Preview

Schindler's List Critique

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1172 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Schindler's List Critique
The Schindler’s List is Steven Spielberg’s award-winning film which illustrates the profoundly nightmarish Holocaust. It recreates a dark, frightening period during World War II, when Nazi-occupied Kraków first dispossessed Jews of their businesses and homes, then forced them into ghettos and labor camps in Plaszów and finally resettled in concentration camps for execution. It is quite terrifying to think how far the Nazis were able to go with their murderous ideology. Which is the primary component of what makes the novel and film so nerve-wracking. It is difficult to imagine how an entire group that were so dehumanized by another group of people and were killed as if they were nothing but ‘bodies’ without minds or emotions. The film opens up with a close up of hands lighting a pair of Shabbat (Sabbath) candles, followed by the sound of a Hebrew prayer blessing the candles it sounds similar to the call to prayer for Muslims minus the embellished throaty notes. One of the only color scenes in the film, it quickly fades to black and white and brings us to our setting for the majority of the film. It is 1939 at the …show more content…
When he bids his Schindlerjuden good-bye, they give him a ring made of gold tooth of a factory worker, engraved with the Talmudic phrase, “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” Schindler breaks down, crying that he could have been sacrificed more, saved more lives. He and his wife then flee. The next morning, a Russian soldier enters the camp and tells the Jews they are free. As they walk toward a nearby town, the scene dissolves into full color and reveals a group of real Holocaust survivors walking across a field. They line up, many accompanied by the actors who play them, and place a rock on Schindler’s grave. The last person at the grave is Liam Neeson (Oskar Schindler). He places a rose on the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    One of the main characters in “V for Vendetta” is V. He is a mysterious, vigilante, freedom fighter, and a terrorist who is easily recognized by his Guy Fawkes mask, long hair, and dark clothing. He is a person permeated by an idea that the country they are living in is sick and that it is his duty to save the country and fulfill the idea. He was permeated by this idea after his experience at Larkhill where he underwent medical testing and saw that his country was up to. The costume V is wearing is mainly black and could possibly symbolize his dark site because V is no ordinary hero and the dark outfit underlines these two sites of him. Furthermore, V also wears a bright and white mask, which could symbolize that he also has some good in him. Additionally, the mask V is wearing is a Guy Fawkes mask, which underlines the idea he is permeated by. The mask shows us that he has the same idea as Guy Fawkes, which is to take the government down.…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, both the german SS soldiers and their fellow Jews act in a variety of ways to dehumanize those laced into the concentration camps.…

    • 80 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Schindler's List Analysis

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The film Schindler's list, produced by Steven Spielberg in 1993 was based on the book "Schindler's Ark" by Thomas Keneally. Schindler's List was set in Germany during the period of World War 2. Schindler's list is a true story about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the life's of more than one thousand, one hundred Jews during the 1940s holocaust. The following quote is used to describe the themes in the movie, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ~Edmund Burke. This quote is relevant to Schindler's list as it relates to the idea of everyone else in the world sitting by and doing nothing as Hitler and Germany continued to invade, attack and expand its empire. The symbolism, music,…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Schindler drives away, Stern cries “Very useful! Success!” regarding the maimed worker. Schindler is then…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This was a troubling and confusing time for the Jews. Times of despair. Persecution. Extermination. Hopelessness. The Holocaust left an irreversible imprint on a race and individual scaring.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Duckwitz Research Papers

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages

    During the Nazi trade of Lithuania a German Sergeant, Anton Schmid, disobeyed his superior officers and saved 250 Jewish man, females, and children. In Buchenwald a four-year-old-fashioned lad, Joseph Schleifstein, survived the horrors of the KZ cantonment, covert from the Nazis until liberation. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been quell by the Nazis. At the end of a seven-Time back-breaking trip in the inactive of hiems, the SS guards completely situation the two assurance cattle-cars with their earthling freight at the gates of Brunnlitz. - Louis Bümound. It seems as though there is no beau of human thing, no play of humankind, to lighten that mysterious annals. In Auschwitz the missionary Jane Haining reject to deny her goats and showed herself to be a saintling. In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the hostility. She was murdered in the qualifier chambers. “Oh, bless you so much. Emilie Schindler was just in time to suspend the SS camp commandant from emit the train…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the holocaust, Jews were brutally mistreated by the S.S. Soldiers at the concentration camps. Dehumanization was one of the many things that was done to the Jews. “Strip! Hurry up! Raus! Hold on only to your shoes and your belt.” “ Their clippers tore out our hair, shaved every hair on our bodies.” Execution is also portrayed in the book Night. Small children(babies) were thrown into the fire pits, because they were too young to do anything. The Jews civil rights were taken away from the them when the German soldiers came to force them out of their homes, and take them to the concentration camps. “ During the passover celebration of 1944, however, German soldiers arrive in Sighet, arrest jewish leaders, confiscate the valuables of Jewish…

