Rating: 
Summary: One of Spielberg's Greatest Epics!
Review: To say Schindlers List is a cinematic achievement still degrades this film. Spielberg put all of his heart behind this and it really shows. From the acting, to the directing, to the scarring images of the concentration camps, this is without a doubt a landmark achievement. The ending is just about the saddest ending ever. You will let a tear out of your eye, even if you are a hard hearted old man. Oskar Shindler (Liam Neeson) is a very rich man, stuck in the middle of the holocaust, as a Nazi. He took every cent he had to make sure that over 1,000 "Jews" would not die at the hand of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi. He literally went bankrupt just to save the lives of these people, who did nothing wrong, but because of their relegion were massacered in the thousands because that ignorant S.O.B Hitler wanted to rule the world. To see this and not weep should be a sin. I hope that everyone else feels the same way. I absolutely cannot wait for this DVD to be released, (hopefully it will have a ton of extra features)."This pen, this pen right here, could have saved two more lives. This car that I own could have saved another...fifty. I---I---I just wish I could have saved more" --- Oskar Schindler
Rating:
Summary: BOLD & AFFECTING.
Review: In his boldest attempt to create a "cinematic masterpiece" and finally get noticed by a stubbornly disinterested Academy, Spielberg bypasses the heart and goes right for the jugular in this first ever big-budget Hollywood drama on the Holocaust. Undeniably driven by sincerity, Spielberg's Oscar-winning Best Picture is alternately impressive, maudlin, focused and well-acted. Filmed in black and white, the film deals with the Nazi extermination of Polish Jews and how one man, Oskar Schindler, transformed from a philandering opportunist (and Nazi profiteer) to a capitalist saviour to 1,200 imprisoned Jews. With fluid camerawork, Spielberg re-creates life for Krakow's Jews during Nazi occupation - from resettlements in the ghetto to their internment in the camps. Schindler is ably portrayed by Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley as an accountant who assists Schindler and Ralph Fiennes as camp commander Amon Goeth are especially effective. Spielberg's scenes of Nazi atrocities are definitely emotionally wretching.
Rating:
Summary: schindler a wonderful man
Review: I AGREE, about how a wonderful movie Schindler's list became to be,
is my favorite,
have watched over 60 times
and could watch it even more.
Heartbreaking, and at the end Schindler's a hero!. He overcame his own self, and what he had been, to become a savior for many. A small detail: Schindler was not German
Schindler was Polish, from Auswitch.
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Movie of All-Time, A Masterpiece!!!
Review: This movie is a classic gem that is, in my opinion, the greatest movie of all-time!!! Liam Neeson does an excellent job in portraying Schindler, a German owner of a factory that saved Jews from concentration camps to have them work for him in this factory. Schindler slowly and gradually disnounced the war and what the Germans did to Jews as it went on. Schindler tried to save as many Jews as he could by having them work for him. This is a true story and the director Steven Spielberg makes that piece of history a movie masterpiece. Even the style of the movie is brilliant! The movie starts out with a color vision of some Jews sitting down to perform a sedar on passover. The movie then turns black-and-white to tell the story of Oskar Schindler. Throughout the movie, there are different color segment that express symbolism and harsh meaning. I do not cry during movies, I just don't. But this movie made me bawl like a baby at the end. Highly reccommended!
Rating:
Summary: Intense...
Review: A graphically intense view of the horrors of war and prejudice. The human soul has its dark side and its compassionate side. There's nothing else out there that compares to this.
