Schindler's List (1993) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / November 14, 2014

Reviewing a colossal film like Schindler’s List is interesting even today, because in our culture - with its countless positive reviews and numerous Academy Awards - it enjoys something close to legendary status, being perceived as the ultimate in cinematic depictions of WWII and ranking among the very best films ever made according to Imdb. It's almost like it's in bad taste to criticize the film, because in doing so you'd automatically offend the Jews the film is in honor of. But what if the film itself is guilty of that very crime?

            The year is 1939. After Germany subjugates Poland, Jews are being relocated to Krakow. Enter shrewd businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) who aims to use the cheap labour force of Jews to turn a profit. He hires functionary Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to handle all administrative affairs, he befriends the Nazis and all is well… until he witnesses the Krakow massacre from a nearby hill. He notices a little girl in red moving through the chaos and is profoundly affected. This spurs him into action, though he is careful to not risk his friendship with Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes). Through careful diplomacy, his friendship with Goeth and Stern’s bribery skills, Schindler is able to save his workers and increase their living conditions. He effectively risks his own life trying to save the Jews working under him and many more. Finally, after having as many Jews transferred to his factory in Zwittau-Brinnlitz, Schindler is forced to flee due to the rapidly approaching Soviet army. That night, the Jews he saved have all gathered outside the factory and give him a letter saying they don’t think he was a criminal. They also give him a ring with a quote from the Talmud, saying that “he who saves the life of one man, saves the world entire.” Schindler is humbled, but he nevertheless breaks down, regretting his selfish, luxury lifestyle and believing he didn’t save enough Jews. He leaves with his wife and the next morning, the ‘Schindler Jews’ relocate to a nearby town and a shot of them walking towards the camera shifts into color as the film moves transitions to the present, as the present day Schindler Jews go to pay their respects at Schindler’s grave in Israel.

            It’s not hard to see why Schindler’s List was such a moving experience when I first saw it in my teens. It was basically my first major Holocaust film and the brutality displayed is still hard to watch even today. The acting is also quite good. The film is anchored by Neeson giving one of his better performances and Fiennes who is menacing as the evil (but ultimately stupid) Goeth. The film – being a Spielberg epic – also impresses from a technical standpoint: the B&W cinematography by Janusz Kaminski transports you to Poland in 1939, composer John Williams pulls out all the emotional stops in his violin-focused score and the production design is impressive. It’s a film that astonishes in terms of scale and the ease with which Spielberg manages to immerse us into this particular time period.

And yet for all its many qualities, there are some damning critiques out there, several of which I fervently agree with. For one, Schindler’s List isn’t really a film about the Holocaust. It’s not even really about the Jews. Essentially, it’s about Schindler who becomes The Hero and saves Jews. This is reflected in what director Stanley Kubrick reportedly said when questioned about List: “Think that’s about the Holocaust? That was about success, wasn’t it? The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. Schindler’s List is about 600 who don’t.” It’s not a coincidence Kubrick stopped production on his own Holocaust film in 1995 after the success of Schindler’s List when it came out in ‘93. He deemed an accurate portrayal of the Holocaust to be beyond cinema’s grasp and moved on.

Another thing that bugs me is that the few Jews who stand out (like Helen Hirsch) don’t die. Instead, Spielberg teases us with the prospect of their deaths, only to provide a last-minute rescue. Though the film does portray the random brutality of the Nazis very well, this kind of teasing feels very manipulative. 

There aren’t a lot of well-written Jewish characters in the film either. The ones that are given a moderate amount of screen time are Stern and Helen Hirsch, but Stern (save for the moment he subtly influences Schindler’s thought process by talking of Goeth’s cruelty, thus being the root cause of his eventual decision to save as many Jews as possible) is mostly a static background figure and Hirsch’s only function is to be Goeth’s object of desire. Speaking of Goeth, he’s about the only interesting German in the film and that’s only achieved by writing him as the slightly morally complex antagonist, in this case a perverted man who is driven more by money, power and lust than by Nazi ideology, hence Schindler’s ease in bribing him. The rest of the Germans might as well be faceless monsters who kill without a hint of remorse. 