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Shoe-Horn Sonata

    • 1047 Words
    • 3 Pages

    John Misto’s play “The Shoe-Horn Sonata” is a text that was written to acknowledge and honour the women who were once forgotten prisoners of war in World War 2. The play uses distinctively visual images and dialogue to create visual images of dehumanisation and the small idea of hope during this time. “Schindlers list” directed by Steven Spielberg also used the movie to acknowledge the names of the Jewish that had been forgotten. A range of techniques are used in both texts to help understand the visual aspect of the texts such as the plight of the protagonists in each text.…

    • 1047 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    During world war II, the people known as, Jews, were targeted for deportation to concentration camps and execution. The term, “Inhumanity” was expressed in many different ways during this period of time. Inhumanity can scar people emotionally and mentally. Inhumane people tend to act very cruel towards other people, animals, and the environment. In the story, “Night” by Elie Wiesel, there were many merciless examples of how inhumanity was shown during World War II.…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    shindlers list essy

    • 888 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One of the ways in which Spielberg effectively reveals the situation is by showing Shindler and Goeth as opposites. When we first see them they are both shaving. Spielberg uses this scene to show how Shindler and Goeths characters are different. The scene cuts to Schindler shaving his face. It then cuts to a parallel shot of Goeth shaving. The shot continues to go back and forth between the two men. Spielberg does this to demonstrate their different state of minds. You can see this because when Shindler is shaving he hums but when Goeth is shaving he is silent, we also see this by the way they shave, when Shindler shaves he does it rough as if nothing’s wrong but Goeth does it gently because he knows what’s up. The camera is used to show the comparison between both men which suggest they are getting ready for something (Goeth to kill all the Jews and for Shindler to start saving the Jews) this shows that Shindler is oblivious of what is going to happen; he believes that it is just another day. However Goeths distress while shaving shows that he knows today is not any other day, today is a horrifying day which will become known history.…

    • 888 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Stephen Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List the main character, Oskar Schindler goes through a major change in his views on humanity, and people's lives, in particular the Jews. This film covers the holocaust in detail, and one man's effort to save as many Jews as he could. Throughout the course of the movie, Oskar Schindler's whole perspective on Jewish life is changed.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eliezer and other Jewish people live on the town of sighet, Moishe one of the townspeople warn everybody about the nazis and no one listens, one the jewish are captured, most are killed and tortured. Eliezer and his dad goes through each camps as they experience new ways of how the Nazis dehumanize the jewish people. Wiesel engages readers’ emotions with powerful unforgettable moments in order to achieve his purpose. Wesiel wants to help readers come to a greater understanding of the Holocaust and make them think about how Dehumanization is shown across the story.…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Schindlers List Thesis

    • 4448 Words
    • 18 Pages

    Our black dresses are taken off and the dancers are ‘naked’. Each of the dancers begins by raising their heads in unison as if to look at the ‘shower heads’ that release the gas. The expression is a mixture of hope and utter despair. The music then drops and the dancer’s shoulders hunch over and it is if they had been punched in the stomach. All the dancers then interact with one another as they slowly die. The last person dies as the violin ends, with a single lifted hand that comes shakily down as the dance ends. This death symbolises how the Jews dies as one group, their dignity stripped away and their race slandered. I had to practise this is a lot with another dancer and working together to try and project the death of our characters. This help to show the intention of how they still helped each other even as they were…

    • 4448 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In this essay list

    • 1271 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In this essay, I intend to talk about how the holocaust Jews "went like sheep to the slaughter" and how the movie “Schindler’s List” confirms this statement. "Schindler's list" gives us confirmation that the Holocaust Jews "went like sheep to the slaughter” throughout many scenes in the film. We will be looking at examples from the film "Schindler’s List" that shows us how the Jews in fact "went like sheep to the slaughter” and looking at historic sources in order to prove that statement.…

    • 1271 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the 2hr:13min mark in the film, a strange form of precipitation begins to fall over the city of Krakow, Poland. A non-diegetic orchestral theme slowly begins to play as civilians of the town confusedly try to identify what is falling on them. The theme immediately evokes an immense sense of dread and sadness, as the audience viewing the film most likely possesses the knowledge as to what the substance is. The peculiar substance is ash, as Oskar Schindler discovers upon close examination (2:14:02). The mise-en-scene of a mass immolation of “more than 10,000 Jews” comes into view accompanied by a historical footnote of the event known as the Krakow Ghetto massacre. The theme intensifies as the camera pans the thick black smoke pouring from the massive piles of burning flesh. Diegetic sounds of Nazi anti-Semitic shouts, roaring flames, the clangs of shovels, and sporadic gunfire add to the mise-en-scene of utter human-induced evil. As the camera pans Jewish workers literally digging their own graves, a Jewish harmonic choir joins the Immolation Theme, perhaps illustrating the senseless loss of not only their lives, but of their culture. The…

    • 788 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays