A feel good version of the Holocaust

Rating: Null/10 (30 November 1998)

"Schindler's List" is a disappointment. Spielberg packaged the Holocaust for Hollywood, and we ate it up.
By choosing the story of Oskar Schindler Spielberg gave us a version of the Holocaust that we want to see: one that ends happily. We walk out of the theater feeling satisfied and breathing a sigh of relief that "everything turned out OK in the end." "Schindler's List" is a story that is untypical of the horrible reality of the Holocaust, and it gives us the false sense that there were more Oskar Schindler's that rescued Jews.
Throughout the film Jews are saved from catastrophe in typical Hollywood fashion: Stern is pulled off a train bound for deportation just in time, a train full of women are rescued from Auschwitz when it is discovered they are "Schindler Jews," an old man is not killed when the Germans' guns all fail to fire, the women are not gassed in the showers. It is not that these things did not happen - but they are the exception. These rescues strewn throughout the movie allow the viewer to feel relief that detracts from the reality of the Holocaust.
"Schindler's List" is sentimental and, with its happy Hollywood ending, allows us to feel good about the Holocaust. How sad that we have allowed a movie that falsifies the ultimate reality of the Holocaust to sweep us off our feet. It has been hailed as "the greatest Holocaust film ever made," but if it was the greatest - wouldn't it tell the truth in totality?