I also can't help but feel Schindler and Goeth are a bit underwritten. Schindler makes the biggest change, but I think it occurs too quickly. It's really Stern monologuing about Goeth's cruelty and the girl in red dying that convert him, but I can't help but feel that's too easy for a man who moments ago was fine with using the Jews forced into Krakow as slave labour. Maybe he was truly oblivious to the brutality his friends the Nazis inflict upon the Jews? Goeth is obviously supposed to be the complex villain, but save for his infatuation with Helen Hirsch, he mostly remains a greedy man lusting for power. Not only that, but Schindler bribes and manipulates him quite easily, so it only makes him less threatening as the film goes on.

Also of note are the ways in which artistic license has been taken. For instance, the ‘girl in red’ didn’t die, but survived and later wrote a memoir. Also, Stern didn’t put the famous list together; a certain Marcel Goldberg did. Why does the film change this, you ask? Because apparently, Goldberg wasn’t exactly a shining beacon of altruism himself, as he took bribes from people and exchanged some people’s names with theirs. Artistic license being taken is common in film, but in a Holocaust film you’re quickly entering some ethically dubious waters. Why these changes were made is obvious. The filmmakers have an agenda to push and a film to make that has to make sense. The girl in red dies so Schindler’s crisis of conscience propels him to become a beacon of altruism; Goldberg is replaced by Stern, because it would’ve muddled the plot. Adding another Jewish accountant who isn’t solely a victim doesn’t fit within the ‘Jews as victims’ trope present in List and would’ve added new narrative themes to the story and made the whole thing more (needlessly?) complex. From a practical standpoint, this makes sense, but in the end you’re still rewriting history in order for your film to work and for it all to make sense. But here’s the snag: the Holocaust is an event marked precisely by an inability on our part – and particularly the survivors’ part – to make sense of it. In a way, it is beyond comprehension. Yet, Schindler’s List is a film firmly rooted in traditional narrative conventions and has to make use of A-B-C plots and logic in order to be considered a success.

Bold filmmaking or tasteless kitsch?

One of the most damning objections to List has to do with the infamous ‘shower scene’, when the Schindler Jews are transported, by mistake, to Auschwitz. They and the viewer expect the worst when they’re forced to undress and enter a large shower room, only to have all tension dissipate when actual water emerges. After this ordeal, Schindler finds out about the mistake and has them brought to his factory in Brinnlitz. My problem is the uselessness of this scene. This scene could’ve been cut out and the story wouldn’t have changed; the Jews would’ve still eventually arrived at Schindler’s factory. So why is it here? Simple, so that Spielberg and co can say their film didn’t ignore the countless gassings, for what is a Holocaust film if it doesn’t refer to the gas chambers? But that’s my problem, the Schindler Jews eventually survived, which makes the Auschwitz sequence nothing more than a detour, a suspenseful scene categorically similar to Indiana Jones narrowly escaping a huge rock. Not exactly an ethically considered portrayal of the gassings, if such a thing is even possible.

There are countless other critiques like the above floating around, many of them dealing with whether or not a ‘good’ portrayal of the Holocaust is even possible, whether or not Spielberg transformed something as inexplicably horrific and complex into a Hollywood spectacle, etc. At first, Spielberg tried to find other directors (Polanski, Scorsese, Wilder), since he wasn't sure he could do the material justice. Perhaps he was right... Of course, one can leap to Spielberg’s defense and say that out of all the possible Holocaust stories to tell, he chose this one, perhaps because it presented him with an opportunity to portray the horrors of the Holocaust and still have there be a light at the end of the tunnel. By choosing one story, you automatically (perhaps unfairly) ignore others. But then new questions rapidly emerge. Is this then even a film about the Holocaust and the Jews anymore? Should Spielberg have even made it, knowing he’d have to shift attention onto the character of Schindler and away from the Jews and what they have endured? Is it even ‘right’ for a film about the Holocaust to have a light at the end of the tunnel, a happy end, when the Holocaust is marked by a certain endlessness, the impossibility for the survivors to process and come to terms with the event, the struggle to put the hell they experienced into words? Is it even possible or ethically justifiable to attempt a (cinematic) portrayal of the Holocaust, like the aforementioned shower scene?

