My Life at the Movies 2.10.09: 1993 - Schindler's List

Posted by DC Perry on 02.10.2009

Whoever saves the life of one man, saves the world entire.

There's no question what this year's movie is. Let's get right to it.



1993 at a Glance

US President: Bill Clinton
Median annual salary: $31,241
Gallon of gas: $1.11
Dozen eggs: $0.87
New house: $147,700
New car: $17,678
Movie ticket: $4.14
Boston Red Sox: 80-82, fifth place, American League East
Me: Spending the summer at the inexplicable Boys State


When we meet Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), he has just arrived in Krakow, a would-be businessman hoping to bribe his way into the military's favor. He wins a contract to provide mess kits to the Nazis, but has no money or experience with such a venture. He seeks out Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), an official with the Judenrat, a man with the experience and the investment contacts Schindler needs. On Stern's advice, Schindler hires Jewish workers – they work for less (in fact, they work for nothing; their wages are paid to the Nazi party), and working in Schindler's factory allows them outside the ghetto to trade for goods not available there, and it marks them as essential workers, protecting their lives.



This arrangement works well until the arrival of Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) and the purging of the ghetto. Schindler is disgusted by Goeth's disregard for human life, but he knows which side his bread is buttered on, and works a deal with Goeth to create a subcamp for his workers. As the war goes worse and worse for the Germans, Goeth is ordered to exhume and burn the corpses of any murdered Jews, destroy the camp, and ship any surviving Jews to Auschwitz. Schindler bribes Goeth into accepting a list of names of workers to be left off the trains, and he quickly spends all his war profits keeping the Nazi guards out of his camp and keeping his workers safe.



Just as Schindler's money is running out, the Nazis surrender. After shaming the guards into ignoring their orders to liquidate the camp, Schindler announces that, since he is a Nazi and a war profiteer, he will be hunted as a war criminal and must flee the camp before the Allied liberators arrive. Before he goes, the workers present him a letter explaining Schindler's actions signed by all the workers, and with a gold ring, made from melted-down dental fillings, bearing the Hebrew inscription ‘He who saves the life of one man, saves the world entire.' Schindler is moved by the gesture, but is overcome by the lives he failed to save. Stern comforts him and ushers him to his car, then awaits the Russian army with the rest of the workers.



Color plays a subtle but powerful role in the film. Nearly every scene is black and white, but the flames on the candles lit on the Sabbath shine brightly, as does one young girl's coat. When Schindler sees that same coat, bright red on an exhumed corpse, there's no need for any dialogue to explain why his motivation suddenly changes from making money to liberating people, and why he changes from womanizing playboy to devoted liberator and family man.



This movie represents a personal coming of age moment. A local woman rented out the nearby movie theater to screen this movie for my class. On the bus trip to the theater, there was the usual field trip no school aren't-we-lucky crap. We complained that we couldn't have popcorn. We threw paper at each other. We snickered through the opening. On the way home, not so much. As a 17 year old, I felt as if I'd been let in on a secret about how the world really works. Movies, it turned out, were about more than aliens and explosions. They could make tragedy real. They could put a human face on historical events that made them personal, not just facts on a page. Schindler's List taught me to become a sophisticated viewer. Some consider Schindler's List propaganda; in fact, it's inoculation against propaganda. Had this been actual propaganda, the story you were told would have been a lie.



The turmoil and anguish Goeth battles as he acts out his frustration and anger are real. The ambivalence of Oskar Schindler, a man remembered as a hero but whose initial motivation was entirely financial, is real. The steady, honest, but necessarily underhanded methods of Itzhak Stern are real. The humiliation and terror the concentration camp victims endure at being stripped and paraded around, wondering if they will be sent to the gas chambers they've heard rumors about, are real. The screams of the mothers, moments ago relieved at being spared those gas chambers, as they see truckloads of their children leaving the camp is real. The fear of the young boy who runs from hiding place to hiding place, turned away at every one by other children who arrived before he did, is real. If your eyes are dry during the final scene as Schindler's legacy pays tribute to his grave stone – well, there's no need for insults, but I find it emotionally overwhelming. And I find this the best movie of 1993.