#schindler’s list

[defleftist]

An impactful video on the shortcomings of moral purity and how in times of war/genocide we must grapple with the painful psychological burden that we can’t save everyone but we can save some people and saving one person is better than saving none.

[eretzyisrael]

Did you know that during the filming of Schinder’s List, Robin Williams would call Steven Spielberg and do stand up comedy to comfort the director?

Spielberg and the late actor had worked together on the 1991 film Hook, where the two became friends. Schindler’s list was released 2 years later in 1993.

During a 25th anniversary of the Oscar-winning film at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018, Spielberg said he relied on weekly phone calls from Robin Williams to keep his spirits up.

“Robin knew what I was going through, and once a week, Robin would call me on schedule and he would do 15 minutes of stand-up on the phone,” Spielberg said. “I would laugh hysterically because I had to release so much.”

Humans of Judaism

[cinemajunkie70]

A very happy birthday to Ralph Fiennes!

[citizenscreen]

Steven Spielberg’s SCHINDLER’S LIST hit theaters today in 1993.

[crowdvscritic]

crowd vs. critic single take // 12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013)

Note: This is a modified version of a review originally written for ZekeFilm. Photo credits: IMDb.com.

In 1841, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free man making a living as a violinist in New York with his family. But because the claws of American slavery stretch beyond the Mason-Dixon Line, he is kidnapped and sold into forced servitude. For 12 years he is exchanged between different plantations in Louisiana, some masters conflicted about their role in his life (Benedict Cumberbatch) but more of them baleful (Michael Fassbender, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano). He befriends the laborers beside him like Patsey (Lupita N’yongo) and Eliza (Adepero Oduye), but he never stops looking for opportunities to contact his family and for escape. 

CROWD // I’m not going to lie—12 Years a Slave was the only Best Picture winner I hadn’t seen when the 2010s ended. What’s more embarrassing to admit is why, which, clearly, wasn’t for lack of time. The reason I delayed my viewing six years was because I didn’t think I could hack it. I almost couldn’t finish Schindler’s List—why would force myself through another realistic depiction of brutality only a few generations removed?

If you’ve asked yourself the same question, know that those concerns are not ill-founded. If Tarantino’s stylized violence in Django Unchained made you squeamish, Steve McQueen’s study of the dehumanizing treatment of pre-Civil War slaves won’t gloss over anything to make you more comfortable. Of course, that’s not only warranted, it’s why this film works so well. But because the title tells us the ending, the small sliver of hope sustains us, and we know Northup’s true story will end with him overcoming one of history’s worst adversities.

POPCORN POTENTIAL: 5/10

CRITIC // Everything in 12 Years a Slave is a study of contrasts. Masters hang their slaves in the wild beauty of the Southern forests. Mistresses attack their slaves with expensive china. Overseers taunt their slaves with music to drown out their spirituals. The religious use the Bible as a weapon against the slaves who pray for deliverance. McQueen forces us to sit with these contradictions for long, unbroken shots. We sit and mourn with Solomon with every betrayal, watching and feeling his grief until it becomes our own. As he is moved from auction to house to plantation, his turmoil and those of his fellow victims becomes ours, too. We watch white actors we respect become weakly selfish at best, manically barbaric at worst, so we know why it’s so difficult for Solomon to know whom he can trust. It also reminds us if faces we thought we liked so much could portray such evil, we must be capable of such evil as well. (See Jojo Rabbit for another reminder of that.)

There’s no beauty or redemption in this chapter of America’s story, but the beauty of this film is it restores humanity to the memory of the millions of people who were denied it in their lifetimes. Instead of being grouped together as collective “slaves,” they’re Solomon and Patsey and Eliza and Emily and Robert and Jasper and Anna and Clemens. They have faces and names and families and scars, and 12 Years a Slave finds and shows them better than any movie about American slavery yet.

ARTISTIC TASTE: 10/10

[darlingbandit]

The thing is, people really like to watch an actor or a director evolve. It’s not that they dislike it when artists do the same thing very well over and over again, but to have crossed so many spectrums in one’s career, and to have physical evidence of an artist’s evolution on the screen, is really interesting. They write books about how Humphrey Bogart went from screen heavy to romantic anti-hero to grizzled, haunted character, proto-Method actor. There are documentaries about how Jane Fonda went from bubbly sixties rom com princess to vilified radical to beloved sassy grandma. There are going to be retrospectives on how Spielberg went from blockbuster wunderkind to serious filmmaker to an sleek genre chameleon.

It just makes you love movies, gosh darn it.

[bustedcranium]

SEQUEL IDEAS FOR SCHINDLER’S LIST:

Schindler’s List 2: Relisted

Schindler’s List 2: He’s Checking it Twice

2 Schindler 2 List

[duinlam]

“Vina e un vis, mila e singura realitate.”

Schindler's Ark.

- Thomas Keneally -

Schindler’s List (1993).

Directed by Steven Spielberg.

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have  Schindler’s List 1993

[cursemewithyourkiss]

*I tried to select the films that come up the most and the highest on lists of the best films ever, both those by critics and those based on audience votes. I understand there are several others that you see a lot as well, but there are only limited options and I think I managed to select the ones you see the very most.

[sourabha]

How many Schindlers might have died and gone quietly

Oskar Schindler’s story has been haunting again and again this week with a new force. Maybe because of the recent story of that girl in the red coat from Spielberg’s movie I read a few days ago (about her in the next story). Schindler, who wasn’t really a pleasant man as an employer, went on to save hundreds of Jewish people during the Nazi regime. Their descendants in thousands are alive and…

[girlactionfigure]

[cinemajunkie70]

A very happy birthday to Don Logan himself, Sir Ben Kingsley!

[pastelclovds]

literally no words can describe how much i love historical war films.

dunkirk, all quiet on the western front, 1917, hacksaw ridge, band of brothers, saving private ryan, schindler's list, and oppenheimer are all done very well.

history is one of my special interests :)

[antoniosbanderas]

Schindler's List (1993), dir. Steven Spielberg