Thomas Keneally
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Box set, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, Limited Edition, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 195 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-03-09
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Schindler's List
DVD Review: A different approach to reviewing a `masterpiece'...
Summary: 5 Stars
Obviously that title refers to my review and not the film.
Much like `Titanic' (which I still have yet to attempt to review), `Schindler's List' has been talked about so much that saying anything more almost seems pointless. I mean, really, why review a film that has been reviewed so often and so meticulously that practically everything you or I could say about the film has been said ten times over?
I'll tell you why; because I want to.
This film has been hailed as not only one of the best films of all time, but the best film about the Holocaust to ever be filmed. It won many awards including the Academy's top honor and it continues to rank pretty high on many `Top 100' lists as well (currently it's ranking at number 8 on AFI's `100 Years, 100 Movies' list). Technically speaking they have themselves a winner here. I cannot fault it for much at all since everything is very, very `correct'. What I mean by that is that there is barely a flaw to be seen in just about every aspect of the film. The building blocks are all in the correct places. The set pieces and costumes are authentic, the acting is without flaw, the mood and storytelling aspect of the film is precise and commendable, the music lifts when it should and scales off when necessary, the black and white imagery is appropriate and captivating.
Everything is just as it should be.
I think that is my main issue with the film. Honestly, this may be the only five stars, `A' rated film that I have a major issue with, and issue that could derail any other films shot at a perfect rating.
`Schindler's List' is almost too perfect.
I'll tell you what I mean here, and hopefully this makes as much sense to you as it does to me. When reflecting on this film versus the countless other Holocaust movies I've seen recently I noticed something that struck me a little. `Schindler's List' is so `correct' in it's delivery that it loses a bit of the emotional connection one needs to feel with these types of films. Before you start bombarding me with comments about how this movie made you cry and this movie perfectly portrays inhumanity and humanity or whatever, take a minute to read all that I have to say about this. I'm not saying that one doesn't feel the emotions they should. I cried and I got frustrated and I got angry and in the end I even got those tear-filled feelings of happiness, but there was no real `connection' involved. It was mechanical emotions that any and every living breathing `decent' person should and will feel when watching this sort of atrocity. The best way I can say this is by likening it to the feelings one might get from watching a documentary on the same subject. `Schindler's List' even carries that same feeling to it; that documentation feel. That's part of what I mean by being `correct'. Everything is `just so', `point blank', `nonchalant', as if it's being dictated to us.
It's almost as if this fault can't really be faulted it since the coldness is so impeccably translated to the lack of emotional connection that it comes off as one of Spielberg's artistic tactics.
This same `correctness' can be directed at the acting, which is impeccable in a very mannerly way. Each performance is just as it should be. I can't say a negative thing about them technically. Liam Neeson has never been this proficient and this authentic. Ben Kingsley is solid and believable. As great as they were though, they were `correct to a fault' almost. The lack of charismatic bravado or even the minutest of flaws almost makes them (don't cringe at this) forgettable. That's not to take away from what they've done here (Neeson is very effective when he needs to be), but at the end of the day there is nothing about these performances that really grabs me and demands me take notice. On the other hand, Ralph Fiennes understood how to deliver a technically `correct' performance without losing the spark that makes him infectious and captivating. Sure, his character screams `look at me' but he is the one that demands us look at him. It's not just about theatrics (and this is directed at you trigger happy readers who are about to comment that I don't understand subtlety without reading a single other review I've written) for his best scene is one where he says absolutely nothing and quite honestly moves not a single body part. There is a moment when he is alone in his bathroom, his head tilted to the side, and the glare in his eyes is monstrous.
Best scene in the film and, without hesitation, one of the best supporting performances of the 90's and possibly even forever.
When considering this film alongside films like `Sophie's Choice' or `The Reader' or maybe more appropriately `The Pianist' I have come to realize that the direction this film takes is far different in style and effectiveness. One could argue that this is, without doubt, the better film, and technically speaking you are probably correct. With that said though, I feel a deeper connection to `The Reader' or `The Pianist' because they took the time to really make their characters a part of the audience.
Like I said, this film is still a five stars, `A' grade film for me. It ranks among the best films of 93 (a deserving win, even if I don't feel it deserved to win, beings that `The Piano' and `The Remains of the Day' were both better films) and certainly one of the most commanding and memorable films (and widely talked about) that most of the world will see. Maybe that is why this film has remained so widely loved. There are so many amazing films that get no fan base and thus fizzle into obscurity. An accessible film like `Schindler's List' will never die out as long as it is at our fingertips.
I know that this seems like I'm being harsh, which is probably confusing to many beings that I handed this a five star rating, but I cannot deny the fact that this is an amazing film that is technically flawless. On the other hand, I cannot lie about how I feel.
It just goes to prove that even a brilliant film that one loves and adores has its limitations when one is willing to be open and honest.
