Schindler's List "What's a person worth to you?"

Right OK time for a more dramatic post than what I usually do as this film will cover one of the most powerful and acclaimed dramas in recent years as it will cover the harrowing 1993 war-time drama, Schindler's List.  So after 24 years how does it fair???  Well let's take a look....

And the usual warning applies...

SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!

STORY

Right so the story is of course set during World War II and takes places in Krakow where Polish Jews have been forced into the ghettos by the Germans.  And during this period, German businessman, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) arrives in Krakow to make his fortune and he befriends and bribes a number of SS officials and acquires a factory to produce enamelware.  Schindler hires a local Jewish official, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to aid him, who has links to black marketeers and business within the Jewish community and he helps Schindler with the financing for the factory.  Schindler also hires many Jews as they will work for less money but Stern also insists they join the factory in order to save them from being shipped to concentration camps. 

However things take a turn for the worse when the brutal SS officer, Amon Goth (Ralph Fiennes) arrives to oversee the construction of a concentration camp in Plaszow.  Once the camp has been completed, Goth orders the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, which results in many people being killed.  Schindler, while out riding with his girlfriend, witnesses the massacre from a hilltop and is deeply affected by it, particularly an image of a young Jewish girl wearing a red coat, who walks among the streets but Schindler later sees her body has been placed on a wagon loaded with corpses.

After the liquidation, the surviving Jews continue their slave labour at the camp where Goth, randomly shoots Jews workers from the balcony of his villa with the workers now fearing for their lives.  Goth also acquires an attractive Jewish maid, Helen Hirsch (Embeth Davitz) whom he cruelly mistreats although he secretly desires her.  Schindler meanwhile carefully strikes up a friendship with Goth, while trying to keep his workers alive with acts of benevolence and trying to persuade Goth to "pardon" the Jewish workers if they do something wrong rather than kill them, although this works for a short time it doesn't last as Goth goes back to his murdering ways soon enough.

To make matters worse, Goth is soon ordered to burn the bodies of the Jews killed in the Krakow massacre, which Schindler witnesses to his horror.  Now realising the potentially horrifying fate that awaits the Jewish workers at the camp, Schindler decides to build his own sub-camp and bribes Goth into releasing the workers to work for him at the camp, which is to be built in his hometown of Brinnlitz.  And its from here Schindler with Stern's help starts to compile his list of Jewish workers he intends to save from the fate of being sent to Auschwitz.....

THOUGHTS

There is not much doubt that Schindler's List is a superb, albeit truly harrowing film that does nothing to spare viewers the horrors of the holocaust and its director, Steven Spielberg here has made a mature, uncompromising film not to mention for the most part unsentimental.  Spielberg himself endured a harrowing time in making the film and after he won the Academy Award for Best Director, he said in his acceptance speech that it was his wife, Kate Capshaw who saved him "when things just got too unbearable".

However the film also does feature some staple moments of humour that can be found in Spielberg's films that are particularly notable in the scenes where Schindler stares admiringly at every female applicant secretary who does a typing test and he get's closer and closer to each one as they get prettier until we get to the last one, which is a middle aged stern woman, and he sits with his arms folded and looking away!  And its moments like this that also showcase that Spielberg can allow for moments of levity even in the grimmest of stories.  

But the film of course also has its unsettling and distressing moments also, particularly the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto where Spielberg spares nothing in his depiction of the horrifying events of the day it took place on 15 March 1943.  Although Spielberg does add a distinctive style to the sequence in one moment where see a young Jewish girl wear a red coat, which is the only bit of colour in the film until its final closing scene.  This is then later followed by the scene where an SS officer plays a piano in one of the buildings the Germans storm and kill the occupants and it cuts to outside the building and we see flashing light from the windows, which is the flash of the machine gun fire. 

PERFORMANCES AND NOTABLE SCENES (Warning: this section may contain spoilers and strong language!)

As for the performances, well they are pretty much all top notch and it sees an excellent cast on top of their game.

