#8 SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)

"Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't."
---Oskar Schindler



   Director Steven Spielberg's goal in making Schindler's List was not simply to make a movie about the Holocaust.  He wanted to present a story about the triumph of good people over terribly evil situations.  To exemplify this idea, he chose the real-life Oskar Schindler's kindness and humanity as the focal point of the film: Schindler (Liam Neeson) is a German businessman and member of the Nazi party who chooses to ignore the Nazi doctrine and protect over a thousand Jews from certain death in the concentration camps.  Though the reasons behind Schindler's good deeds are not explicitly said, one can believe that he made his choices out of his love for his fellow man, regardless of their religion or race.  His character is a hero to an audience who cringes at the inhumane acts of other Germans in the story.
   Oskar Schindler acquires his Jews originally for a factory he decides he wants to run manufacturing pots and pans.  Though they are just labor workers to him (as well as financiers) at first, when they are taken away by the Nazi government he makes the choice to fight for their freedom.  His Jewish manager Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) quickly learns that Schindler is not doing this for his own gain because he spends millions in money and goods to save each of the 1,200 Jewish men, women, and children.
   Schindler's character is the complete opposite of the Nazi general Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), a man who runs a work camp where he kills Jews randomly and treats the living ones like animals.  Schindler pretends to befriend Goeth but his motives reveal that he bribes Goeth in order to secure the specific Jews he needs to run his manufacturing plant.  Goeth is too stupid to realize that Schindler is saving these Jews, not working them for his own gain, and he allows Schindler to take over a thousand of them from his control.  The character of Schindler stands out as a representation of good without the juxtaposition of Goeth as the representation of evil; however, the Goeth character provides the audience with a necessary feeling of "putting one over" on the bad guy.  It is comforting to know that even in the destructive German fascist rule of the late thirties and early forties, there were still people who recognized right from wrong and helped out the people who were being persecuted.  Schindler's List is a prime example of the love for humanity we should all have.




FUN FACT: The real-life surviving Schindler Jews appear at the end of the film as the line of people putting rocks on the grave of Oskar Schindler!


FAVORITE QUOTE: "I could have gotten one more person...and I didn't! And I...I didn't!"
---Oskar Schindler, Schindler's List