Schindler's List : Why is this rated so high?

Why is this rated so high?

Just finished watching Schindlers List the other day, after reading the notice that the last person saved by Schindler died this month.

After watching it, I thought it was a pretty good film. A solid 8/10, but for me personally not a 9 or 10. I'm just curious, but why is this so highly rated?

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Name another film that is close to this.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

I only think it is rated this high since it's about the holocaust.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

It is well made film but the emotional subject matter no doubt influences the rating.

When I first saw it some 12-15 years ago I gave it an 8, yesterday I watched it again
and upped the rating to 9. I've seen a lot more films during those years, including many regarded as all time greats, and I though it compared rather favourably. It's not perfect of course, and I would never give it a 10, but I've come to realise that perfection is rare if not nonexistent.

And, yes, it made me cry, so the emotional aspect is no doubt present.

That being said, I don't think that it's actually better made than some other serious Spielberg movies, like Munich or even Bridge of Spies, that have a considerably lower rating. It's just that the subject matter don't provide quite the same punch. Personally, I've rated them all the same.

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Re: Why is this rated so high?

The estimated number of Jews that were killed has dropped down to below one and half million since the war ended, and this has been agreed by Jewish scholars as well. Also there have been debates on whether gas chambers were actually used. But none the less over a million people were killed and that's still not excusable or acceptable.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Bull and S**t

Even Eichmann boasted of a figure of over 5,000,000 and the only people who deny the use of the gas chambers are holocaust deniers. People who were actually involved in the process have repeatedly confirmed that gassing was the main method for killing the Jewish populations in Europe, especially after 1942.

Want to cite some sources that aren't blog posts or the ramblings of some neo-nazi/anti-holocaust maniac?

Re: Why is this rated so high?

They actually changed the number of people killed that was written on a plague at Auschwitz and it is now generally accepted that less then 2 million were killed during the war. Its not some big cover up its actually recognized. Not supporting the Nazi regime in anyway just stating facts.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

I don't know where you get your lies from , but I can guess.
Current scholarship puts the range of murderd Jews at 5.75-6.2 million.
Those are from both Jewish and non-Jewish scholars.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Dominic - cite a source for this new lower estimate. I haven't heard it anywhere, and I've read scholars who think the number may actually be higher.

http://www.auschwitz.dk/Docu/Faq.htm. on the Auschwitz website, they claim that 1.5Million children were murdered



How many Jews were murdered during the Holocaust?

While it is impossible to ascertain the exact number of Jewish victims, statistics indicate that the total was over 5,830,000. Six million is the round figure accepted by most authorities.





How many children were murdered during the Holocaust?

The number of children killed during the Holocaust is not fathomable and full statistics for the tragic fate of children who died will never be known. Some estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered children. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of institutionalized handicapped children who were murdered under Nazi rule in Germany and occupied Europe.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

1) Auschwitz was not the only extermination camp
2) The plaque refers only to the people who were actually killed at Auschwitz, and is not the tally for the total number of victims of the Holocaust
3) The number has been reduced because for a long time, the initial figures were Communist propaganda (newsflash: The Soviet Union and Germany were bitter enemies as nearly 25 million Russian soldiers and civilians died as a direct result of the war with Germany)

Over 1 million people died in Auschwitz, and over 90% of them were Jewish. The other 5 million died in places like Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno and Belzec, where nearly every person who went there was dead and cremated within 6 hours of their arrival (Sobibor had a 99% instant mortality rate, compared to Auschwitz's 70%, which was mainly due to Auschwitz being a work camp as well as an extermination camp, whereas Sobibor existed solely as an extermination camp). Many more died in the numerous concentration camps, either through direct murder, beatings, starvation, disease, or exhaustion. And outside of that, the remainder of the numbers were due to the death squads that would travel to newly-conquered towns and villages before Operation Reinhard took off. They'd come in, round up the local Jews (as well as communists and local political leaders), march them outside of town to freshly dug mass graves, and shoot them.

It's not like this stuff isn't well-documented or understood. I mean, do you drive around and berate the local McDonalds because their misleading signs would have you believe that billions and billions were served at that particular location? Or do you understand that the billions and billions served is referring to the entire McDonald's chain?

Re: Why is this rated so high?

If I can interject...

On the one hand, thank you for saying this:


the initial figures were Communist propaganda (newsflash: The Soviet Union and Germany were bitter enemies as nearly 25 million Russian soldiers and civilians died as a direct result of the war with Germany)


I don't hear people saying this enough. But on the other hand, there seems to be a numbers game going on. The six million number was acknowledged in the 40s and in the 60s, including the 4 million at Auschwitz. The Auschwitz numbers were changed in the 80s. What does that do to the time table?

Re: Why is this rated so high?

I'm condensing the answer from http://www.nizkor.org/features/denial-of-science/four-million-01.html:

On May 12th, 1945, a few months after the liberation of Auschwitz, a Soviet State Commission reported that not less than four million people were murdered there. This number was displayed at the Auschwitz State Museum until 1991, when it was lowered to 1.1 million. The total death toll for Jews in the Holocaust, however, stayed at about six million. Mainstream historians, it seemed, were caught in a bind. Had three million fewer people died in the Holocaust? And if so, why hadn't historians reevaluated their own figures?...