DVD Review: Enjoyable, but sad
Summary: 5 Stars
I finished reading the book, and then wanted to watch the movie. The "bonus" material was great, it discussed the Shoah Foundation with interviews of Holocaust survivors. DVD Review: Awesome, of course, but I caught something
Summary: 5 Stars
Truly a remarkable film but, being me, I just couldn't help catching something which I think, smugly I might admit, not an accurate portrayal of the event. When Itzhak Stern mentions to Shindler while they are producing the list that he is smoking half the cigarattes that Shindler smokes, the film seems to allude that Stern is concerned about the damage to his health he might receive from passive smoking. But the list was made I believe in 1944, and at that time the medical community was far from conclusive over the health damage tobacco might cause. In fact, even during the 1950s you will still see doctors endorse certain brands of tobacco and the medical community publish something like "if excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one."
So I think there is no way Stern could have known ciggies were harmful little cancer sticks in 1944. I have said all this not the dismiss the movie, because I think Spielberg has done a marvellous job as usual, and Liam Neeson has played Oscar Shindler wonderfully, and I am glad to have watched this movie, along with the Pianist, which is another movie that is excellently done about the war, but from a different angle. Perhaps I just want to remind myself that movies, as brilliant as they could be, are limited, and something has gotta give to keep the plot going. In fact, I see this kind of thing in every movie, no matter how great it is, you name it.
DVD Review: Schindler's List
Summary: 4 Stars
I thought this vendor's mailings were slow to arrive, but after I realized the products are coming from Canada, I relaxed. When they finally do arrive, the condition is perfect.DVD Review: "Some day this will all end."
Summary: 5 Stars
While watching Steven Spielberg's masterpiece I am faced with a most curious dichotomy: I enjoy watching this film; I am repulsed watching this film. Which, I suppose, is as it should be; SCHINDLER'S LIST depicts humanity at its best--inhumanity at its worst. Spielberg wanted to stress authenticity when he made this film, and he didn't cut any corners. Summary, wanton executions, beatings, herding scores of naked men and women before stern Nazi physicians, hiding in human waste--this is easily one of the most disturbing movies ever. Yet the naked brutality is essential in the telling of this story of the Holocaust; only by showing the depths of pain and despair can Oskar Schindler's selfless goodness come to the forefront.
When we first meet Schindler (Liam Neeson, who is magnificent), he is a self-confident, playboy profiteer looking to make some serious money manufacturing goods for the German army in Poland. Schindler is gregarious, generous, greedy, even a tad corrupt; he has no trouble making fast friends with the Nazi leadership and getting his factory off and running. Hiring an astute Jewish accountant (Ben Kingsley), Oskar is making more money than even he anticipated.
But then the Nazi extermination progroms are implemented. The Jewish ghetto is cleaned out, its population shipped to concentration camps. And we see Oskar Schindler begin to transform, from a gregarious womanizer to a humanitarian horrified by what he sees happening before his very eyes. By bribing the Nazi officials at a nearby camp, he is able to employ hundreds of Jewish workers, thereby giving them at least a respite from the daily horrors of the camp. And finally, upon learning the camp will be emptied and its prisoners taken to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, he and Kingsley's character comprise a list of 1,100 names--people he will take with him to his new plant in Czechoslovakia. . .people who will escape certain death. He spends every last dime he has amassed to "buy" these workers, then laments during this film's moving climax, "I should have saved more."
This is one incredible film; the story is extraordinary, the acting phenomenal. I was the most impressed by Ralph Fiennes playing the commandant of the Nazi camp sending workers to Schindler's factory. With a cold, almost listless, expression, Fiennes is brutal, diabolical--chilling. It's an unforgettable role for an unforgettable movie; SCHINDLER'S LIST is one of the all-time greats, and most deserving of all its awards and accolades.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning
Description of Schindler's List
Steven Spielberg had a banner year in 1993. He scored one of his biggest commercial hits that summer with the mega-hit Jurassic Park, but it was the artistic and critical triumph of Schindler's List that Spielberg called "the most satisfying experience of my career." Adapted from the best-selling book by Thomas Keneally and filmed in Poland with an emphasis on absolute authenticity, Spielberg's masterpiece ranks among the greatest films ever made about the Holocaust during World War II. It's a film about heroism with an unlikely hero at its center--Catholic war profiteer Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), who risked his life and went bankrupt to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps.By employing Jews in his crockery factory manufacturing goods for the German army, Schindler ensures their survival against terrifying odds. At the same time, he must remain solvent with the help of a Jewish accountant (Ben Kingsley) and negotiate business with a vicious, obstinate Nazi commandant (Ralph Fiennes) who enjoys shooting Jews as target practice from the balcony of his villa overlooking a prison camp. Schindler's List gains much of its power not by trying to explain Schindler's motivations, but by dramatizing the delicate diplomacy and determination with which he carried out his generous deeds.
As a drinker and womanizer who thought nothing of associating with Nazis, Schindler was hardly a model of decency; the film is largely about his transformation in response to the horror around him. Spielberg doesn't flinch from that horror, and the result is a film that combines remarkable humanity with abhorrent inhumanity--a film that functions as a powerful history lesson and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the context of a living nightmare. --Jeff Shannon
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