Rating:
Summary: The List Is A Life
Review: Any way you stack it, Steven Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece SCHINDLER'S LIST is one of the most important and enlightening films ever made. It is a heartfelt, deeply personal film about one of the ghastliest events in human history--the Holocaust--and how one man, a Nazi profiteer by the name of Oskar Schindler, while motivated by money, managed to save some 1200 Jews from the gas chambers of Auschwitz during World War II. Spielberg wisely does not gloss over the fact that Schindler was every bit the womanizer as he was an astute, cagey businessman who made deals with the Nazis to set up an enamelware factory in the Cracow ghetto and employ the Jewish populace there. But his very trusted secretary Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) manages to awaken a latent spark of humanity in the once cold-blooded Schindler. By the time the war is over and the facts are known about the Nazi atrocities, Schindler is financially broke but spiritually enriched. "He who saves one life saves the world entire." Filmed in somber, documentary-like black-and-white by Janusz Kaminski, SCHINDLER'S LIST features superb performances by Neeson and Kingsley, as well as British actor Ralph Fiennes as the extraordinarily chilling Nazi commandant Amon Goeth, whose basic senses of Nazi business Schindler must appeal to while keeping the fact that he is sheltering the Jews a secret. Spielberg spares nothing in showing us the horrors of the Nazis barbarism; and although it is, not surprisingly, a very lengthy film (three hours and ten minutes), a lot happens for us to absorb, so it never becomes ponderous or heavy-handed. Winner of seven Oscars, including a Best Director nod to Spielberg that was long overdue, SCHINDLER'S LIST shows us the worst in humanity, but also the best as well. Even in so much pain and death, there is hope. And that is why this film is such a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing but Effective
Review: This is a must see film. It is a story of suffering, survival and one man's attempt to correct a wrong in his immediate surroundings for that was all that was within his grasp.
Rating:
Summary: An Unforgettable Work
Review: Masterfully Directed, Vividly Depicted, and brimming with emotion and history, Stephen Spielberg's Schindler's List is a pure work of genius and a sobering look at a horrible time and realm of human history - early twentieth century Europe and the Holocaust. From frame one to its powerfully climactic conclusion, the film running 184 minutes long evokes for over three hours the viewers very humanity while tracing the life of one man - Oskar Schindler (Liam Nisen) in his experience and development throughout the war. It is a work of absolute grandeur and historic retelling, important both in its subject and delineation of a horrible time in human history. The film is hauntingly presented with a recurring theme of John William music that serves to draw the whole together and cast an eerie loom of darkness throughout the film. It is disturbingly open in its depiction of people place and events, a movie worth much more than most of its kind, inspired, and truthful.
The film traces one man, historically based Oskar Schindler in his development throughout the war - World War II - and Holocaust. He is an unique individual, oven shown in the light of a hero, yet humanized by his own flaws among which alcoholism, womanizing and personal greed dominate. Not the immediate figure the viewer will identify as a hero, nor the modest gentle soul that he is often associated with, Oskar Schindler is a man in the war to make money and become rich, Jews, Nazis, conflict all foreign and unimportant aspects to an ultimate goal of success. A tall and built man that rises above the rest in his audacity and determination, not to mention collective and sociable character, Schindler is throughout the film a continual conflict to himself and his aspirations for success. A likable character that undergoes profound change throughout the film, Schindler becomes the hero the title of the movie suggests having given up his wealth and livelihood to save a few insignificant Jewish live ands having in the end played the Nazis for his own benefit.
Yet, the film is most important in the way it depicts Oscar Schindler overall, as a well adapted man to war, and resourceful entrepreneur. He is popular and well liked, with high ranking powerful friends, and the wealth to enjoy all the benefits of social mobility and bribery in a time the world has seemed to have fallen apart. He is an impeccable character in impeccable dress, openly a member of the Nazi party, yet increasingly opposed - if on a personal level - to Nazi atrocities. Nonetheless aimed at success, he is a able to culminate mild relationships with authorities to gain favors, all the while determined to exploit the war and the Jews for cheap labor.
However, Schindler's ingenuity truly lies in his prowess at forming relationships and skill at scheming. Able to effectively exploit the Nazis in an increasing way throughout the film, he forms his industry under the work and experience of Jewish Itzhak Stern who played by Ben Kingsley formulates Schindler's business as a way to save his fellow Jews from a certain death. Stern recruits and aims at Jews most likely to be the target of Nazi anti-Semitism and cruelty, while providing for Schindler "skilled" labor, in order to generate his aspired wealth. However, above all Stern's relationship to Schindler as a Jew targeted by the party Schindler is openly a member is something of great importance to the film. Not only does he serve to change Schindler from a entrepreneur bent on success to a humanitarian solely caring for his Jews, but he seems to embody the whole of Jewish suffering from an indirect point of accountant.
