Schindler’s List

Will there ever come a time when watching a film about the Holocaust isn’t a painful experience? I hope not. Because if such a time ever comes, that means that I am dead inside and no longer capable of feeling empathy for the beaten and oppressed. Nowadays, such empathy is needed more than ever within my lifetime, and I cannot come away from a film like Schindler’s List and not see some of the parallels happening in our world again. Those whose ancestors lived through the Holocaust must be even more afraid of where our world is headed again. 

By 1992, Steven Spielberg had cemented himself as the master of family-friendly adventure films. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Hook had all endeared themselves to that audience and made Spielberg a household name. Even Jaws and Jurassic Park, with their violent and intense sequences, were popular films amongst families. People knew what to expect when his name was attached to a project. But one thing eluded him. He kept being skipped over for Best Director at the Academy Awards. 

Many of his best films were nominated for Best Picture, and he even had a few Best Director nominations over the years, but none of these picked up wins. 1993 would change all of that. Schindler’s List was simply too good of a film for the Academy to ignore him anymore. This was a much more mature Spielberg, one who was done portraying Nazis as punching bags for the likes of Indiana Jones. In fact, after Schindler’s List, he would not be comfortable using Nazis that way again, hence the change in villain to the Russians in his final Indiana Jones film. 

What would eventually become Schindler’s List began as a passion project for Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the Schindlerjuden. Pfefferberg attempted to make a biopic back in 1963 with MGM. This project eventually fell through. Then in 1982, a novel was published entitled Schindler’s Ark, which came about after author Thomas Keneally had a chance meeting with Pfefferberg. A New York Times review of that book made it into the hands of Steven Spielberg, who was astonished by this story and questioned if it was even true. He wondered what would make a man like Oskar Schindler take everything he had earned and put it all in the service of saving lives. Spielberg urged Universal Pictures to buy up the rights to the book, and he set a date ten years out to make the film.

Initially, he began questioning his own ability to tell this story, thinking perhaps he was not mature enough to do it justice. This led him to offer the director’s chair to Roman Polanski, who refused the offer. Roman was a Jew who lived through the Holocaust and whose own mother had died in Auschwitz. He, himself, had lived in the Kraków Ghetto. This experience would eventually lead him to direct his own Holocaust film, The Pianist. Spielberg offered the film to several other directors before finally committing to making it himself. What finally prompted him to take the reins was a growing vocal minority of Holocaust deniers and the rise of neo-Nazism in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall. He worried that intolerance was growing again, just as it had in the 1930s, and that the world needed to see the true horrors of the Nazis. Thirty years later, the world is in desperate need of a reminder of this again. 

Oskar Schindler is a fascinating historical figure that is nearly impossible to peg. He was an industrialist and member of the Nazi Party. Yet at some point, his opinions on the treatment of the Jews shifted, and he used his position and wealth to shield them from the worst of the persecutions, employing them in his enamelware and ammunition factories in occupied Poland. By doing so, he kept them out of the concentration camps and saved many lives. He is credited with saving 1,200 Jews during this time, and though he was officially a Nazi, making him a target of American and Russian troops as the war ended, those whom he employed and saved provided him with documents and names exonerating him from the war crimes of other Nazis. Ultimately, he was never able to successfully run a business again, something he struggled with for the rest of his life. After his death in 1974, he was honored with a burial in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, the only former Nazi to be thus honored. He and his wife, Emilie, were named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial institution to the victims of the Holocaust, in 1993.

Liam Neeson had been acting in films since the late 1970s. Yet when you look back at his credits, at the time he was mostly in supporting roles in schlocky films like High Spirits or Krull. He was not the lead actor we know him as today. He would have to audition for Oskar Schindler. Spielberg saw him in Anna Christie on Broadway and was impressed with the performance. His lack of star power worked in his favor, too, as Spielberg wanted to avoid movie star baggage with this role. The gamble worked out as Neeson turned in a performance that is absolutely riveting. This is the kind of role that actors drool over and can turn a nobody into a star. 

