Schindler's List
for language, some sexuality and actuality violence.
Reviewed by: W.J. Kimble
CONTRIBUTOR
| Moral Rating: | Very Offensive |
| Moviemaking Quality: |
|
| Primary Audience: | Adults |
| Genre: | History Drama Adaptation |
| Length: | 3 hr. 15 min. |
| Year of Release: | 1993 |
| USA Release: |
December 15, 1993 |
sin, depravity and the fall of man
holocaust / mass murderer
RACISM—What are the consequences of racial prejudice and false beliefs about the origin of races? Answer
concentration camps
sadistic cruelty / ruthlessness / psychopath
forgiveness
Christ allegory
Why does God allow innocent people to suffer? Answer
What about the issue of suffering? Doesn’t this prove that there is no God and that we are on our own? Answer
Does God feel our pain? Answer
ORIGIN OF BAD—How did bad things come about? Answer
Did God make the world the way it is now? What kind of world would you create? Answer
honor
self transcendence
heroism, courage, self-sacrifice
compassion, mercy
starvation
husband wife relationship
| Featuring |
Liam Neeson … Oskar Schindler Ben Kingsley … Itzhak Stern Ralph Fiennes … Amon Goeth Caroline Goodall … Emilie Schindler See all » |
| Director |
Steven Spielberg |
| Producer |
Universal Pictures Amblin Entertainment Gerald R. Molen … producer See all » |
| Distributor |
“Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”
While “Schindler’s List” won 7 Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Best Director and Best {adapted} screenplay), and 11 Academy Award Nominations (including Best Actor-Liam Neeson), it is a movie that left this reviewer a little uneasy. Steven Spielberg takes the grim reality of the Holocaust and portrays it as ghastly and realistic as anyone could expect. There are savage scenes of random, cruel slaughter that would make the young very squeamish (or most anyone). The very nature of the Holocaust requires that such graphic violence be portrayed and I was not offended by it. I do believe, however, that as godly parents we need to be careful that we do not expose our children to issues they are not ready to handle. The Holocaust and its violence can be too much for young minds. What really disturbs me about this movie is the unnecessary and flagrant nude scenes, which Spielberg seems to throw in at the most inappropriate times. One such scene has Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson, “Rob Roy”) in bed, with his wife (Caroline Goodall, “White Squall”), in the act of sex. Leaving little to the imagination, this scene is so offensive that one could easily consider it soft porn. There are scenes, which contain relative nudity and are essential to the content of the film; but this scene, and two others, have no bearing on the movie at all! There is full frontal male and female nudity and the vulgarity is prolific.
“Schindler’s List” is based on the 1982 biographical novel by Thomas Keneally. It is structured around the imposing, Nazi-Catholic industrialist, Oskar Schindler, whose suave, sophisticated lifestyle wins over the Nazi elite; which, subsequently, enables him to acquire tremendous wealth by using Polish Jews as unpaid laborers. While he is motivated by greed and lust for high living, Oskar, after having seen the slow methodical extermination of the Jews in Krakow, becomes sympathetic to their cause and begins to systematically buy everyone he can to work in his factory. Along with the help of Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley, “The Assignment”), Oskar is able to teach the Jews a trade that eventually saves their lives.
In one of the film’s most touching scenes, Oskar goes to Auschwitz and fights for the freedom of his employees. Determined to save all that he can, he risks his life by valiantly talking the authorities out of exterminating them. Triumphantly, they march back to the factory, knowing that their lives have been spared. By 1945, Oskar Schindler was able to save over 1,000 men, women and children. In his honor, Spielberg films the actual people, who were saved by Schindler, as they pass by the grave of their hero. We are then told that the descendants of these Jews total 6,000.
Many of the scenes were actually filmed on location, including Schindler’s original factory and the gates of Auschwitz. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski does a superb job of filming and Steven Zaillian skillfully constructed the screenplay. Even so, be forewarned, this is not a family film!
See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.
Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 5
Biblically-speaking, there is a lot of graphic violence (albeit tempered by the black-and-white; but it is no less disturbing), strong language and copious amounts of nudity with one brief sex scene that has nudity. However, none of this is done to be sexually titillating, and serves only to highlight the brutality that was born out of the Wannsee conference in 1942 (there is a television movie on the conference which I recommend; be warned, though, it has some language, and, of course, the discussion of the subject matter is for mature audiences only).
“Schindler’s List” definitely earned the R-rating for good reason, but it is essential in depicting the reality of the Holocaust (the story could not be told otherwise and be authentic at the same time). Heed the rating of the movie, but when you do show it to high school classes and your own children, see the film uncut. It is the only way to truly witness on film the horrors that Hitler’s regime inflicted on the Jews.
To answer a reviewer’s question about the significance of the stones on Schindler’s grave at the end of the movie, there is a Jewish tradition that when one visits a grave, one leaves a small stone on the marker as a sign of respect. Appropriately, the real-life survivors of the Holocaust are accompanied by the actors who played them, and the man seen in close-up placing a rose on Schindler’s grave and in long-shot is Liam Neeson who played Schindler.
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 5
The nudity was important, too. In the scene of the selection in the concentration camp, the nudity was necessary to make an accurate portrayal and the sexual scenes were there to show that Schindler was a womanizer… This film is one of the greatest motion pictures ever made and everyone should watch it.
Moral rating: Excellent! / Moviemaking quality: 5
PLEASE share your observations and insights to be posted here.
By far Spielberg’s best movie and one of the best films ever made. While it may be a stretch I would give this a Christian rating of 3—only because it’s accurate and not a glorification of perversion. To many Holocaust films shy from the truth. That’s sad, because it is one of the most significant events in the 20th century. Watch this movie, watch it carefully, and see what you learn from it—the nudity has a part in this film.