Film Presents Schindler As A Business Man example essay topic
His contrasts allow for a beautiful character development. His interactions with Ralph Fiennes, who is very chilling as the commandant of the concentration camp Ammon Goeth, shows him to be a man struggling with hypocrisy. He disapproves of Goeth's cold-blooded murder and harsh treatment of the Jews, but he clearly enjoys Goeth's company. He has a hard time reconciling the two sides of Goeth's personality. He uses his influence to try and persuade Goeth to be more forgiving, to have morals and treat the Jews with the dignity that all humans deserve. Ben Kingsley is outstanding as Itzhak Stern, a Jewish businessman that really runs Schindler's factory.
But the real star is Spielberg's unforgiving examination of the holocaust. His use of black and white film (a very beautiful stock, not the grainy kind you see in independent films) is inspired. Because all the things that you " ve seen about the holocaust are in black and white, the film doesn't appear to be unusual. This also leaves him room to do something brilliant. When the SS is liquidating the Warsaw Ghetto, there is a girl that is wearing a bright red dress. This is one of the two times that there is color in the film (the other is the flame of a candle).
This is a brilliant visual move by Spielberg. In the middle of all this murder and horror, he suddenly brings in color to remind you that this is real. This really happened. It's just brilliant. His depiction of cold-blooded murder destroys your faith in man. But Schindler redeems humanity by buying the lives of people.
Without his intervention they will surely die. Schindler understands this fact and spends all his money to save people. The most emotional moment for me was at the end. The Nazis have signed their surrender and the Jews are going to be set free. Schindler must now run or face prosecution for being a member of the Nazi party (which was really just a business choice for him). He breaks down, saying that he has not done enough.
He cries because he could have saved more people. And he is surrounded by the people he saved. It is a heartbreaking scene because Schindler was one of the few people who did save people during the holocaust and the fact that he's not satisfied, that he thinks he didn't do enough, is so sad. This movie was an outstanding masterpiece from a true genius.
Spielberg has become the conscience of the world and he will never let us forget. And I can't think of anything better. This film has the effect of quicksand on me. Any time it is on television, I can't stop watching it. Although this film has earned millions of dollars and critical acclaim, I think Spielberg made this film primarily to teach the world about the horrors of the Holocaust and the complex nature of genocide. A very poignant scene shows an SS man playing the piano in the living room of a Jewish home during the liquidation of a Jewish Ghetto.
Two other SS men try to guess which German classical composer's work the pianist is playing. This scene shows even that in one of the world's most scientifically, technologically, culturally and artistically advanced nations, such as Germany, a group like the Nazis can come to power and perpetrate genocide. The SS men themselves are culturally aware, yet at the same time are rounding people up to be gassed or worked and starved to death. The black and white film adds to the realism. I grew up watching real WWII footage which was almost always in black and white.
Thus, the black and white film gives it the feel of actual WWII footage. Although this is a must see film for anyone over the age of 13, it does have its faults. Hearing Eastern European Jews and German characters speak English is too much for me to get over. I never develop a suspension of disbelief because the English dialogue perpetually reminds me this is only a movie.
This film would have been much more realistic if authentic languages had been used. Just imagine movies like "Do the Right Thing" or "Boys in The Hood", dubbed into German. It is just as absurd to have inner-city black Americans speaking German as it is to have the characters in "Schindler's List" speaking English. I'm sure Spielberg chose to use English simply because mass audiences feel uncomfortable with subtitles. It's a shame the realism of this film had to be compromised for the benefit of the unsophisticated masses. The end of this film is very emotional and powerful.
