Evan D. As a project this year we are taking a trip through time to revisit all of the Best Picture winners in history, Wings to Anora. Schindler’s List is the sixty-sixth film in that series, to see all the other Best Picture reviews, click here. In Nazi occupied Poland at the outset of the Holocaust, party member Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is enjoying the spoils of good standing with the occupying force. A Nazi is a Nazi, although Schindler is not exactly a true believer. Rather he sees the purging of Kraków’s Jewish population as an opportunity to build a business empire out of factories seized from expelled entrepreneurs. Indifferent about Jews himself, Schindler employs a number of them to help run his enamelware operation. Things start to change when SS lieutenant Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes) arrives and intensifies the crackdown on Jewish Poles. A sadistic, psychopathic man, Göth terrorizes the Jewish ghetto in Krakow, killing indiscriminately. When the death and devastation arrives right in front of Schindler’s nose, he begins to see that he can use his fortune and influence to shelter Jews in his factories to keep them from being sent to concentration camps. Steven Spielberg, known more up to this point for his sentimentality and blockbuster sensibility, turns his lens to the Holocaust in Schindler’s List to searing effect. Treating the shoot like a documentary, Spielberg films nearly everything in handheld, black and white cinematography, never shying away from the brutality and cruelty unleashed by the Nazi’s. Scenes like the liquidation of the ghetto are incredibly difficult to watch and that is by design. Spielberg’s unflinching approach is an incredibly powerful examination of the depths of evil within humanity. Through the characters, we see perpetrators, enablers and resisters of history’s greatest blight. Schindler represents the redemption possible by setting yourself aside in service of protecting others. He also is a key reminder early in the film of the way everyday Germans and industrialists enabled the slaughter of innocent men women and children. His arc is played with tremendous nuance by Neeson in one of his earliest major roles, in a performance unlike anything we’ve seen from him since. Schindler’s journey is mostly contrasted by that of Göth, whose unnerving vileness and vindictiveness serve as a catalyst for change in Schindler. Fiennes is practically feral as the SS lieutenant. It’s one of the most astounding and upsetting performances of all time. With most of the film centering around Schindler’s perspective and action, Jewish resistance is given relatively little attention in Schindler’s List. Spielberg’s documentary-like approach means much attention is paid to the atrocities — an important thing for audiences to see and understand — but most Jewish characters are not give the same depth as the German ones. I say most because among the film’s highlights is Ben Kingsley’s depiction of Itzhak Stern. Stern was a Jewish accountant recruited by Schindler to manage operations at the factory. In that capacity he brought a number of Jews that would otherwise have been killed into the safety of Schindler’s factory. Kingsley is absolutely tremendous and captures a spirit of ground level resistance that helps make the whole film work. Schindler’s List is an undeniably powerful achievement. At times a very difficult watch, it is among the most crucial pieces of American cinema put to screen. At its core it is also a Spielberg movie, meaning that even at its most devastating and difficult to watch, it is captivatingly made and equally hard to look away from. As its lessons become starkly relevant again, Schindler’s List continues to endure as a pillar of cinema. 9/10
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