Starting with Liam Neeson, who does a great job as Oskar Schindler, the enterprising German businessman, who starts off making his fortunes during the war in Krakow but as the witnesses the horrors around him, he soon decides to make it his mission to save as many Jews as he possibly can.

And Neeson has many great moments in his performance but for the sake of time (and typing!) I will only mention three or four.  To start off there is the scene where Schindler meets a young Jewish woman, Regina Perlman, who pretends she is looking for a job but instead pleads with him to take in her parents to his factory to save them from being shipped off to Auszwitch, much to the outrage of Schindler, who feels his is being used by Stern to take in Jews.

So in the scene, Schindler tells Regina "Such activities are illegal!  You will not entrap me!  Cry and I will have you arrested! I swear to God!" and Regina runs out in a panic.  So afterward, Schindler angrily confronts Stern over the meeting and angrily rants at him "People die! It's a fact of life. He wants to kill everybody? Great! What am I supposed to do about it?!  Bring everybody over?! Is that what you think?! Send them over to Schindler. Send them all! His place is a haven, didn't you know? It's not a factory. It's not an enterprise of any kind. It's a haven for rabbis and orphans and people with NO SKILLS WHATSOEVER!!!".  And Stern asks Schindler "Are you losing money?" and Schindler says "No, that is not the point!" and Stern asks "The point is?" and Schindler goes up to him and shouts "It's DANGEROUS!  IT'S DANGEROUS TO ME!!".  

Another good scene is when Schindler goes to the train station to save Stern from being taken away from him after Stern forgot to present his work card to the Germans.  And in the scene Schindler questions a young German officer and a station official where Stern is and after the officer tells Schindler there is nothing he can do given that Stern's name is on the list of the Jews on the train.  So having made note of the officer's name, Schindler says to both men "Gentlemen, thank you very much. I think I can guarantee you you'll both be in Southern Russia before the end of the month! Good day!".  And this panics both men into helping Schindler find Stern, which they eventually do and stop the train and let him off.  

Then there is the scene where Schindler after a party has a drink with Goth, who is pretty drunk at this point and Goth says to him "You know, I look at you.  You're never drunk.  That's real control.  That's power.  Control is power".  And Schindler says to him "Is that why they fear us?" and Goth says "We have the fucking power to kill, that's why they fear us!".  And Schindler responds to Goth saying "They fear us because we have the power to kill arbitrarily. A man commits a crime,
he should know better. We have him killed, and we feel pretty good about it. Or we kill him ourselves and we feel even better. That's not power, though. That's justice. It's different than power. Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't".

And Goth looks at Schindler incredulously and says "And you think that's power???" and Schindler tells Goth a story "That's what the emperors had. A man stole something, he's brought in before the emperor,he throws himseIf down on the ground, he begs for mercy. He knows he's going to die.  And the emperor pardons him. This worthless man. He lets him go".  Goth then looks at Schindler and says "I think you are drunk!" but Schindler leans in and says "That's power, Amon.  That is power!  Amon the good!" which prompts a laugh from Goth who mockingly says "I pardon you!" and they both laugh.

Last of all is the scene near the end where Schindler addresses the Jewish workers at his own factory in Brinnlitz, Germany that the war has just ended and the factory will now close down.  And Schindler addresses the German soldiers, who are guarding the camp "I know you have received orders from our commandant, which he has received from his superiors, to dispose of the population of this camp. Now would be the time to do it. Here they are, they're all here. This is your opportunity. Or you could leave and return to your families as men instead of murderers!".  And from this pont on, one by one, all the German soldiers simply leave the factory.   

Ben Kingsley is also great as Stern, Schindler's factory manager, who later helps him put together the list of Jews, Schindler intends to save from the horrors of being sent to the contentration camps.  

Ben has plenty of great moments in the film but I will keep it to just a few also, starting with the scene where Schindler confronts Stern after his meeting with Regina Perlman as word has got out his factory has become a haven for Jews.  And in the scene Stern expresses his concerns over Goth's brutal behaviour as in one scene he systematically kills Jews as a punishment for an escaped worker.

