Schindler's List

Divide Et Impera · May 20th, 2009, 10:58 AM

I'm surprised that a movie of this magnitude doesn't have its own thread yet, but I guess I'll do the honors....

I just finished watching this about 45 minutes ago and I would use all the metaphors to describe it: tear jerker, heart wrenching, gut wrenching - all that.

Man, when Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) broke down at the end trying to figure ways in hindsight how he could have saved one more person, that killed me. When Itzhak Stein (sp?) tried to console him by telling him how much good he had accomplished, that was a powerful dichotomy - Oskar on how he wonders if he did enough and Itzhak reminding him how much he had actually done.

There were so many examples of purely innocent humanity in this film. When the women were sent to the showers and the water came out and they were actually in real showers shows a terrible transition from fear and despair to joy and relief. When the boy jumps down into the outhouse to avoid capture and is confronted by territorialism from the other children in there was so sad. The trains, crowded and hot, lined in barbed wire, people panting and gasping for air. The taunting and inhumanity of German children who knew no better ("Goodbye Jews!" and drawing a finger across a throat). The insanity and brutality of the German officers firing indiscriminately onto broken, fleeing people. There is just too much to this movie.

This was a true hero's story with an element of unsuspecting if not reluctant friendship. Watch this movie if you haven't already (as I hadn't)....

Divide Et Impera · May 20th, 2009, 10:59 AM

Schit! I forgot the 'c' in the title....

Ryanwb · May 20th, 2009, 11:18 AM

Definately a movie you need to see multiple times. I was dating a girl at the time, I think we were 15 or 16 when this movie came out. Her parents wouldn't let her see it because of the nudity (mormons) which was a idiotic shame. So I didn't see it until about 10 years ago and it was awesome. It's been on HBO the past month or so but I haven't caught it from the beginnings and always forget to Tivo it.

Chaplin · May 20th, 2009, 12:05 PM

My #10 film of all time. Just a brilliant, brilliant movie. There aren't enough adjectives to describe it.

AZZenny · May 21st, 2009, 10:19 PM

Right up to the colorized little girl, yeah. That really pissed me off -- Spielberg just cannot trust the audience or the actors to get it across.

Speaking of heros, a Polish social worker who rescued about 2000 Jewish babies and children and placed them with Christian families died in her 90's just recently. Gestapo tortured her and she never gave away her little 'underground railway' and returned to it after she was bribed out of prison. She was one of the first Righteous Gentiles honored at Yad Vashem (as was Schindler) but the Communist gov't of Poland at the time wouldn't let her go to Jerusalem to accept the honor; she finally got there in her mid-eighties.

You think about people like her and Oskar Schindler, and you have to gut-check your own courage and integrity.

Divide Et Impera · May 22nd, 2009, 06:37 PM

Quote:

You think about people like her and Oskar Schindler, and you have to gut-check your own courage and integrity.

Quoted for truth!

Ouchie-Z-Clown · May 27th, 2009, 03:59 PM

agreed. it's a movie that if i happen upon when surfing channels i'm done until the end. heart wrenching.

TBaslim · May 27th, 2009, 06:17 PM

Great thread. One of the best movies ever made. Should be required viewing for high school students. All about what it means to be human. Brilliant film making.

Timm Rosenbach · May 27th, 2009, 06:30 PM

I got to visit Oskar Schindler's grave in Jerusalem on a tour of Israel several years ago. There wasn't a dry eye amongst us. Great movie and great man

Bada0Bing · July 12th, 2009, 05:49 AM

I recently re-watched this one.

Film making just doesn't get any better than this.

Quote:

# Ranked #3 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time (2006).

# [June 2008] Ranked #3 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic".

# In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #8 Greatest Movie of All Time.

AFI's Epic Films:

Quote:

Winners: Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (# 1), Ben-Hur (1959) (# 2), Schindler's List (1993) (# 3), Gone With The Wind (1939) (# 4), Spartacus (1960) (# 5), Titanic (1997) (# 6), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) (# 7), Saving Private Ryan (1998) (# 8), Reds (1981) (# 9), The Ten Commandments (1956) (# 10).

I'd put Schindler's List #1 on this list.