Schindler’s List (1993) directed by Steven Spielberg; starring Liam Nesson as Oskar Schindler. (Rated R for language, violence, and some sexuality.)
Even if you have seen the film before, I want you to watch it again in its entirety and in one sitting. Watch it with people you feel close to. In my experience, students feel better watching the film in small groups of friends or by themselves. You need to allow yourself to have a genuine emotional reaction and not be concerned with what others think or feel. The power of this film is not to be underestimated.
The film brings to the screen the horror of the Holocaust by focusing on one man’s story. Oskar Schindler was an unlikely hero--a drinker, a gambler, a womanizer, driven by greed to use Jewish workers-- who did something heroic, while in the face of the Holocaust others were paralyzed. He was a businessman, a member of the Nazi party, who saw a way to make money off the war effort and pursued his scheme. Gradually, his view of what the Nazis were doing changes; he came to empathize and to support the Jewish prisoners. At the end of the film, he connives with Nazi officials to “buy” some of them. By so doing, he saved the lives of 1,200 people.
Here’s what you are to do:
Watch the film.
Then, after you have finished watching, write your first reaction.
What does the film make you think?
What does the film make you feel?
It’s important for you to write down this first reaction to the film.Try to write for at least a half hour.
Then, write down any questions you have about the action or the historical background.
We will discuss the film in class March 16, 17, 18, and 19.
Some notes to help your understanding of the film:
The early part of the film shows the process through with Jews were “handled” by the Third Reich (as seen, too, in the documentary “Genocide” from The World At War series which we will view in class): Identification, relocation, segregation, separation, removal, and then extermination. Jewish people are rounded up from all over a region, forced to live in the ghetto, then separated again for work, then sent to death camps to be exterminated.
Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), a Jewish accountant, runs Schindler’s factory for him. Later, after the Jews have been segregated in the labor camp, Stern continues his efforts on behalf of the inmates. He sends inmates to work in Schindler’s factory, which is outside the confines of the labor camp. Only after workers are worn out and no longer able to work are they sent to Auschwitz. (At one point in the film, a “selection” has to be made because new prisoners are arriving from Hungary. These prisoners would have been Wiesel’s countrymen.
Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) is the SS commander who liquidates the ghetto and then becomes the commandant of the Plaszow labor camp. He accepts bribes from Schindler to allow Schindler’s factory to remain outside the camp itself.
At the end of the film the descendants of the actual people who were saved by Schindler are seen. They now number over 6,000 people.
Some questions:
1. What is the effect of the film’s opening sequence in color of the family at shabbat dinner?
2. What is the effect of the black and white cinematography?
3. How does the film portray Oskar Schindler? What kind of man is he?
4. What is the turning point in Schindler’s view of what is happening?
5. How does Schindler resist the Germans? How does he help the Jews?
6. What is the effect of the little girl in the red coat?
7. Note the frequent use of “lists” in the film: in the beginning, with the registration of Jewish people from the countryside; at the registration for the ghetto; at the train station when Stern is almost deported; at the separation into workers and non-workers at the liquidation of the ghetto; at the organization in the camp; at the selection of healthy and sick inmates, etc. What is the effect of this foreshadowing?
8. What details does the film provide about the perpetrators of the violence? How does the film portray the Germans?
9. What are some of the ways people survive in the camps? How does the film’s portrayal relate to the details in Night?
10. Note the frequent use of crosscutting between actions in the camp and actions outside in “normal” life. What is the effect of this crosscutting?
11. Write down any questions you have about what you saw.