What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
Schindler's List is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#9)
100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains (Oskar Schindler is the #13 hero, and Amon Goeth is the #15 villain)
100 Most Inspiring Movies (#3)
The Revised Top 100 (#8)
10 Top 10's (#3 Epic)
Having seen Schindler's List a couple of times in the past, I was reluctant to revisit this one via my Netflix subscription this week for this project. Not because the movie is horrible: on the contrary, I am of the opinion that it is one of the finest films ever made anywhere. A bold statement, I know, and I'll get to that in a minute, but the reason why I was reluctant to revisit this film is because it affects me so much (as it should), that I am wrecked for days afterward, and if I watch it close enough to bedtime (as I did this time around), it kind of gets stuck in my head and even my dreams. Schindler's List is an uncompromising look at one of the grossest atrocities in human history, it's the film that should singlehandedly bat down the naysayers surrounding the greatness of Steven Spielberg, and it's a beyond moving portrait of a man's transformation from scoundrel businessman to hero. I wonder about anyone who doesn't find themselves stirred by this film, which I feel is the whole package.
The film is something of a biopic. As the Nazis invade Poland in World War II and begin to relocate Jews to the ghettos, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson, in a tour de force performance) begins to see opportunities to profit from the Nazis' actions. He starts an industrial manufacturing company making pots and pans for the military, and he staffs his company with Jews from the Krakow ghetto, an unpaid and unquestioning source of labor. While his blatant profiteering and establishment of what is essentially slave labor may be appalling, both he and his plant manager, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), soon realize that to work in Schindler's factory is to prolong survival, as the Jews are gradually and increasingly sent to concentration camps. Plans start to go awry when, as the war progresses, the Krakow ghetto is transferred into a forced labor camp overseen by Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), a man who seems to be the true embodiment of evil. Though Schindler tries to convince himself at one point that Goeth is really a good guy affected by the war and his orders, the Jewish prisoners know that Goeth is an overweight alcoholic who likes to shoot prisoners for sport from his balcony and has a secret love for a Jewish woman in his employ, contrary to the edicts of his party. It's watching Goeth and the actions of his officers that spark a crisis of conscience within Schindler, and he starts bribing German officials including Goeth and gradually buying the freedoms of the Jews who work in his factory, which has since changed to a munitions operation. Those that made Schindler's List ultimately survived the Holocaust - but not without other challenges to overcome.
This is one of those films in which everything is truly great. There are no flaws in my eyes; this is a qualified masterpiece (and a perfect 10 on the ratings scale). The acting is brilliant. Liam Neeson was nominated for an Oscar; he didn't win because Tom Hanks won for Philadelphia that year, and personally, I find that contest a tough call. I sometimes think Neeson's complex, emotionally ambiguous, and ambitious performance is sorely underrated. He becomes this man so completely, his motivations are never obvious. Schindler seems to be able to see both sides of an equation handily without committing to either side, and that kind of balance is hard to strike in real life, much less portray on screen. And Ralph Fiennes, though he sounds a little like Kermit the Frog in this picture, plays this villain with a certain gusto that leaves you feeling reviled. You want to believe Schindler, when he posits that Goeth is really just a good guy affected by his circumstances, but the viewer realizes quickly that Goeth's circumstances merely give him an excuse to exercise impulses for which he would otherwise be restrained. I think it was brave for Fiennes to take up this role in the first place; his performance is chilling to the bone.
While the performances are perfection, Schindler's List is also so effective because of the filmmaking elements. This was clearly a passion project for Spielberg, and it shows through every technical element, from the Art Direction--with the stark and disarming recreations of the ghetto tenements, labor camps, and even Auschwitz, the most horrific of the concentration camps--to the Cinematography with its hazy black and white effect, making it seem as if the viewer is watching old news reel footage but with the "inside" take. I found it highly interesting that Spielberg and his director of photography chose to use color at key points, such as following the little girl wandering aimlessly through the carnage of the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, which made her death later in the film that much more resonant.
I was also impressed with the lighting effects and camera angles. The camera really becomes sort of the omniescient narrator in this film, switching from one subject, from one voice, to another. This is most evident when it goes from behind closed doors, such as Schindler's office, with lighting that seems to shroud Schindler and his moral ambiguity, to the camera in motion in the streets, following Jews as they flee from violence and incarceration. Other evident examples that haunt: the shots of the rooftops of Krakow during the liquidation at night, with the flashing lights of gunfire in various windows and the smoke of discharged weaponry filling the sky; the stark work lights on the yards of the Auschwitz camp, rendering a glowing effect to what you first think are snowflakes, until the camera pans to the fiery inferno above the incinerator, and so on.
Then: there is John Williams' understated and moving score underlying the whole piece. AFI didn't rank this film's score among its 25 greatest, which is a shame. I think it's one of the best, most fitting pieces of music to highlight a motion picture's images ever produced. Mr. Williams rightfully won the Oscar, and I will be carefully listening to all of the other scores on the list. I do think this score is better than Leonard Bernstein's score for On the Waterfront, but I think he was ranked among the 25 because it was his only film score, and he's Leonard Bernstein. I felt that his On the Waterfront showed some similarities to the music from West Side Story (though I think On the Waterfront predated even the theatrical play). Mr. Williams themes and composition are completely unique to this picture and don't bear any similarities to any of the other 40+ films he's composed music for. I wish he had made the list, and it was brilliant to use violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman in the orchestral arrangement.
Schindler's List is a true masterpiece on every level, and it succeeds in what it sets out to do: paint a searing portrait of the Holocaust and pay homage to an unlikely hero, all without exploring any father-son issues, as I hear Spielberg is wont to do. What's even more amazing is that, at 3 hours or more in length, you don't feel the time go by, no matter how much you may want to shield your eyes or look away. The film is as gripping in what I will call its "negative entertainment" (this is not a fun movie to watch, by any means) as it is a filmmaking marvel.
Because it's so hard to watch, though, and even though I've watched it a few times (this may have been the third or fourth), it could never pass the test. I only watch this film when I have purpose to do so, like for a silly movie-watching project. I could never buy this movie because I could never feel compelled to watch it just for the heck of it. You get the full effect of it watching it once, anyway, and everyone who hasn't really should. It might change your life.