In Spielberg's defense...

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2001)

I don't see why people have to trash this movie. It's been called everything from "boring" (!) to "ham-fisted and manipulative". To be honest, I was too immersed in the story and the drama to care about Spielberg's techniques. The black and white didn't detract at all from the movie. In fact, many modern photographers choose to use black and white film because it brings out form, light and shadow. The red coat helped me recognize the little girl who otherwise would've been lost among all the other grey corpses. Schindler's List was no more manipulative than most other movies, certainly not for the "loaded" subject matter it was dealing with. The scene at the end with the survivors laying pebbles on the grave *was* unnecessary, but that's a pretty small fault for a three-hour-long movie.
To RipePeach: You said that Spielberg characterized Germans as just a bunch of self-interested, evil murderers. Since when was it required that all movies that deal with specific ethnic groups include a token "good ambassador"? Would you rather have Speilberg bring the movie to a grinding halt in order to introduce a nice, pro-Semitic German character that had nothing to do with the story of Oskar Schindler? Read "Hitler's Willing Executioners" and face the facts. Most Germans during the Holocaust were anti-Semitic. While there was significant public outcry over the mistreatment and slaughter of Slavs and the retarded (I think the Nazis stopped the T-4 project as a result), very few people opposed the extermination of the Jews. They were hated almost universally. This isn't to single out Germans as uniquely vicious people, or to insult present-day Germans. Granted, had the long-standing social conditions been in place, the Holocaust could've happened anywhere, including my home country. But it happened in Germany in the 1940's, so deal with it. In short, Spielberg wasn't being prejudiced- he was just being honest.
To Edvard Nicholas: You didn't like the happy ending? This isn't fiction. Oskar Schindler was real and he saved the lives of more than a thousand Jews. Therefore, the happy ending was necessary. Why lie about the fate of the Schindler Jews and make the movie even more depressing?