Questions, questions… It seems that despite all the success the film has enjoyed, it’s a love it or hate it affair. Either you think it’s a harrowing, emotional masterpiece or you think it’s a severely misjudged portrayal of an unportrayable event. In terms of ratings, I can’t even begin to imagine how to rate a film like List, let alone a film about the Holocaust. What a film like this requires isn’t even a review, but a full-blown analysis…which is what this review is quickly turning into. The point of this review isn’t to neatly sum up the film’s pros and cons and give it a nice number from 1 to 10, but to perhaps renew one’s perspective on a film that enjoys legendary status, but should be seen as more (or should I say, less) than ‘the final word on the Holocaust’ suggested by its rating on Imdb. It goes without saying that this is far from the first review to cast List in a critical light and it’s true my opinions have been influenced by a course I followed in college, but I think in this case it was a positive influence. After having first seen List in my teens, I saw it as this towering achievement, but the more essays I read, like Hansen’s ‘Schindler’s List is not Shoah’, the more I realized I needed to seriously reevaluate my opinion of List. And it’s not a matter of one having to learn how to hate Schindler’s List, but a matter of ethics, a matter of questioning cinema’s role and its capabilities (or lack thereof) in portraying something like the Holocaust.

 The article by Miriam Hansen: http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/uploads/pdf/Hansen,_Schindlers_List.pdf

American History X (1998) Review aka: Curbstomp Your Enthusiasm

Lucas Versantvoort / November 13, 2014

I remember watching this film in school when I was about 15 or so. Needless to say, it was an impactful experience. American History X is without a doubt an emotionally charged experience, but the way it’s all handled is also ironically where I feel things go a bit wrong.

            It’s nighttime. Danny (Edward Furlong) is trying to sleep, but his older brother Derek (Edward Norton) having loud sex with his girlfriend is keeping him up. Suddenly, he notices a few black men trying to steal Derek’s car. He alerts Derek who, armed with nothing but his boxers and a handgun, kills one of the men, shoots another one and tries to shoot at the remaining one driving away, but to no avail. Danny, seeing what his brother wrought, looks at Derek while he walks angrily toward the black man he wounded earlier. The film then cuts to the present, shot in color (as opposed to the B/W flashbacks), as Danny meets with the principal due to him writing a paper on Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The principal (Avery Brooks), who also used to be Derek’s teacher, tries to explain to Danny that it’s Derek, now serving a prison sentence, who made him this way, but he doesn’t get through to him. Instead, he gives him a new assignment: to write a paper on his brother. The film then crosscuts between flashbacks to how Derek became a neo-Nazi skinhead, how he got incarcerated, etc. and the present, showing Danny and Derek, who has changed his ways while in prison, trying to make it in their day-to-day lives.

Did somebody call for a classic performance?

            It’s to director Tony Kaye’s credit that the film is the emotional journey it is. He makes extensive use of dramatic orchestral and choral music (courtesy of Anne Dudley), slow-motion and black-and-white photography to enhance the drama and he mostly succeeds. Also great are Norton and Furlong’s performances who not only excel in their individual scenes, but exhibit a chemistry in their scenes together, a sense that these are indeed two  brothers who’ve lived together.

            I do have a few issues with the film however. It has an unhealthy tendency to give a lot of screen time to neo-Nazi ideology. We of course know that the filmmakers are not proponents of this ideology through the existence of characters like the benevolent principal Sweeney, the black inmate Lamont and the evil skinhead leader Cameron, the subplot of how Derek became a neo-Nazi (he was fueled more by anger than ideology and was subsequently easily manipulated by Cameron), the fact that principal Sweeney came to visit Derek in prison after Derek was raped by skinheads because he befriended Lamont and tells him that he cannot run away, thus ensuring the safety of his family, but that he has to stay with them and try to make amends. Make no mistake, the film doesn’t in any way portray neo-Nazis as good, but the incessant focus on discussions with Derek spouting racist ideology are strange in that you realize the film actually seems to spend more time there than providing a balanced view and social context. I know it’s an unfair comparison, but remember The Wire? That series spent countless hours (which a film doesn’t have obviously) explaining the complex cyclical relationship between the police and criminals. It gave insight into the hopeless prospects of many poor blacks and showed how sometimes joining a gang is the only viable option. Despite the fact that  American History X isn’t fundamentally racist, it doesn't give us enough social context to get rid of that nagging feeling that things could’ve been more balanced.

