Schindler’s list film review

Oskar Schindler the womanizing nazi party member has been brought back to life with the moving 3 hour film Schindler’s List directed by Steven Spielberg. This film is based on Oskar Schindler played by Liam Neeson, a German living in the ‘final solution’ world war 2 controlled by Adolf Hitler. He is all about making money and having control. This film is replaying history for all that were not effected and to show how it changed the world, this has been inforced with many techniques such as parallel editing and many camera shots to show the fear and terror on the Jewish faces and the pleasure on the German faces.

This gripping film has won many awards. Such as the best picture and best cinematography for the Academy awards in 1994. The films also won these awards in the British academy awards and chicago film critics association for again best picture and cinematography. Schindler’s list won the golden globe awards for best motion picture-drama. Through these ratings and awards you can form the view that this is a very powerful film that needs to be watch to really see the horror and pain that the Jewish people were put through.

The film has won the cinematography award at The British Academy because of the powerful techniques that the director and the cinematographer decided on. These techniques such as the use of camera angle, parallel editing and the use of colour. Both of these men are very connected to the Holocaust, with Steven Spielberg the director who was brought up in an orthodox Jewish family and Janusz Kamiński, the cinematographer is a Polish man so both of these men are very connected to the film through their own background. Both of these men have been able to bring the historical background of the Final Solution to show insight of what everyone what put through in the war. They have grabbed the audiences attention and their need to know more though the use of techniques such as parallel editing. This is seen in one of the first frames of the film when the Jewish family are sitting at the dining table candle lit. The candle is shown in colour and then a very close up camera shot shows the smoke that is on the candle then become the steam that is coming out of the train the takes the ladies to Auschwitz. They have also used the parallel editing when the Jewish people have been kicked out of their nice houses that they have worked hard to live in and are taken to the ghettos where many people are forced to live in a small room with only rations of food and terrible living conditions. The scene then cuts to the Nazi members walking into the nice Jewish homes and raid the homes so that they can live in them. This parallel editing shows two polar opposites of the war. Personally this technique is the most outstanding use in the film because it shows the true colours of what the Nazis thought of the Jews and the difference for both of these cultures. Spielberg has also added more impact to the film by taking into account the 6 million jews that died and portrayed them through the cast with Jewish accents and German accents all shapes, sizes, ages and genders which has lead to an even more realistic view on what occurred in Nazi occupied Europe. 

One of the main characters portrayed is the girl in the red dress.Oskar Schindler and one of his mistresses is seen overwatching the town where many of Jews are being forcibly removed from their homes and their small girl in a red dress that it moving freely in the commotion on the street. There is background noise of small children playing and laughing as if nothing is wrong. She the only character in this film that is expressed in colour, red is symbolised as danger and anger, which shows the expression of the danger that is to come from the war and the violence. This leads to the viewers idea that she has a very important roll in what occurs in the movie and later in the frame that she is the one that changes Schindler’s mind. It is that in this point in time that Oksar changed his thoughts on the war and what is happening to these innocent people. He then starts helping people by using them a factory workers is they won’t get taken to the concentration camp to be killed. These 1200 jews that he too into work for him were saved from Auschwitz.

This film also gives insight that it wasn’t just Oskar Schindler who saved the Jewish people he had his a accountant Itzhak Stern that organised the “buying of the Jewish and the setup of their factories.” Stern was a very kind natured man that without him, this film would’ve never been made because he himself was behind the list. Another character that has been portrayed is Amon Goeth. He is the Nazi commander of one of the working camps where thousands of Jewish people are just about worked to do death or are used as labour slave then taken to Auschwitz to die. He is an evil, vile man that shoots the Jewish people for the target practice when he is bored. He is a very inhuman person just the same as Hitler which is not surprising because of the brainwashing that was done to ensure all of Germany was behind the cruel actions. He has a Jewish maid Helen, she is a very influential character this is because she showed another side to the Nazis and what went on behind closed doors. Through this insight the audience discovers that he starts to get feelings for and then in one of the most gripping scenes in the movies he beats her. The audience gathers an understanding that the Nazis were human had still could feel things for Jewish people. This man has been characterised by Ralph Fiennes an English actor.

Overall Schindler’s list is a very eye opening film to watch these many years after the war that took place in Germany, Poland and many of the other bordering countries.  It conveys to the viewer the pain that these countries and Jewish people went through. This have been shown throughout the actors and the tremendous directing by Steven Spielberg they have been able show their appreciation to the generations and all families that have been effected by the horrific scenes that tear families and people apart all because of one person’s thought that millions obeyed that these people were inferefere to him and “Aren’t human, instead such as Vermin, Rodents and Lice.”