However, it is a blatant, shameless rip-off of the ending of "Europa, Europa" which was released three years prior to "Schindler's List", and which Spielberg would have undoubtedly seen. I just can't believe it is a mere coincidence that both movies end by showing the actual people who had been portrayed by actors in the movies standing in a cemetery in modern Israel. In the case of "Schindler's List", there are many people, in the case of "Europa, Europa", it is just the main character. I was pleased this film was not edited for television. I think the only reasons this film was allowed to be shown unedited on network television are, first of all, Steven Spielberg's demands carry a lot of weight, and secondly, the film deals with the Holocaust, which, understandably, is a sacred subject with America's Jewish dominated entertainment industry. It opens with a small color scene and then it moves into black and white.
This adds a sense of reality to the film. Schindler, who owns a factory, needs to get Jews to work in it for free. Actually, what the Jews are getting in return is even more valuable than money. Freedom.
He is freeing them from being destroyed. He is so generous that people ask him to let people work in the factory so they will live. He does so. We only see it happen once, but I feel that it happened more often.
He has a heart but he also does it for his personal gain. At first, he just opens the factory to gain money. In the end, we see him spending all the money to save the Jews. He buys the workers and ends up with a car and a gold ring at the end of the movie. We also get a look into other lives of World War II, such as Amon Goeth (played by Ralph Fiennes) and Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley). Goeth is a mean and hypocritical villian.
He chooses a Jew to be his slave and do things for him. Soon, he finds himself in love with her. In a shocking scene, Goeth goes out on a balcony and just shoots people at random. His lover / slave, Helen Hirsch (Em beth David tz), watches in disgust.
He doesn't care either. He is an evil man and for a moment in the film, when he lets a kid go for not being able to clean a bathtub, we see a compassionate man. Ten seconds later, he shoots and kills the kid. He isn't going to change and we know it. Itzhak Stern is a Jew chosen by Schindler to work as an accountant.
However, Stern has an effect on Schindler which is part of the reason Schindler decides to save all his workers. We see his compassion when he rescues Stern from being shipped to a concentration camp. Kingsley is perfect for the part and shows that he is afraid but brave enough to stand up for his beliefs. However, the most powerful performance is by Neeson. He begins the movie just wanting money and women and power.
In the end, he has turned his heart to saving all the Jews that he has employed. He does it so gradually, that we believe what we are seeing. There haven't been many performances better and more believable this year. The changing from a flawed Nazi to a flawed Nazi with a heart of gold is remarkably well done and should get the Oscar for best performance by an actor. The leap of creative imagination and faith from text to images is surely one of the film director's most daunting challenges. Spielberg met the challenge.
He found just the right story, got a brilliant screenplay, and made the blockbuster Hollywood movie about the Holocaust; a distinctive achievement which by its very terms -- Hollywood and Holocaust -- seemed impossible. Schindler, the protagonist, is the non-Jew who mediates the Holocaust experience for Spielberg and his audience. He is there on the screen for non-Jews who do not really care about the Holocaust and he is there for Jews who care too much. He solves two basic psychological problems at once.
Because he is a person with whom non-Jews can identify, he creates for them an emotional connection to the events of the film. And because of his otherness, he keeps Jews at a safe emotional distance from re-experiencing their terror. I sit here now and ask myself over and over, why? Why the terror, why the pain, why the death of over six million Jews. I have done research behind this crime of murder, and still I have no answer and I know realize, I will never have an answer because there isn't any. I have seen into the hearts of the women, men and children that are portrayed in this movie.
I listen to their cries and to their screams of terror and my dreams were filled with them for nights on end. This is the only true real horror movie out there today. The blood that blackens the streets is not the horror, but the terror of the people that lived throughout this reign of horror. This movie is filmed in black and white.
If it was done in color, it would have ruined the passion this movie was made in. The only colors that are involved in the movie are very strong points. Each person may calculate what they mean to themselves. The small child's red coat. The child walks amongst the living dead and the solders. She is ignored by all.
