Schindler's List Review

Schindler’s List, directed and produced by Steven Spielberg in 1993, stars Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley. The movie is based on the book Schindler's Ark, written in 1982 by Thomas Keneally. I first watched Schindler's List this past Friday at my home.

In Schindler's List, Nazis force Polish Jews into the Krakow ghetto, and Oskar Schindler (Neeson), who is ethnically German and a Nazi party member, arrives in the city hoping to make a fortune. He acquires a factory and hires Itzhak Stern (Kingsley), who has contacts with the Jewish business community, to help him with his business. Schindler hires Jewish workers because it is cheaper, while Stern insists they are important to the Nazi war effort, in order to save them from being sent to concentration camps. Amon Goeth (Fiennes), an SS officer, arrives in Krakow to oversee the construction of a concentration camp, and he orders the Jews out of the ghetto and into the camp, upon its completion. Many Jews are shot and killed during the liquidation of the ghetto, and this greatly affects Schindler's views of the Nazi party, and causes him to start to feel sympathy for the Jews. Schindler bribes Goeth to maintain a close relationship with him, while he shifts his focus from making money to saving as many Jews as possible. As Germany starts to lose the war, Goeth is required to move the Jews to the Auschwitz death camp, so Schindler asks to move his workers into a new factory near there, and he and Stern create "Schindler's List", which lists all the Jews to be moved to the new factory, and thus be saved from Auschwitz. Schindler has to constantly bribe SS officers to save as many Jews as he can, but has to flee because the Russian Red Army will capture him for being an SS officer himself. He helped save 1,100 Jews, and the final scene shows the real actors honoring Schindler at his real grave.

Oskar Schindler, and all of the other characters, were based off real people that existed during World War II, and the story of how Oskar Schindler saved 1,100 Jews from death and suffering, was true. However, some aspects of the film weren’t entirely historically accurate, in order to provide some artistic expression and make the film more interesting. For example, “Schindler’s List” wasn’t really Oskar Schindler’s, as Schindler was in prison at the time, and his manager was supposedly given the list (yet he was no longer working for Schindler). The only thing Schindler had to do with the list was mentioning the name of Jews whom he wanted to be safe. At the end of the film, it says that Jews named Schindler a “righteous gentile” for his actions in 1958, yet this did not happen until 1993 (2 decades after he died) because of rumors that he had stolen from Jews and beaten them. Events, such as the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, are also true, but unlike in the film, Oskar Schindler likely did not see this liquidation while horseback riding on a hill, where he also saw the girl in the red coat (the only color in this black and white film). The girl in the red coat was used to grab the audience’s attention and Schindler’s in the story, in order to make him realize what was happening to Jews, and provide a shift in his attitude in the film, from a greedy Nazi party member to a caring man who was trying to save as many people as he could. Overall, the movie is historically accurate, but some things were changed to make it better for the movie.

The film takes place in Krakow, Poland, covering the time period between 1939-1945 (the entirety of the war in Europe). The environment is depicted realistically, including the Krakow ghetto and Auschwitz. However, some things weren’t entirely accurate. One of the streets shown several times in the film is made of broken-apart headstones, but it has been discovered that this was probably inaccurate. Most of the props and hairstyles used were accurate. The film depicted many Jews being wealthy prior to being forced into the ghetto, as Schindler even comments how nice an apartment that he has acquired is, which used to belong to a Jewish family. However, information has shown that Jews living in Krakow at the time were not all that wealthy, showing how the film made the setting seem nicer at first than it really was. I particularly liked the uniforms of the soldiers and the clothing of the Jewish people, which were accurate and well done, which explains why Schindler’s List received an Oscar nomination for “Best Costume Design”.

Schindler’s List was an exceptional film that managed to portray the horrors of the Holocaust in a way that really made the audience feel sympathy for the victims of the atrocities committed. All of the actors did a tremendous job, although Neeson portrayed Oskar Schindler as a man who passionately cared about saving as many people as he could, when Schindler was not like this in real life (although this is really the fault of the scriptwriter Steven Zaillian for being historically inaccurate). Despite this, Liam Neeson was phenomenal in his portrayal of Schindler’s harsher personality in the beginning of the film. The film could be slow at times, but once Schindler took a greater interest in the well being of the Jewish people’s suffering, the film was able to maintain my interest. The story built to a logical climax, as Schindler realized what was happening to the Jews, and tried his best to save as many as possible, saving about 1,100 people. I think that if this film had been made today, there would be some corrections to historical inaccuracies, but it would otherwise remain the same, particularly the decision to film it like it’s a documentary in black and white, which I liked. Schindler’s List helped to make people more aware of just how bad the Jews had been treated by the Nazis. I would recommend that everyone watch Steven Spielberg’s brilliant film.