SPIELBERG'S MAGNUM OPUS IS NOT A MOVIE TO MISS

By Colby Cosh
Western Report
Vol. 21 Issue 45, p45, 1p
October 24, 1994





SCHINDLER'S LIST --Stars: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall. Director: Steven Spielberg. 1993; 193 min.; R (brutality, nudity).

Nearly everyone knows by now about this movie, which won seven Oscars. Neeson stars as Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who saved hundreds of Jews from Nazi death camps by cajoling officials into employing them at his factories. Schindler, himself a Nazi Party member, risked everything for these workers, bankrupting himself but safeguarding even the young and infirm who would otherwise have been immediately liquidated.

The story of Schindler's heroism is interwoven with graphic depictions of the events that typified the Holocaust, which makes the movie extremely difficult to watch. That's as it should be. The discomfort we feel at seeing the forced evacuation of the Crakow ghetto, or the winnowing of the doomed at Auschwitz, demonstrates director Spielberg's faithfulness to his material. Besides, we have a moral obligation to confront the facts and, brutal as it is, Schindler's List is only a glimpse of the Nazi tenor.

This is arguably one of Hollywood's greatest movies; people years from now will surely still be watching the magnificent performances of Neeson, Kingsley and Fiennes. Some of my present acquaintances are denying themselves the experience, however, fearing that it will be "depressing." But the very fact that people like Oskar Schindler can exist is cause for hope, not despair. Second, no honest work of art, whatever its subject, can truly be depressing. This is a must-see.



 

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