Oskar Shindler follows her with his eyes. What he sees is not a child, but the people themselves layered in a coat of blood, of innocent blood. The bitter orange and blue flames of the candle when the Rabbi lights them for the Sabbath, is not just the flames of a ceremony but the flames of hope, faith and friendship. I am not telling you the complete story or a spoiler of this movie, because I believe that there is no telling of it. The man named, Oskar Shindler, is a man that should be imprinted in everyone's mind, no heart. A man that started with nothing in his pockets and left with the most wondrous riches in the world at the end, the friendship of over a 1,000 Jews that he had helped.
A man that had a factory filled with shells that would never be blasted to murder more people. For seven months, this man braved his own life and others to have a factory that was non-productive. A man that made a friend, a best of friends, with a Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern, a man that Shindler was proud to call friend. A man that wished he could have done more, that his list of names was more.
A man that spit into the face of death to keep the blood non-flowing in his streets. A man that stayed till the minute of freedom with the people he now called his true friends for over six years. Today there is over 6000 Shindler Jews alive. If you never seen this movie, then I would prepare you in such a way: Come with an open heart and an open mind.
Listen to what the secrets are, they have been screamed for the world to hear for many years, but not once have they been listened to. This movie is telling you, using all of your senses. Hear them. Listen to them. Feel them. Shindler's List is a movie that tells the truth behind the lies and behind the hidden truths that are whispered throughout the world.
Learn from this movie and you would have learned a lifetime of true compassion. I ask one thing from you, the reader, after reading this review. To sit quietly for one minute of respect and reflection for over six million people that were murdered for no reason but the satisfaction of death itself. Oskar Schindler was a shrewd businessman. He was a womanizer and a Nazi. He was also a humanitarian.
In Stephen Speilberg's amazing epic film, Schindler's List, the life of this unlikely hero is chronicled through a horrifying three-and-a-quarter-hour account of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews met their demise in the Nazi gas chambers. The entire film is in black and white, except for a few key moments. This lends the movie a documentary feel and adds to the aura of desolation and horror that hangs over all of Europe. When color finally comes, it is first as a means of recognizing a child seen previously in the film during the storming of a ghetto.
But moments before the conclusion of the film, it is a symbol of hope in the form of flames from the candles of the Sabbath ceremony performed by the rabbi in Schindler's factory. Liam Neeson plays Oskar Schindler, a deeply conflicted man who must eventually decide whether to live as he has lived, seeking profit and going along with the cruelty of his political party, or risk everything to make a difference -- indeed, to save lives. His two best friends are the sadistic Ammon Goeth, a psychotic Nazi commandant played chillingly by Ralph Fiennes, and Itzhak Stern, his Jewish clerk, whose gentle wisdom and compassion shine brilliantly through Ben Kingsley's portrayal. While the movie focuses on the ever-differing lives of Schindler and the commandant, it gives a horrifying account of what happened to the Jews after Hitler declared his plan for the purification of the Aryan race. The brutality and inhumanity which occurred during these years was such that a person watching this movie would be tempted to think that such a thing never could have happened, especially not in our civilized twentieth century. We must not succumb to that temptation.
Six million Jews, not to mention several million other people who didn't fit the Nazi ideal, were systematically slaughtered in ghettos and death camps before the war ended in 1945. Schindler's List depicts this mindless genocide in stark detail. This movie is not pleasant, and you should consider carefully whether your child can handle such graphic material; indeed, you may not be able to yourself. Prepare yourself, and prepare your child for the horror he or she is about to witness. I would not eagerly endorse this film for anyone under the age of thirteen, though I do think that younger children should be informed of what happened during the Holocaust. I just don't think they are ready to see it presented in such graphic detail.
Despite this film's bleak subject, it is not without hope. It provides a powerful testimony of the profound difference one person can make. Oskar Schindler bankrupted himself to save 1100 Jews. Over 6000 "Schindler Jews" are alive today. That is a powerful legacy. Let us never forget the horror of the Holocaust or the power of a person to bring a ray of hope into the darkest hours of human history.
For "all that is necessary for evil to exist is that good men and women do nothing.".