And in the scene, Schindler tries to spin the good side of Goth (what good side you ask?!) by saying "

He's a wonderful crook. A man who loves good food, good wine, the ladies, making money..." and Stern interrupts and says "...killing" and Schindler says "He can't enjoy it!".

And Stern then tells Schindler about Goth's killing spree "Bejski told me the other day, somebody escaped from a work detail outside the wire. Goth lined up everybody from the missing man's barracks. He shot the man to the left of Bejski, the man to the right of him. He walked down the line shooting every other man with a pistol. Twenty-five".  And Schindler sighs and exclaims "What do you want me to do about it???!" and Stern tries to allay him and says "Nothing, nothing.  We're just talking".  

Then there is the scene where Schindler stars to dictate to Stern the names of the Jews he wants on his list for his new factory.  And during the scene, Schindler leans up close to Stern, smoking a cigarette and inadvertently blowing smoke in Stern's face, who coughs and says "How many cigarettes have you smoked tonight?!" and Schindler says "Too many!" and Stern says "For every one you smoke, I smoke half!!".  

And last of all there is the scene where Schindler tells Stern to stop typing as he finishes off the last page of his list and Stern asks Schindler "What did Goth say about this? You just told him how many people you needed and..."  And then it dawns on Stern what Schindler is doing, who says nothing to him and Stern, amazed asks "You're not buying them. You're buying them? You're paying him for each of these names?".  And Schindler says to Stern "If you were still working for me, I'd expect you to talk me out of it. It's costing me a fortune!".  And Stern then takes the last page out of the typewriter and places it with the others and touched by Schindler's actions, he says to him "The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf".

Next is Ralph Fiennes, who is superb and chilling as the ruthless and psychopathic SS officer, Amon Goth, who supervises the concentration camp in Krakow and randomly kills whoever he likes, leaving the workers fearing for their lives.  And I always had a strong hatred for the character and his monstrous behaviour but Fiennes almost succeeds in at times attempting to humanise Goth's character but at others making him utterly evil and downright loathsome.   

Fiennes has plenty of highlights in the film that include his first main scene where Goth arrives just as the camp in Krakow is being constructed only for Goth to be met with by a feisty Jewish engineer, Diana Reiter who insists that the workers take down the skeletal structure of the camp so far as it could cause subsidence.  And as the engineer tells Goth where she studied, Goth says "Ah, an educated Jew like Karl Marx himself" and Goth then takes a quick look at the structure and turns to one of the officers and says "Shoot her!".  And Diana pleads with Goth saying "Commandant, I am only trying to do my job!" and Goth coldly says to her "Ja, and I'm doing mine!".  And as Diana is taken aside and one of the officers draws his gun, she says to Goth with her last words "It will take more than that!" and Goth says "I'm sure you're right!" and she is shot dead.

Then there is the scene where Schindler first meets Goth and Goth expresses his frustrations over what is involved in getting a camp built.  And he tells Schindler "Do you have any idea what is involved? The paperwork alone, and then you've got to build the fucking thing. Getting the fucking permits is enough to drive you crazy. Then the engineers show up, they stand around, they argue about drainage, foundations, codes, exact specifications, parallel fences four kilometers long, 1,200 kilograms of barbed wire, 6,000 kilograms of electrified fences, ceramic insulators, three cubic meters of air space per prisoner. I'm telling you, you want to shoot somebody! I've been through it, you know?!".  

Another noteworthy and chilling scene is the pre-cursor to Goth's soldiers liquidating the Krakow ghettos.  And Goth delivers a speech to his men saying of how the Jews settled in Krakow in previous centuries "They settled. They took hold. They prospered in business, science, education, the arts.

They came here with nothing. Nothing. And they flourished. For six centuries there has been a Jewish Krakow. Think about that. By this evening, those six centuries are a rumor. They never happened. Today is history!". 

