Schindler's List: Movie Review

Schindler’s List took place in Poland and Israel. The languages spoken in this film are English, German, Polish, and Hebrew. The director was Steven Spielberg. According to IMDb, “One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood’s best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, producer or writer since launching the summer blockbuster with Jaws (1975) …”

The protagonist of Oskar Schindler played by Liam Neeson. Also, he played as the antagonist which he played as Alucard in Batman Begins (2005). This name is really Dracula spelled backwards. Ben Kingsley played as Itzhak Stern, who was the assistant to Mr. Schindler. He was in the film Gandhi (1982) where he played as Mohandas K. Gandhi. He was soon recognized internationally after winning many awards for this film. Ralph Fiennes played as the cold-hearted Nazi general, Amon Goeth. Fiennes was also part of Harry Potter series. He played as Lord Voldemort, who was one of the biggest actors in these films. Caroline Goodall played as Emilie Schindler in this film. Goodall has played in many films for Spielberg throughout the years. She has acted in the film Hook (1991). The producers of this film are Irving Glovin, Kathleen Kennedy, Branko Lustig, and Steven Spielberg. Schindler’s List, the music was written by John Williams, the director of photography was by Janusz Kaminski, the film editing was by Michael Kahn, the production was by Allan Starski, and costume design was by Anna B. Sheppard.

According to Winston, “One of the 1,200 Jews that Schindler saved from the `Nazis emigrated to the United States in 1948. After opening a luggage store in Beverly Hills, he spent 40 years trying to make a movie about his savior. In 1951, he approached director Fritz Lang but it didn’t work out. Later on, he managed to convince Thomas Keneally, an Australian author, to write the novel ‘Schindler’s Ark,’ in 1982” (2016). This book had influenced the making of Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg’s parents were runaway Jews that escaped to America and didn’t have the same fate as these Jews had to suffer. This motivated the making of this film because it took a great deal of time to even start making Schindler’s List. According to IMDb,“The most expensive black & white film to date. The previous record was held for over 30 years by another film set during World War II, The Longest Day (1962).”

According to IMDb, “This film had won an Oscar (1994), a Golden Globe Award (1994), a BAFTA Film Award (1994), and Steven Spielberg won an award for this film called the “David Lean Award for Direction” (1994)” (1994). The budget was twenty-two million dollars, also the opening weekend the film earned only seven hundred thousand, the gross in the U.S. was around ninety-seven million dollars, and worldwide gross was around three hundred and twenty-two million dollars. While watching Schindler’s List, it felt like I was in the film watching and being vulnerable as you seen many innocent Jews dying. According to Ebert (1993), “This subtlety is Spielberg’s strength all through the film. His screenplay, by Steven Zaillian, based on the novel by Thomas Keneally, isn’t based on contrived melodrama. Instead, Spielberg relies on a series of incidents, seen clearly and without artificial manipulation, and by witnessing those incidents we understand what little can be known about Schindler and his scheme” (Schindler’s List movie review, para, 7). This film portrayed exactly what really happened during the Holocaust, as you seen these harsh conditions the Jews were living in. “Our Flick of the Week is Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust drama ‘Schindler’s List,’ and by now you’ve already heard it called ‘the movie of the year’ by critics and news magazines. That’s my feeling as well. What Spielberg has done in this Holocaust story is simply and forcefully place us there. In Krakow. In the ghetto” (Siskel, 1993). Furthermore, Spielberg is a Jew, as he may have lost a few relatives and has tried to understand the truth of his peoples’ population depleting from this horrible cause.