What Makes "Schindler's List" Great.

When Spielberg presented John Williams with the film and asked him to make the score for it, Williams said he wasn't good enough for such a task and told Spielberg he needs a better composer. Spielberg replied by saying "I know. But they're all dead".

Spielberg himself was offered to do the movie well before it's eventual release in 1993. He held off on making it however as he felt he wasn't a mature enough director yet. This was a very personal film for Spielberg as he himself is Jewish so there was a lot of personal pressure to do the film justice. It is this reason that there is probably nobody who could have done this film other than himself. Although he did present the script to other directors such as Martin Scorsese and Sydney Pollack.

Schindler's List is a grand epic that spans from the beginning of WW2 to the eventual surrender of the German army. One of the most powerful moments in the film comes at the beginning where we see the few uses of color in the film with a Jewish Family praying with their candles. The fire eventually fades to smoke which cuts to black and white and the smoke changing from that of a candle to the steam of a train transporting the Jews of Poland to registration. The smoke would later be seen as a symbol of death with the chimney of the gas chambers casting out smoke into the sky. This simple cut is so powerful as the smoke from the candles that once used to bring hope now bring dread. The film does an amazing job of presenting the progressive stages of the Holocaust from the removal of Jews from there home to their eventual transfer to the death camps. Being able to see the Holocaust from beginning to end helps ad a more powerful ending as we saw all the things these people had to suffer through.

The three central performances By Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes are all great. The relationship between Neeson and Kingsley is one of the best aspects of the film. It's through this relationship that turns into a friendship that causes Schindler's compassion for the Jewish people to emerge with Itzhak Stern trying to get as many of his fellow Jews to work in Schindler's factory in order to keep them out of the concentration camps. Schindler starts out as a person just wanting to make money and sees the Jewish workforce he has as cheap labor. There really is no one scene that shows his change in the film, he just slowly becomes more sympathetic to the Jews as the holocaust goes on to the point where he throws away his fortune in bribing Nazi officials in order to save as many as possible. Ralph Fiennes plays one of the evilest characters ever brought on screen in Amon Goth. He is a horrible person but the film does a good job at still showing him in a realistic and human way. Spielberg presents a various matter of perceptive contrasts throughout the film and the most powerful is that of the contrast between Schindler and Goth. Both men attempt to profit from the war, both have a sizable force of Jewish laborers, and both are members of the Nazi party. The two even have what one can call a friendship as they both attend outlandish parties together and crack jokes with each other. The differences the two have can also be seen as similar as both men demonstrate their true nature with how they treat the Jewish people. It's these similarities and differences the two share that makes their relationship the most fascinating thing about the film. It's through Schindler's reactions and dealings through Stern and Goth that help shape his eventual transformation to a savior. He sees the Holocaust through Stern and his fellow jew's suffering and Goth and the other Nazi's cruelty which teach him the value of human life.

Spielberg also wasn't afraid to hide the absolute violence and evil that the Holocaust was. The violence and brutality of the film make it a hard watch to be sure. One of the most heartbreaking scenes is of course "The Girl in The Red Dress". Her red coat is one of the few instances of color in the film. It symbolizes Schindler's view of the horror of the Holocaust as well as the loss of innocence that the holocaust brings with red being the color of blood. Schindler later sees the girl in red again being carted off as one of the many people who lost their lives in the emptying of the ghettos. Her coat still shows the contrasting color of red, showing that the image of this girl has stayed with Schindler. There is one scene where Goth takes a Jewish metal worker to be executed for making hinges to slowly. Goth's attempt to kill the man constantly fail because of the gun being jammed. It's the image of the man weeping and begging for his life with the painful anticipation of the gun eventually firing (which does not happen) that truly make this scene absolutely horrifying.

While Schindler's List is a hard movie to sit through, it is a film that should be seen by everyone at least once in their lifetime.