Then there is the scene where Goth tries to reach out to Helen and make a pass at her as he visits her down in the basement of his villa, where she resides and Helen stands silently in fear as Goth talks at her.  And Goth says to Helen "This is where you come to hide from me. I came to tell you that you really are a wonderful cook and a well-trained servant. I mean it. If you need a reference after the war, I'd be happy to give you one. It must get lonely down here when you're listening to everyone upstairs having such a good time".

And in the scene Goth goes up close to Helen and gently touches her face and looks into her eyes and says "Is this the face of a rat? Are these the eyes of a rat? Hath not a Jew eyes?" and he then slides his hand down her chest and says "I feel for you, Helen". However just as Goth is about to kiss her, Helen suddenly gives a shiver of fear, which instantly makes Goth's blood boil and he says "No, I don't think so!  You Jewish bitch!  You almost talked me into it, didn't you?!" and he proceeds to brutally beat her (put in whatever violent expletives you like here about Amon Goth, in short he was an evil twisted f***ng murdering piece of fu***ng shit and let's hope that he rotted thoroughly in hell and will continue to do so for a hundred centuries more!).

And last of all there is the scene where Schindler tries to bribe Goth into going along with his idea to build a new camp and hire or "buy" Goth's Jewish workers.  And in the scene Goth is irritated by Schindler's offer as he can't understand it "You're probably scamming me somehow. If I'm making 100, you've got to be making 300. And if you admit to 300, then it's 400, actually!" but he says "I'll go along with it. It's just irritating I can't work it out!".  And Schindler asks Goth "Look, all you have to do is tell me what it's worth to you. What's a person worth to you?" but Goth fires the question back at him "No, no, no, no!  What's one worth to you?!".  

Embeth Davidtz is very good in her role as Helen Hirsch, who becomes Goth's personal maid, who lives in absolute fear of him and his brutal and volatile behaviour.

Embeth's main scene of course worth mention is when Helen confides with Schindler over how she fears for her life with Goth.  And Helen tells Schindler "We were on the roof on Monday, young Lisiek and I, and we saw the Herr Kommandant come out of the front door and down the steps by the patio, right there below us, and there on the steps he drew his gun and he shot a woman who was passing by. A woman carrying a bundle. Through the throat!  Just a woman on her way somewhere, you know? She was no fatter or thinner or slower or faster than anyone else, and I couldn't guess WHAT had she done! The more you see of the Herr Kommandant, the more you see there is no set rules that you can live by. You can't say to yourseIf, "If I follow these rules, I will be safe."

The other supporting actors playing a number of Jewish roles also do well with their respective parts such as Jonathan Sagall, as Poldek Pfefferberg, who is a black market trader, who trades with Schindler. And Sagall's most notable scene comes when Poldek just manages to save himself from Goth during the liquidation of the ghetto as he starts to clear the roads of abandoned suitcases.  And as Goth and his men stop by him, Poldek suddenly halt, clicks his heels and salutes, leaving Goth and his men laughing.  And Poldek tries to compose himself and says "I respectfully report I've been given orders to clear the bundles from the road, so there will be no obstructions to the thoroughfare!".  And Goth laughs and goes up to him and says "Finish and join the lines, little Polish clicking soldier!" and he laughs and leaves Poldek to it. 

And last of all is Caroline Goodall, who plays Schindler's estranged wife, Emilie, who briefly comes to visit him in Krakow.  

And Caroline's most notable scene is when Emilie spends the night together with Oskar and she asks him "Should I stay?" and Schindler says "Its a beautiful city" and Emilie asks "I asked if I should stay?" and Schindler shrugs and says "It's up to you".  And Emilie then delivers her ultimatum to Schindler and says "Promise me, Oskar, no doorman or matre d' will ever presume I'm anyone other than Mrs. Schindler, and I'll stay".  But then the scene cuts to Emilie at the train station making her farewell to Schindler!  

DIRECTOR AND MUSIC

As for direction, well Steven Spielberg rarely puts a foot wrong here as he skillfully directs the film and gives it the intensity and gravitas it deserves in what was also a deeply personal project for Spielberg himself, who said he felt more like a reporter than a director during the production.  Spielberg also naturally was very emotional during filming and it was said that he received calls from his friend and actor, Robin Williams to cheer him up given the seriousness on set.

