Spielberg on "Saving the world entire"

Schindler’s List
Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall

The unconditional surrender of Germany has just been announced. At midnight tonight, the war is over. Tomorrow you'll begin the process of looking for survivors of your families. In most cases... you won't find them. After six long years of murder, victims are being mourned throughout the world. We've survived. Many of you have come up to me and thanked me. Thank yourselves. Thank your fearless Stern, and others among you who worried about you and faced death at every moment. I am a member of the Nazi Party. I'm a munitions manufacturer. I'm a profiteer of slave labour. I am... a criminal. At midnight, you'll be free and I'll be hunted. I shall remain with you until five minutes after midnight, after which time - and I hope you'll forgive me - I have to flee.

The silver screen is a powerful medium for the transmission of emotions. I say this in full knowledge of the triteness of the statement, and its utter lack of original appeal as a result. Because it’s as true as hackneyed clichés get. Watching a movie can do things to you, it can change your mood, it can inspire you, it can have you going away feeling that humanity might have a hope in the world after all… or it might just leave you shaken and insecure. Now, what does one do when one comes across a movie that does all of the above, and more? A movie that transcends every barrier, a movie that goes beyond the established means, medians and modes of filmmaking, a movie that is not merely unforgettable, but revolutionary (in more ways thane one) and indelible? One eulogises, is what one does. And such a movie one found, when one sat down to watch Steven Allen Spielberg’s greatest work to date, that apotheosis of cinematography, that homage to the profundity of monochrome… that Schindler’s List.

When one speaks of “epic” in terms of movies, there are names that spring quite chirpily (sometimes cumbersomely as well) to mind: Gone With the Wind, Ben Hur, and Lawrence of Arabia, to name but a few. The latest addition to this tinsel town pantheon was Schindler’s List, in 1993. A flawless classic of direction, production and acting at their scintillating best, it speaks of incredible proportions, temporal, humane and cinematic. Arguably (disputable) the best-made movie ever produced by Hollywood, or any other wood, it is the stylishly, engrossingly portrayed account of Nazi profiteer, womaniser and unwitting philanthropist Oskar Schindler, who did his remarkable part in ensuring that over a 1,000 Jews made it through the holocaustic horrors of the Second World War not simply alive, but well-fed and healthy (questionable inference). Now, one obviously sat down to watch this movie somewhat choc-a-bloc with expectation… after all, what with 7 Oscars and BAFTAs, 3 Golden Globes, 55 other awards and 21 more nominations, one can’t be the first to feel so strongly about the movie. And, having watched it, all 200-odd minutes of it, one realised that all the heaped honours and venerations hadn’t prepared one for something on this scale. One was dumbfounded, and shaken and stirred like a mutant Bond beverage.

It’s well known (once again) that the best movies are those that involve the viewer. And I haven’t seen a movie yet that can so much as compete with Schindler’s List in this sphere… it is an emotional drama that simultaneously plays on multiple themes: of power and its misuse, of compassion, inhumanity and forgiveness, of dissolution and regret, and ultimately, of the value of life. An important facet of this movie, and indisputably a core factor in the deliverance of its humane messages, is Spielberg’s resolute use of graphic cinematography… remorseless killings, incinerations and exhumations are shown unflinchingly (though the violence cannot be classified as gore, it is of a more implicit nature), and nudity is not a vehicle for titillation to Spielberg, it is a tool for the projection of Jew desolation and helplessness and German atrocity.

Interestingly, the aforementioned humane messages describe a steady progression as the movie progresses, from a sort of lurking-in-the-background motif to a conspicuous centrepiece of the film. We see Schindler progressing from mere cupidity, saturnalias and bedroom philandering to a solicitous and cunning proponent of Jew amelioration, yet retaining his enigmatic charisma throughout. He is heavily influenced by his Jew accountant, Itzhak Stern; Spielberg spends considerable time subtly depicting the development of a wonderful relationship between these two men, an inspiring toast to friendship undeterred by delineations. At the same time, this is paralleled by Schindler’s relationship with the incredibly debauch and stupendously pitiless Amon Goeth, a Nazi who couldn’t be more suited to Hitler’s ideologies. To Goeth, the wanton, groundless killing of Jews became something so routine that it slowly ingratiated itself with his morning ablutions… an integral part of his day, a day-starter to compare with coffee in terms of stimulation. Goeth is as sick as humans can get, almost like the biological equivalent of a chainsaw.

The question thus arises: isn’t Schindler’s association with Goeth incongruous with his (Schindler’s) personality? Indeed, prima facie. But this relationship is seen as motive-driven right from the start, and the motives begin to diversify, to the point where Schindler is, in fact, seen consciously taking advantage of Goeth’s dipsomania to drop pithy words on the importance of power and the values of forgiveness (yep, the Themes). However, this is almost going into spoiler territory, so it would be better to concentrate on the remaining themes.

Schindler’s List was directed in 1993. Way into colour film era. So possibly the single most noticeable aspect of the film is its black-and-white-ness, in keeping with Spielberg’s desire to shoot the movie like a documentary. Somewhat incongruously, this only makes the viewing experience exponentially more engrossing than the alternative suggests; the insightful and shrewd use of monochrome lends a sense of timelessness, aural starkness and neorealism to the film, thus sharpening the anti-Semitic mood and concurrently embellishing it.

A number of features of Schindler’s List distinguish it from the plethora of texts and motion pictures exemplifying the horrors of the holocaust. The use of monochrome in itself takes the movie to an apical level of artistry. On another note, the projection of Oskar Schindler as no god-sent messiah, but a cunning, enigmatic individualist with ruggedly capitalist aspirations who almost reluctantly finds himself empathising with and condemning Jewish conditions through prolonged contact with them, is a toast to the transient humanity in us all, and at the same time, is a brilliant and successful attempt to involve the viewers in Schindler’s maturation. In a way, Schindlers List is Bildungsroman drama… the only disqualification being that Schindler is already a full-fledged adult when the movie begins.

Schindler’s List is a tribute to the power of histrionics. The ensemble acting is flawless, with Liam Neeson (Schindler), Ben Kingsley (Itzhak Stern) and Ralph Fiennes (Amon Goeth) delivering superbly crafted performances to compliment Spielberg’s peerless direction and Janusz Kaminski’s stylistic cinematography. It is a transcendental tribute to the gamut of forces governing humanity, and an inspirational story of the difference one man made in the fortunes of thousands, of the difference, to commit oneself once more to banality, a singular beacon of light can make in warding off seemingly insurmountable darkness, presented in an unforgettably realistic manner. Extensive, magnificent and sparklingly multi-thematic, it is, quite, simply, the most powerful movie I have seen.