Schindler’s List

Schindler’s List

Introduction

The Schindler’s List film, directed by Steven Spielberg, is defined as a movie regarding the Holocaust; however, the Holocaust offers ab arena for the tale and not the subject of the narration. The video represents two parallel personalities, which are; a fraudulent man played by Oskar Schindler and a purely evil man played by Amon Goeth. The second world war’s opportunities molded the two significant characters in the movie. Spielberg finds a brilliant approach to communicate about the Holocaust happenings, which has been identified as a tragic and vast subject to be covered in any sensible manner by fiction.

Regardless of the hardships depicted in this sad narration,Spielberg finds a way of representing a reasonably happy ending that affirms that battling evil is attainable (Manchel 435). Thus, this paper will focus on an in-depth analysis of Spielberg’s Schindler’s List movie. The essay will focus on how Spielberg used various characters like Oskar Schindler and Amon Goeth, as well as the use of imagery to represent the evil occurrences of the Holocaust, and finally hope of overcoming wickedness. The Judenrat, the Jewish council responsible for carrying out NSI orders, is next visited by Schindler in Kraków. He goes straight to the front of an appearance of an endless line of Jews, where his accountant, Izhak Stern, is found. In order to help him buy an enamel factory, Schindler says to Stern that he needs investors, “the Jews.” Because Jews cannot, by law, own corporations, Schindler tells Stern he’s going to pay customers for the product rather than money. Schindler knows that if he is not to pay the Jewish investors in cash, he will increase his benefit. He also wanted Stern to operate the enterprise, but Stern refused to make the offer at first. Schindler said that the Jews would not want to invest..

Spielberg’s movie’s achievement is generally based on Osker Schindler, who is portrayed as a person that never, up to almost the film’s ending, discloses his actions to anyone. Schindler, in the first sets of the movie, is seen as a con person depicted as a lavish, powerful, and well-connected individual who is a womanizer, drinker, gambler, and greedy(Manchel 87). The Nazis always received Schindler’s bribes, thinking that he desired to make himself rich; however, Schindler’s end-goal was to save the Jews. Therefore, Schindler’s personality depicts an individual that does the contrary to what it appears to be his intention. For instance, Schindler readily snatches his employees, such as his secretary Mr. Stern from the jaws of death. Schindler’s right actions are highly depicted when he asks Stern to create a list of 1100 Jew workers that were to be transferred to Czechoslovakia (Manchel 97). Stern calls the list’ life’ as he believes that all around the list’s boundaries lies the bay. Here, the Spielberg used imagery by representing a list which depicted life and better living in the end.

Commandant Goeth, on the other hand, is a Nazi who ruled over the Ghetto of Krakow and then over the Jews’ camp where several Jewish people were relocated (Manchel 433).  The film depicts Goeth as an evil character who cruelly shoots the Jewish people as target exercise. Thus, contrary to Schindler, who attempts to use his power to reinforce the lost optimism among the Jews, Goeth uses his authority to destroy all hope restored among the Jewish individuals (Niven 171). However, Goeth’s cruelty can be attributed to an ordinary person who was made to follow the set orders regardless of how evil the outcomes were. Therefore, Spielberg’s film does not depict the Holocaust terror through Goeth’s brutality but through the number of individuals snatched from the usual lifestyle to become willing executioners of Hitler.  Goeth is charged with evacuating the bodies of the 10 000 Jews killed at the Ghetto and in the Ghetto of Kraków and with exhuming and burning them. Schindler realizes that the Nazis ‘ death is certain to his workers, including Stern, and so he decides to spend his good fortune to save as many Jews as possible. Schindler starts making his list with that. He persuades Goeth and Goeth’s maid Helen Hirsch to sell his workers to him and to work at his Czechoslovakia factory.

Conclusion

“Schindler’s List” provides us with the info regarding the operation of some of the Holocaust sections. However, the movie fails to explain the Holocaust in general since it is incomprehensible that human beings could exercise genocide. Nevertheless, extermination has been identified as a common practice in the history of humankind and is still being conducted in parts of the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan. Additionally, the US was inhabited through a genocide policy against the indigenous people. Race and religion have also been identified as the basis of hate among people. Unless humanity can grow past racial and religious depictions, humans are still going to be potential killers.  Therefore, the authority of Schindler’s List movie does not rely on the fact that the script narrates malicious intents of humankind, but because the film maintains that people can be moral at a given point of their life; thus, morality can be acquired and sustained.

Works cited

Manchel, Frank. “A reel witness: Steven Spielberg’s representation of the Holocaust in Schindler’s List.” The Journal of Modern History 67.1 (1995): 83-100. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/245018?journalCode=jmh

Manchel, Frank. “Mishegoss:’Schindler’s List,’ Holocaust representation, and film history.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 18.3 (1998): 431-436. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01439689800260271?journalCode=chjf20

Niven, William J. “The reception of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List in the German media.” Journal of European Studies 25.2 (1995): 165-189. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004724419502500204?journalCode=jesa