Also relevant is that apparently the film’s ending is an alternate one. Instead of hearing the dead Danny quote Lincoln’s 1861 Inaugural Address, we would see Derek unable to deal with Danny’s death and shaving his head, thus becoming a skinhead again. This would then tie the whole plot together and show how the film’s really about ‘the endless cycle of violence’. But, at least according to Imdb’s trivia page, this was altered after Norton objected. I can see why as that would’ve been an even more hopeless ending, but I wonder if the original ending wouldn’t have been better. As it is, we see Derek and Danny truly bonding after which Danny is shot by the same black boy he insulted earlier. The film thus ends with blacks being the aggressors which results in the white characters we’ve come to know and understand either being dead or emotionally traumatized. We can’t really look at it from the boy’s point of view either, because the film doesn’t grant us context about his way of life, save for a shocked close-up of his face as he realizes what he’s done. Again, like the film’s excessive focus on racist ideology, this ending leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth, despite Danny’s quote about how ‘hate is baggage’, etc. At least Derek going skinhead again would have softened the racist angle and strengthened the ‘cycle of violence’ point of view.

All in all, it’s hard to summarize my feelings toward American History X. I appreciate all the potent melodrama director Kaye and screenwriter McKenna create, I like Derek’s character development, principal Sweeney, Lamont, etc., but I can’t help but feel the film should have provided a more balanced social context à la The Wire.

Saving Private Ryan (1998) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / November 12, 2014

Throughout film history, there’s been a constant fascination with war. As new documentaries on the two great World Wars appear every year, so do films on similar events. From All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) to the recently released Fury (2014), Hollywood’s interest in depicting war shows no signs of slowing down. Spielberg’s 1998 epic Saving Private Ryan fits in a long line of war epics attempting to depict the horrors of war in a realistic manner. SPR does this exceptionally well…for the duration of roughly 20 minutes.

            The film starts with an old man visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial with his family. He stops at a specific gravestone and collapses in tears. The camera focuses on his eyes and the film flashes back to D-Day with a depiction of the Omaha Beach landing that has to be seen to be believed. This prolonged sequence is the film’s and Spielberg’s crowning achievement. After the allied forces break through, the film cuts back to events on American soil. At the War Department of the United States it becomes apparent that three of four sons of the Ryan family have been killed. The mother is about to receive this tragic news in the form of three letters being sent simultaneously. A General has this brought to his attention and – remembering how Abraham Lincoln offered his heartfelt condolences to a mother in similar circumstances – orders his officers to find the remaining son (Matt Damon), who’s somewhere in Normandy, and bring him home. Enter Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) who, having just survived the beach landing, is given the mission, gathers a small group of soldiers and – with some reservations about the importance of the mission when juxtaposed with the big picture – they all head further into Normandy in search of a single soldier.

            As I suggested in the beginning, the extensive Omaha Beach sequence is (unsurprisingly) the reason why this film will be watched for years to come. The amount of planning required for this scene must have been incredible and yet the entire scene still feels ‘unplanned’ and appropriately chaotic. It wouldn’t be a stretch to name this sequence the reason the film’s been showered with Academy Awards. Other aspects like acting and especially the cinematography and production design are also praiseworthy, but that’s pretty much where it ends for me.

            I find the rest of the film to be something of a mixed bag. It chronicles Miller and co’s search for Private Ryan and all the hardships they endure along the way. The main problem I have with the rest of the film is that it feels contrived. The Omaha Beach sequence is at once the film’s saving grace and the reason the rest of the film pales by comparison. Not that the rest of the film has nothing to offer dramatically, it does, but it all feels too calculated, too contrived and convenient as opposed to the radical and chaotic opening scene. For instance, you expect the soldiers to bond over the course of their journey before some of them die and how this is all supposed to elicit our sympathy. You see this coming long before it happens and it’s thus not as impactful as it should be. And what about the oh-so dramatic pause right before the sniper in the tower is shot by a tank’s cannon, designed so that we can symbolically say goodbye; Miller’s clichéd reference to his wife gardening with his gloves (all that’s missing are the images of white-picket fences); Ryan’s two-minute monologue – supposed to elicit our sympathy – which comes across as incredibly awkward; the fact that Miller is shot by the same German whom he showed mercy to several scenes ago and that it’s the bookish Upham (of all people) who ‘earns his stripes’ by conveniently killing him; old Ryan saluting Miller’s grave while trumpets hum patriotically in the background; the fact that the filmmakers did the oh-so (for lack of a better word) ‘American’ thing by bookending the film with shots of the American flag softly lit by the afternoon sun, etc, etc. All these scenes and more reveal a script purposefully crafted to the point of dramatic perfection…and that’s not a compliment. Why does the Omaha Beach sequence still amaze after all these years? Because it represents the horrors of war in purely visual terms. There is no dramatic logic, only chaos; bodies and limbs flying everywhere, soldiers whimpering and screaming. There are no allied soldiers and Nazis, just people trying to survive. The rest of the film with all its carefully calculated drama doesn’t come within a country mile of effectively conveying the same sense of horror.