Matching him beat-for-beat is Ralph Fiennes, who was just starting his acting career. His first credits on screen began the previous year, and this movie would forever change the direction of his life. Ralph is playing Amon Göth, a Nazi war criminal who delighted in the death he inflicted on others. He’s a true human monster that was rightfully executed when the war was ended, and Fiennes is so perfect in the role that it’s scary. Fiennes, as was Neeson, was nominated for the Oscar for this film. It’s absolute insanity that neither won that year, and Fiennes, who has been nominated several times since, has still yet to take home a win; Neeson has yet to be nominated again.

Before Schindler’s List came out, I would have said it was virtually impossible to convey the sheer horrors of the Holocaust in a movie. There have been plenty of films that have depicted the Ghettos and the sheer terror of having to hide for your life in Nazi-occupied countries, but these films have almost always had to hide the true levels of evil that occurred for the sake of securing a release under the MPAA. By 1993, that was no longer a significant stumbling block. Spielberg, himself Jewish, has not really pulled away from the sheer brutality of the Nazis. Perhaps this is where he felt inadequate, as in the past he has envisioned the Nazis as generic villains and punching bags for his heroes. 

In Schindler’s List, things are not quite so black and white. There is some nuance to the Nazis, even those as heavily evil as Amon Göth. Indeed, we get a brief moment with Amon where, having heard Schindler’s message about real men being able to step back and choose not to kill, he tries to hold back his murderous nature. It doesn’t last, but there is the attempt. Schindler, himself, is driven, at least a little, by his lust for beautiful women, and one girl recognizes this and uses it to her advantage to gain an audience with him. These are characters with complicated motivations, not generic heroes and villains. That makes moments when Amon is particularly cruel and brutal all the more disturbing because we on some level can understand him and believe in his character. 

As a way to help personify and give a face to the Schindler Jews, we are given Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), Schindler’s accountant who assisted in his rescue activities. Stern serves as a liaison between the workers and Schindler and is our primary viewpoint for the plight of the Jews in the Ghetto. This is perhaps Ben Kingsley’s finest hour on film, surpassing even that of Gandhi. 

Schindler’s List went into that year’s Oscar’s ceremony guaranteed to win Best Picture; there was never any doubt. Spielberg crafted a masterpiece of visuals and emotions that were haunting, disturbing, but also uplifting at times. This is a bleak subject, but the film balances that with moments of true beauty, such as when Schindler is observing a little girl walking through the Ghetto, her jacket the only bit of color on screen. Later, we will see that that girl has been killed, and the color of the jacket will drive that home to us, but in the moment, all we are seeing is this young, innocent little girl on the streets. This balance of beauty and ugliness is one of the many things that makes this film a true masterpiece.

Perhaps the most emotional scene Spielberg saved for the very end. We all know while watching this film that it is based on a true story. The best way to hammer that home, though, is to bring together the actors with those whom they portrayed in the film. This is done in the finale as the Schindler Jews, those who are still alive, side by side with the actors, one-by-one place a stone at Oskar Schindler’s grave in Jerusalem. This representation of the survivors, none of whom would be alive were it not for him, really hits you in the feels. This moment never fails to move me to tears. This moment culminates with a list of just how many people are alive today thanks to the efforts of Oskar Schindler.

This was an important story to tell. We need to always be aware of the Holocaust and what was allowed to happen that led up to it. Most of us do not have the means to travel to Poland or Amsterdam and visit these sights in person. For us, a film like this can help humanize the victims in a way reading about them in a textbook cannot. It’s one of the darkest moments in human history and it would behoove us to never forget the loss of life and the difference one man, flawed as he was, could make. “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, and Branko Lustig (won)

Best Director: Steven Spielberg (won)

Best Actor: Liam Neeson

Best Supporting Actor: Ralph Fiennes

Best Adapted Screenplay: Steven Zaillian (won)

Best Original Score: John Williams (won)

Best Makeup: Christina Smith, Matthew Mungle, and Judy Alexander Cory

Best Costume Design: Anna B. Sheppard

Best Sound: Andy Nelson, Steve Pederson, Scott Millan, and Ron Judkins

Best Film Editing: Michael Kahn (won)

Best Cinematography: Janusz Kamiński (won)

Best Art Direction: Ewa Braun and Allan Starski (won)

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Release Date: December 15, 1993

Running Time: 195 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagall, and Emberth Davidtz

Directed by: Steven Spielberg