Could someone please provide a detailed explanation as to why Schindler's List is a bad film

? Anyone who says its bad seems to simply say its oscar bait/manipulative without providing a detailed explanation. Most major film critics seem to now hail it as one of the greatest films ever made.

I could have gotten one more person… and I didn’t! And I… I didn’t!

Most major film critics seem to now hail it as one of the greatest films ever made.

Not true.

Nobody ever made the Holocaust look so polished and perfectly rendered. Resnais, eat your heart out.

It’s emotionally manipulative and simplistic.

To paraphrase Kubrick, it presents itself as THE film about the Holocaust but it’s not about the 6 million who died but the few thousand who didn’t.

Yeah, the aesthetics of the film are fairly revolting as well. Adorno said there’s no poetry after Auschwitz; Spielberg turns Auschwitz into poetry.

Oh really? So the scene with the child hiding in a latrine was so damn slick and polished and typical of Hollywood glamorizing things?

Here’s Ray Carney:

Schindler’s List simply rehashes Spielberg’s inflatable, one-size-fits-all myth about how a clever, resourceful character can outsmart a system. Is that what the meaning of the Holocaust boils down to–Indiana Schindler versus the Gestapo of Doom? Schindler is a Hollywood producer’s self-congratulatory fantasy of how giving people a chance to work for you is doing them a big favor. What real courage did it take to make this movie? What new understanding of the Holocaust did it reveal? Spielberg could have made a really courageous film if he had dared to make a movie sympathetic to the SS, a movie that deeply, compassionately entered into the German point of view in order to reveal how regular people with wives and children could be drawn into committing or silently consenting to such horrors. How about a movie that showed that, at least potentially, we are them? A film that didn’t locate the bad guys in an emotional and historical galaxy far away? Of course, Spielberg could never make that film even if he tried to, because it would require too much insight on his part. And if he did make it, it would not get Academy Awards. It would require viewers to think. And thinking, real thinking, is always dangerous. Audiences might be forced to confront truths that they would rather avoid. Instead of affording them another opportunity to revel in their own virtue, they just might be made to squirm a little.

I would add that in the film, Spielberg basically does the same thing he does in Jurassic Park, set us up to watch Monsters ( in the dinosaur flick we are surprised a bit by the cunning and ingenuity of the dinos, in the Holocaust flick we are surprised a bit by Fiennes semi-human interest in the girl). Kingsley is the saint that speaks in Star Wars level hushed whispers, always ( and not just because he’s scared, but because this is the only level of understanding Spielberg can muster. Neeson is not even a character, just a good-bad guy at first and then a good-good guy. Fiennes is the same boring villain Hollywood has been cranking out for years, his excellent acting only serving the shallow purpose of showing us how evil, regardless of how calm he may seem for one moment, is ever-present in Nazis ( because they’re not human). The scene with the little girls is the most insulting underlining of a tragic situation in movie history. Just in case you don’t think all those people being dragged away is sad, let’s make the point clear for everyone by showing an Olsen Twin-cute little girl, IN COLOR, so you understand that this is really sad. To paraphrase something Fraser-Orr said on his webpage, if someone made a painting about the Holocaust that was this simplistic and shallow no one would pay it any mind. It’s’ only because most people still think it’s amazing that a medium as inherently trite as “the movies” could tackle such serious subject matter that this drivel is praised even by some critics who normally have relatively good sense.

The subject matter is important but the movie is not. For a better treatment of this subject in a semi-fictional mode read Art Spielgelman’s Maus graphic novel.

Godard was on point when he called it the Holocaust, by Max Factor.

Forgot the quotes, the first paragraph is Carney.

excellently stated.

That’s odd of you to say, Ari, considering that a lot of people attack Spielberg’s films for being too commercial and therefore being devoid of any “poetry”…

I really enjoy the film. It doesn’t do justice to the Holocaust, but what films do? I mean, honestly? Kubrick’s correct, but until someone makes a film that’s REALLY about the 6 million who perished, I will hold Schindler’s List in high regard.

The problem with SL is that is an entertainment film in the hollywood sense of the word “entertainment”. It uses very sordid historical events just to create entertaining moments. For instance when a bunch of “horrified women are taken to what they believe to be the gas chambers but weep with joy when water falls from the showers”. Suspense. Plain suspense for us to be entertained while eating pop corn and coke. The same kind of suspense found in Jaws. I don’t have a problem if he uses a shark for this (and I praise it!)… but real jews victims?

A comedy classic –

Am I missing something here? The gas chamber was suspenseful, no doubt, but I was horrified. There was nothing remotely entertaining about that scene at all.

Ben but you don’t have to be amused to be entertained. Think for instance in horror films.

What are we supposed to think when they are safe?

What did you think?

“For instance when a bunch of “horrified women are taken to what they believe to be the gas chambers but weep with joy when water falls from the showers”. Suspense. Plain suspense for us to be entertained while eating pop corn and coke. The same kind of suspense found in Jaws. I don’t have a problem if he uses a shark for this (and I praise it!)… but real jews victims?”

Thank you. This example illustrates what’s wrong with this film more than any example I gave.