Dutch version

Als er een genre is dat Hollywood altijd heeft gefascineerd, dan is het oorlog. Elk jaar verschijnen nieuwe documentaires en films die dit onderwerp met pas ontdekte informatie en een frisse blik proberen te benaderen. Van All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) tot Fury (2014), oorlogsfilms zullen altijd relevant blijven. Saving Private Ryan is Spielberg's poging om oorlog op een zo realistisch mogelijke manier uit te beelden en dat lukt hem als geen ander...in de eerste twintig minuten.

            Een oude man bezoekt een militaire begraafplaats in Amerika. Hij blijft staan bij een graf en zakt door zijn knieën, ogen vol tranen. De camera zoomt in op zijn gezicht en meteen verspringt het beeld naar de beroemdste scène uit de film, D-Day. Nadat de Geallieerden het strand hebben ingenomen, ontdekt een generaal in het Amerikaanse Ministerie van Oorlog dat een moeder te horen zal krijgen dat drie van haar vier zoons omgekomen zijn. Aan Kapitein Miller (Tom Hanks) de taak om de vierde zoon, Ryan, ergens in Normandië te vinden. Hoewel Miller net D-Day heeft overleefd, trekt hij met enkele anderen er toch op uit om deze ene soldaat te zoeken. 

            De D-Day scène is ongetwijfeld de reden waarom we het nog steeds hebben over Saving Private Ryan. Imponerend contrast als je denkt aan alle voorbereidingen die ongetwijfeld zijn getroffen. En toch voelt de scène 'ongepland' en chaotisch. Ook acteerwerk, beeldvoering en sfeertekening zijn allemaal bewonderenswaardig, tot dat moment. Maar daarna…. houdt de kracht van de film op.

            De rest van Saving Private Ryan - alles na D-Day - is nergens zo effectief als de openingsscène. Daarvoor zit het vervolg van het verhaal veel te netjes in elkaar. De pogingen tot pathos zijn niet onverdienstelijk, maar het klopt allemaal teveel: de soldaten die bevriend raken tijdens hun reis wat hun onvermijdelijke dood emotioneel moet maken, de o zo dramatische paar seconden voordat de Amerikaanse sluipschutter in de kerktoren door een tank wordt weggeschoten waardoor we symbolisch afscheid van hem kunnen nemen, Miller's verwijzing naar z'n vrouw die met zijn handschoenen tuiniert (je ziet de witte hekjes al voor je), Ryan's minutenlange monoloog over z'n broers, Miller die wordt neergeschoten door dezelfde Duitser die ze een paar scènes eerder vrij lieten, Upham de boekenwurm die hem wreekt en daarmee voor het eerst iemand van het leven berooft, de oude Ryan die - ondersteund door zacht schallende trompetten - voor het graf van Miller salueert, het eindshot van een zachtjes wapperende Amerikaanse vlag. 

            Dit laat allemaal zien hoe het script tot in de puntjes is uitgewerkt, alles klopt zo goed...te goed. De D-Day-scène in de opening is zo indrukwekkend, omdat we oorlog in al z'n onvoorspelbare gruwelijkheid zien. Geen narratieve logica, enkel chaos. Mensen schreeuwen de longen uit hun lijf, verschuilen zich wanhopig achter staalbalken en in kuilen, kogels en lichaamsdelen vliegen in het rond. Hier zien we niet Amerikanen en Nazi's, maar enkel mensen die uit deze hel willen ontsnappen. De overige tweeënhalf uur – met alle narratieve regels en clichés - bereikt bij lange na niet hetzelfde effect als die eerste twintig minuten geniale chaos.