Some thoughts

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2003)

SPOILERS WITHIN. Don't read unless you've seen the movie.
At this point, almost a decade after its release, Schindler's List is what it is: it has become a cultural touchstone, and its reputation rightfully precedes it. It certainly has an aura and a cachet that goes beyond any single endeavor to praise or criticize it; therefore, I plan to do neither, but merely to share some of the thoughts I had while watching it. Some will be positive, others more negative - but none of it is meant to (or will be able to) diminish what Spielberg has achieved with this movie.
First off, I must say that all the scenes with Schindler himself I found riveting: Liam Neeson - not an actor I usually warm up to very well - was absolutely mesmerizing: he gave the character an authority and a charisma that was totally captivating, while still preserving the basic enigmatic nature of the man. (He reminded me again and again of a young Richard Burton when he was at the top of his game.) The tug-of-war of conscience in the scenes between him and Stern (Ben Kingsley, underplaying nicely) were, though a bit schematic and obvious, nonetheless powerful - no doubt because of the enormity of the topic at hand. Holocaust movies, of course, can very easily get a free pass because of that very enormity, and Schindler's List is no exception: scenes that might otherwise have seemed simplistic or overplayed are imbued with power because of the context in which they occur.
One scene that stuck out for me, though - and not necessarily in a good way - was the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto. It is of course a tour-de-force of filmmaking and technical prowess (a foreshadowing, say, of the Normandy Beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan), but its reason for being I found suspect. Ostensibly - on the level of the story, anyway - it was there to bring Schindler face to face with the horror and waste of the Nazi policy toward the Jews, and so to suggest a reason why he converted from shameless profiteer and exploiter to Jewish savior.
Except, as such a scene, it doesn't quite wash. Schindler indeed is displayed as witnessing the liquidation, but from his vantage point - a hill overlooking the ghetto - he would in no way have been able to see the scene in the detail, and in all the different locations, that the movie makes us privy to. No, this scene is designed not to be played before Schindler, but to be played before us, the moviegoers.
So why does that bother me? Well, it seems to me a break in form. A movie that had been, up until that time, focusing narrowly on one man, suddenly opens up to wanting to display the panoply of characters and lives that were directly affected by the Holocaust. Problem is, by adopting such a large-scale approach, no one individual (or family) is able to claim our full attention, and so Spielberg becomes guilty in his own way of `ghetto'-izing the Jews - that is, grouping them together facelessly as victims, rather than showcasing any of their dignity or humanity as individuals.
My bias, I suppose, in films dealing with the Holocaust, is that the enormity of it is just lost on most of us. It's impossible - unless we lived and survived through it - to do justice to both its scale and its horror. Therefore, a film-maker shouldn't try. Not that Holocaust-themed films shouldn't be made; it's just that, to be honest and effective (not necessarily the same thing - particularly when the artist is Spielberg) they should focus themselves on a small *microcosm* of it - a family, a person, a survivor - and attempt to *SUGGEST* the full horrors, through the particulars of that person's story. Actually trying to show those horrors outright (to put us, as it were, `inside' the Holocaust) is frankly impossible, and I think Spielberg's ambitions to do so, through this liquidation scene and other similar ones in the movie - are, though perhaps high-minded, ultimately wrong-headed.
But, as I say, when he's focused narrowly on Schindler himself, the film works wonderfully - and is far more able, in my opinion, to get across the horror and waste of the Holocaust than when it's concentrating on its big (but impersonal) `herd up the Jews' scenes. The making up of the list itself is extremely powerful in this regard: `More names! More names!' Schindler demands, and his mania in doing so tells us all we need to know about the absolute desperation of the times (particularly as it comes from a formerly amoral man only interested in himself).
And as such, I must take exception to all those (and there are many) who find the last scene - Schindler's breakdown - to be completely maudlin and ill-advised, a detriment to an otherwise marvelous motion picture. To me, it was the best scene in the movie. For, in the character's hysterical insistence that he `could have done more' - coming on the heels of all the people we saw that he *DID* save - it serves to remind the audience - in absolutely unambiguous terms - that what Oskar Schindler did, though momentous, wasn't'even a drop in the bucket compared to the number of lives taken and/or disrupted by the Holocaust. That this man - driven to bankruptcy and ruin by his (eventual) unceasing efforts to save the Jews - could claim that he `didn't do enough,' only shows how much there was to do, and how much of it was left undone. That, to me, is the kind of moment that brings home the enormity of the Holocaust - not the use of hundreds of extras to be herded onto trains and into showers. We can tell ourselves (and be right) that those scenes are fake (staged for the movie). The point made through Schindler's breakdown at the end is the deepest kind of truth - the kind that never should be forgotten or cast aside.