Schindler's List

Schindler's List (1993) is adapted from Thomas Keneally's book, and Oskar Schindler was a real man: a Nazi Party member who came to Kraków to get rich off the war. The film's most important decision is refusing to draw him as good from the start. He hires Jewish workers because they are cheap, drinks with party officials, and hands out bribes. When and why he changes is never stated, and the film withholds that deliberately. Against him is Amon Göth. The man Ralph Fiennes plays was also real, and the most disturbing thing about him is his ordinariness: shooting people from his balcony at random, he looks bored. Spielberg insisted on black and white and the studio did not want it. The girl in the red coat is the single colour inside that black and white, which is why it works. Spielberg took no fee for the film. He called any money from it blood money and said he could not accept it. He used the profits to found the Shoah Foundation, which records the testimony of Holocaust survivors; over fifty thousand interviews are now held there. In the closing scene at the grave, the elderly people walking beside the actors are the actual survivors. It won seven Oscars including Best Picture. It runs 195 minutes. Good for: history, war drama, and landmark cinema. Less good for: executions, nudity and camp scenes are shown directly. Not a film to watch with children.