I enjoyed the film too when i first saw it, Ben. The " i pardon you" scenes with Fiennes were entertaining. There is much to admire, the stylish black and white, the powerful performance by Neeson, the suspenseful moments. But is it something to enjoy and be entertained by? The girl in the red coat is memorable but that does feel a bit manipulative, even if to show how Schindler became emotionally involved. The scene where Schindler breaks down near the end feels a bit strained and sentimental. The shower scene where Speilberg plays on audience knowledge of the gas chambers feels cheap. I don’t think it a bad film overall, just a flawed one. It played well to the Oscars and audiences alike but that doesn’t place it among the great masterpieces of world cinema

p.s; Let’s have a decent film or two about the romanies’ suffering, or does noone give a damn? Who is to be their voice?

I’m still not really clear on why this bothers people (but weep with joy when water falls from the showers). Couldn’t this have happened and wouldn’t people react with joy/relief if it did? I understand what your argument is, just a little unclear about the why. Do you feel that the film is not serious enough? Or that he chose the wrong angle with which to tell a story about the Holocaust?

Could you take that specific example about the gas chamber scene and try to explain it further?

One ambivalence I have about Schindler’s List is that it did make people who would never see a film about the Holocaust see a film about the Holocaust. It’s not like they would see Lanzmann’s Shoah (although if you’re looking for a film that does "justice’ to the topic, Ben, you might want to start there). So does it have pedagogical value? I guess on one hand, it does. It makes people feel bad for the victims which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. On the other hand, the moral simplicity of Spielberg’s manichean universe does a disservice to viewers since the “bad guys” are, like in the quote Mike posted above, so one-dimensional villain-like that it doesn’t allow viewers to see how they themselves could have just as easily ended up as prison guards rather than as inmates.

Whatever attention that the film has brought on its subject, what I really resent is Spielberg cannibalizing the seriousness (or even the sanctity) of the subject as his own. After all, this was the film that not only won him his Oscar but finally made him a credible director for the Hollywood establishment. Not just a popular entertainer any longer, Spielberg became a “serious artist” with this film. (and this is the “poetry” that I’m referring to Ben – it’s not the Holocaust poetry of Paul Celan, it’s the poetry of Hallmark.) This I find revolting.

The two scenes that don’t sit well with me are the shower scene already mentioned, and the ‘I could have done more’ scene. The first smacks of dishonesty and conventional dramatic (and ultimately commercial) considerations rather than authenticity and truthfulness, and the second is just too melodramatic – Spielberg just can’t seem to stop himself from laying it on too thick. Also the little red girl is a tricksy and ostentatious technique that I don’t think belongs in this type of film.
Although I was impressed on first viewing this is one of those films that I disliked more the more I thought about it. I feel it’s a missed opportunity for Spielberg to have made something truly worthwhile, but maybe he’s just not wired that way – he seems to always have one eye on the demographics.

as mentioned above, not just by me, the shower scene seems designed for audience suspense and a sort of titillation. Is this suitable for the holocaust? Is mass entertainment suitable for any atrocities, whether it be Hiroshima, the genocide of Native Americans or Armenians, or various wars, whatever? Spielberg isn’t the only offender of course.

….a movie that deeply, compassionately entered into the German point of view in order to reveal how regular people with wives and children could be drawn into committing or silently consenting to such horrors.

That film was called Downfall. And yes, people didn’t like it.

Isn’t Oliver Stone intending to humanise Hitler? Well it needs to be done, as he was democratically elected and represented (if to an extreme) the views of many, not very different from views expressed in various countries today. It may take a better director than Stone though

Kenji, Finally someone who has the same opinion as me.

Spielberg has a heavy hand.

Its better than the monument of garbage that is The Color Purple, but not as good as Amistad. Jaws is probably still his best movie.

Mike you’r welcome. It came up in a discussion I had two years ago in a history class.

@SOYBEAN

It bothers me because the women and the “holocaust” stand in a second plane. The most important thing in this scene is the anxiety not the women nor its tragedy. It’s formally the same to the moment where the shark is underwater and we don’t know where and when it’s going to appear.

And yes… I think is the wrong angle especially because it’s very hard to portrait something like the “holocaust” in a medium that practically stylisies what it touches. As Ari I suggest Shoah (in spite of the lenght and the accesibility). it even starts by calling the event in the right way: Shoah. Just the victims and the tragedy

welcome aboard. fools seldom differ.

Robert: actually Downfall gets a very high average score on imdb, in the top 80. It may not have been such a big box office and Oscar-winning success as Schindler’s List but many many people have liked it

Oh really? So the scene with the child hiding in a latrine was so damn slick and polished and typical of Hollywood glamorizing things?

Dietrich only wished Sternberg lit her so well.

fine reply, Jerry

@ Misael – Thank you for explaining further. I can see what you getting at and it makes more sense to me. I’m not sure then how any film about the holocaust could avoid this in some degree or another, but I get your point.

I’ll see if I can find Shoah. Thanks for the recommendation.

I’m not sure then how any film about the holocaust could avoid this in some degree or another

Godard says cinema has no right to remember the holocaust because it failed to document it while it was happening.

Good point.