Based on the Holocaust however, the film does in an important way depict this horrible historical event. Whether it be through Spielberg's on-site filming at - Auschwitz and Schindler's factory among the notable others - or the horrible depiction of human suffering and cruelty focused in haunting black and white, the film adequately shows for perhaps the first time in Hollywood cinematography the true atrocities of the Holocaust and its effects on people. Focusing even more directly on a Nazi labor camp commandant Amon Goeth and his representation of absolute evil and depravity the film shows a man take Jews as target practice, kill twenty-five men for the actions of one, and devastatingly destroy the whole world of a people and one girl - Helen Hirsch - whom he falls in love with ironically, sparing only on his impulse of false affection. Regardless, in the end he is depicted as the ultimate atrocity, the manifestation of Nazi evil, and a symbol of the more widespread and horrible atrocities that made up the Holocaust.
Above all a genius work of cinematography, acting and screenplay (Steven Zaillian) Schindler's List is not a celebration of people or history, but a solemn tale of darkness and depravity, outlining one of humanity's most dark and disturbing periods. It is a wonderfully crafted and depicted work, based on the novel of Thomas Keneally, it is hauntingly open in its depiction of Holocaust conditions and personal experiences. Its final powerful conclusion of a generation united with the survivors of the human atrocity is an exceptional and powerful conclusion to an phenomenal film, that ends in honor of Oskar Schindler and to all those who perished in the Holocaust. In the end however, the film leaves you in amazement and awe, the slow tune of William stirring in the depths of your mind evoking memories of a film that seems too realistic and harsh to be even remotely true. It leaves the forcible impression of suffering and heroism, and a important reminder of human good. "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire," the tagline of a momentous movie and catastrophic story, of a devastated people and changed man - Oscar Schindler.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining and Insightful.
Review: Speilberg has created a womderful tale of the triumph of the human spirit, and one man's generosity. It's a great film about the holocaust, giving a clearer idea of what it was like. Though an apt vision of the holocaust, this film is still pure Steven Speilberg, and therefore pure hollywood. Director Michael Bay (of the film Armageddon) once said that "you never kill a dog- or a kid," calling it a "golden rule" of hollywood moviemaking. Speilberg obeys that rule here, which seems to undermine his effectiveness in depicting Nazi barbarism. In one scene, we are left to assume that large groups of children are put to death when they are loaded onto trucks and driven away, but we don't actually see it happening. Nor do we see any large scale executions actually taking place in the infamous Gas Chambers at Auchwitz. In one scene an old man's life is "spared" by Ralph Fiennes's character when Fiennes cannot seem to find a pistol that will work. Those of us who read history know that large scale gassings did take place, and children were killed in them. Its also doubtful a malfunctioning weapon would have stopped most Nazis from killing; he would most likely have killed him with the butt of a gun or some other crude weapon. It's understandable that there were some things Speilberg didn't want to depict... But he seems to play just a little too safe for those of us who know about the true barbarism of the Nazis. Otherwise, a very good film.
Rating:
Summary: Almost perfect
Review: The holocaust is surely about the most difficult event or series of events to understand or depict. Very few films have succeeded. The rather cheesy 70s TV series "Holocaust", although a reasonable try at it for prime time TV, comes to mind. Here Spielberg presents in an almost completely non-sugar-coated way, with believable people and events, a view of the holocaust as it happened in and around Cracow. It needs to be said that the original book is outstanding too - without this as the source for the film, the film would probably not have worked. Harrowing, horrible and still incredible to believe. The way people speak and the things they say appears to have the authentic feel of the period. The soundtrack is outstanding - unbelievably real sounds of shooting and the clink of cartridges on pavements (shells on sidewalks) make this a very difficult and uncomfortable viewing experience. Just as it should be, of course. This deserves five stars without any doubt. If I must find anything to criticize, then I think there are three things that were unnecessary. Why black and white? The events took place in color - the world was not black and white - why not show it in its real hues? Well, we know why black and white was chosen, but I do think that black and white=old or a long time ago is a bit of a cliché. The photography is astounding anyway. Why did Goetz and some of the others have to speak their lines in a faux German accent? This seems unnecessary - surely in this film they were largely all speaking German? Still this is a small point. The most serious breakdown and something that was apparently made up for the film was Schindler's emotional farewell at the end. It was not in the book, it did not need to be in the film and should not have been. The film would not have been diminished by omitting this faint touch of treacle. What Schindler had done for "his" Jews was clear - words spelling it all out were just not necessary. But these are small criticisms of a masterpiece.
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