Spielberg's Finest

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2005)

Steven Spielberg was a bravado kid before this, he'd spent his directing career showcasing his "whizz-kid" skills in such as 'Jaws', 'E.T.' and 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' - but in 1993 he suddenly turned another page. Spielberg crafted the Holocaust-drama of SCHINDLER'S LIST, a true WWII story about Oskar Schindler who saves 1100 Jews from certain death. And if anything, in the same year of 1993 Spielberg also released his other project, the dino-adventure 'Jurassic Park' which was a roller-coaster-ride, and felt more like the resonance of his 80s projects. SCHINDLER'S LIST on the other half, was a Spielberg the world hadn't seen, a director who took his task so seriously that he had kept postponing it since the early 80s - never feeling mature enough to handle its powerful story. In 1993 he felt and certainly was mature enough - this is a masterclass in film directing; shot in black&white there's a sense of no hope here, and it elegantly but affectingly changes between a disturbingly raw documentary-style to a German expressionism in which Spielberg uses every bit of his heaven-sent talent.
The acting performances are all over fabulous, John Williams' score is soaringly beautiful and the cinematagrophy is fantastic, just the minimal use of colour in two sequences eschulades hope into a movie so bleak and dark. For those who then didn't believe in Spielberg as a serious film-maker, they were here proved wrong. This is a film in which Spielberg gave it to the audience honestly and disturbingly - and it paid off, not only becoming his biggest box office success but also earning him his first Academy Award.