The CHIEF January 2024

Film Review

Schindler’s List

By Tyler Drechsel

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.” - Primo Levi

When writing these articles, I like to find a movie that has a theme that coincides with the month that the article is for. So for this month, I decided to write about a Holocaust film. The reason for that, is because January 27, 1945, is the day that the Soviets liberated the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. So I decided to write about Schindler’s List . While there are many other films that do good jobs about portraying the Holocaust, none of them do it like Schindler’s List . Schindler’s List is one of the saddest, and heaviest films of all time. It is director Steven Spielberg’s definitive masterpiece and while it has a lot of incredible aspects to it, it’s the film's importance and emotion that makes it so special. For those who don’t know, Schindler’s List is a historic biography about a man named Oskar Schindler. It’s 1939, and Schindler is a young man in his early 30’s seeking his fortune. In order to accomplish this, he plans to open a factory which will manufacture enamelware. He begins by hiring a Jew named Itzhak Stern as his accountant. Stern uses his ties with Jews in the ghetto to gain money to help build a factory that Schindler opens. Stern suggests hiring Jews and then begins creating fake documents in order to give as many Jews the status of “essential worker” as possible. Jews that had this status were safe from being sent to concentration camps. Later on, Schindler is heavily impacted after witnessing the liquidation of the ghetto in Krakow. Schindler can no longer just watch as the brutal events of the Holocaust unfold around him, and he makes a plan to save as many Jews as possible by exploiting his position in the Nazi party, as well as bribing those in higher power. This is by far the most important film ever made, as well as the saddest. First of all, the cinematography is excellent, and possibly the best I’ve ever seen. The film's score is absolutely incredible. It does its job perfectly, elevating, and adding emotion to certain scenes. The film also pays incredible attention to historic detail, which will impress anyone who has an interest in history. But while the film is very well made, there’s a lot more to it that makes it so important. This film holds nothing back when it comes to portraying the absolute brutality and horror of the Holocaust. It doesn’t water down any of the terrible behavior and decisions of the Nazis. There are many scenes where Jews are killed for no reason whatsoever, other than it's simply what the Nazis wanted to do. Jews are constantly shot, beaten, and punished throughout the film, showing just how miserable being a Jew during the Holocaust was. It’s because of this that the film is shot in black and white. The film could’ve been shot in color, but that would’ve added some life to the terrible events depicted on screen, which was not the intention of Steven Spielberg. To quote the man himself, “The Holocaust was life without light. For me the symbol of life is color. That’s why a film about the Holocaust has to be in black-and-white.” But while the film features some of the worst sides of humanity, it also shows some of the better sides of humanity. The true story of Oskar Schindler is a story about a man who went from a greedy businessman, to a man who could no longer ignore the terrible treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust, and decided to do something about it. Oskar Schindler would go on to have a massive impact on the world. Through his actions, he saved 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust, and as of 2012, there are over 8,500 descendants of the Jews saved by Oskar Schindler who are alive today. Schindler’s redemption arc in the film shows that wherever there’s darkness, there’s a little bit of light. This is one of the easiest ratings I’ve ever given: 10/10.