Spielberg also succeeds in building up a senese of dread and tension in certain sequences aswell particularly during the Krakow liquidation scene, where in one moment a Jewish family sit and wait in fear as they hear the noise of the German soldiers grow nearer as they storm the ghetto.  Yet Spielberg also allows for moments of levity as I already mentioned as earlier on Schindler's flamboyance provides some humourous scenes.

But this certainly remains as one of Spielberg's best directorial achievements for which he deservedly won the Academy Award.

As for the music....well....its John Williams....need we say more???  So its no surprise at all then that the score is a great one and its main theme remains very memorable for its violin and the violinst who played it was Itzhak Perlman.  Williams, who won a 5th Academy Award for his score, reportedly said during production to Spielberg that he needed a better composer than he was for the film but Spielberg told him "I know.  But they're all dead!".  But there is no surprise that it did win the Oscar as it remains one of Williams most memorable scores throughout his long career.

FLAWS

As for flaws, does Schindler's List have any worth mentioning???  Well not too many but maybe just one or two.

For starters I think the film left one or two things unexplained such as just what happened to the children, who were driven away from the camp in Krakow after Goth has the sick and the healthy separated for labour???  Were they going to be taken to another concentration camp???  Its not really clear and its left to your imagination to work out although I'd imagine they were being shipped away at that point.

Then there is the scene where Goth tries to shoot the Jewish metal worker, who he thought was slacking off, but his gun doesn't work and he tries another gun and the same thing happens.  And in the next scene Schindler gives Stern his lighter, which Stern tries to light but it doesn't.  Does this suggest then that Schindler was able to get to Goth's guns and jam them somehow to prevent them from firing???  Again its really not that clear and further to this point, why didn't Goth then take one of the soldier's other guns and shoot the worker with that instead?  Its just as well he didn't of course!

Another scene worth mentioning as a slight flaw (if you want to call it that as such) is where the Jewish women are transported to Auschwitz by mistake and when they arrive they are ordered to strip and enter a large room, which the women fear to be a gas chamber, however as they wait for their possible deaths, all of a sudden showers come on, much to the relief of the women.  However in the scene before the women enter the shower room, we see the sign above the door, which states in German that it is a disinfection (desinfektion) room and not a gas chamber.  So in a way if any people watching the scene pick up on this then it feels like the suspense that Spielberg tries to build up is a little bit wasted.

Then we have a historical inaccuracy involving Goth, who in the film is depicted as randomly shooting Jewish workers from his villa's balcony on a daily basis, however in reality there were numerous reports that Goth's balcony was too far away for him to use his sniper rifle effectively to get a shot off.  So in reality Goth's killings were said to be more up close and personal then indiscriminately shooting them from afar.

And last of all in regards to the film's ending, Spielberg drops the ball just at the last minute in the scene where Schindler breaks down in tears as he regrets that he was not able to save anymore Jews than he did.  And Schindler tearfully says "Why did I keep the car???  Ten people right there!  This pin, this is gold!  Two more people!" as the Jewish workers gather round and hug him as he breaks down.  The scene itself feels a bit uneccessary in some ways as at this point Schindler did everything he could having saved over 1100 people already and its also the one bit of sentimentality that Spielberg adds into the film that shouldn't really need to be there.

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So to sum up, Schindler's List remains a great film and one of the most important films of its time and indeed any time that rightly got the plaudits it deserved from the critics, audiences and the Academy Awards, who awarded the film seven oscars including best director and picture.  The performances from the cast are top notch, Spielberg's direction is near perfect, the black and white cinemaphotography also beautifully adds to the film and was rightly so filmed that way and Williams's score is haunting and memorable   And any minor flaws the film does have are far outweighed by its better qualities and whle it remains a difficult film to watch, it is one that also remains a must see.

Right so that's it for now and I will be back with another review soon, possibly another Doctor Who one (maybe The Masque of Mandragora from the Tom Baker days).

So until the next one its bye for now!