As is often the case, our "revisionist scholars" have things more than a little askew. "The Four Million Variant" is the fallacious notion that a change in the Auschwitz Museum's figure pokes a major hole in mainstream Holocaust history. Taking each aspect of the "Four Million Variant" individually shows just how wrongheaded this notion is:

* "The four million figure at Auschwitz was a widely held notion."

This is clearly false. In a quick survey of nineteen historical references only two listed the total Auschwitz dead at four million. One of these, Friedman's "This Was Oswiecim: The Story of a Murder Camp," was published in 1946, well before more reliable estimates were available. Most list figures from 1 to 2.5 million, and they arrived at these figures in a variety of methods.

Some quoted Kommandant Höss's testimony (2.5 million) and others attempted to piece together how many people arrived at Auschwitz, minus any survivors, while still others used available pre- and post war census data. In fact, to find many sources that do list four million dead, one has to find books published behind the Iron Curtain.

Other authors derided the Tribunal's four million figure as an absurd example of Soviet propaganda...

More recently there have been attempts to accurately the number dead at Auschwitz. Franciszek Piper of the Auschwitz State Museum published a study called "The Number of Victims" in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. The study outlines his investigation into the total Auschwitz death toll, and how he reached his estimate of 1.1 million, effectively debunking the old Soviet figure.

* "The four million figure was changed due to 'revisionist' findings."

This claim is clearly fallacious, as the revised figure is actually more in tune with the estimates of credible historians than the Soviet Commission's count. If anything, it was the easing of cold war tensions that allowed reexamination of the four million total rather than the research of "revisionist historians."

In fact, it was a study begun in 1980 by Franciszek Piper, head of the Historical Department at the Auschwitz State Museum that finally displaced the Museum's four million figure. Piper collected all available documentation on how many deportees arrived at Auschwitz, and subtracted from this all known transfers, releases, and escapees to arrive at his estimation...

* "Since the Auschwitz State Museum lowered its death toll to one million, the total number of Holocaust victims should be reduced by about three million."

Again, this is false. Few (if any) historians ever believed the Museum's four million figure, having arrived at their own estimates independently. The museum's inflated figures were never part of the estimated five to six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, so there is no need to revise this figure.


Supermodels...spoiled stupid little stick figures mit poofy lips who sink only about zemselves.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

it is generally accepted in the "White Nationalist" community the figure is under 2 Million

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Re: Why is this rated so high?

More people are killed by eating big macs than those killed in the Holocaust, just saying. Millions die every day, it's called population control and natural selection.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

You cock. What a risible attempt at shock humour...

Re: Why is this rated so high?

What's the matter snowflake, did I hurt your feelings? You want a tissue, I hear Trump is selling a box.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Ooh, gee, you're really nasty.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Just ignore that poster. He/she posts very similar threads on other boards. An ignorant 12 year old, looking for attention. Guess he can't get it anywhere else.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Thanks. Yes indeed, there are many puerile little qunts like that all over the place, but I tend to reply just in case they're actually serious .

Re: Why is this rated so high?

One should watch it rather asking a question like this. I would like to add one thing that the movie actually looks as if the director shot the movie during the world war 2 and it is looking more like a documentary.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

It's only rated this highly due to the subject matter.

I wouldn't even rate it an 8.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Just watched it tonight for the first time in years. I changed my rating to a 10. This film has some of the best cinematography I have ever seen. The acting is superb on all fronts. This film is a masterpiece on a technical and performance level.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

After watching it, I thought it was a pretty amazing film. A solid 10/10, for me personally not an 8 or 9. I'm curious, but why did you rate this less than me?

-------
Gone too soon:
Firefly|New Amsterdam|Journeyman|Life|terriers|SGU|Prime Suspect

Re: Why is this rated so high?

8's quite a high rating.

It's very well directed, beautifully shot, brilliantly acted & well written. It's hard to find anything bad about it, apart from Williams' unnecessarily syrupy score.

Not many great films about the war & its effects. This, Come & See, Saving Private Ryan, Paths of Glory & Cross of Iron are some, but that it's the first to really concentrate on the Holocaust & with added realism gives it even more clout.

Who cares about ratings anyway? They're so unimportant.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

A. To the Troll on the SCHINDLER'S LIST board, you are a Piece of Dog *beep*

B. To the OP. For any flaws of the film, IMO, they pale in comparison to the rest of what makes this such an important film. The Cinematography is bleak but fantastic. The realism can be almost TOO real and the EMOTION... There's so much that makes this a great film. Spielberg may not be the darkest filmmaker but he didn't shy away from what needed to be shown in the film.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

I think Spielberg could have shown more. Perhaps he should have shown people dying in the gas chambers or twins being operated on. It just gave the impression that everyone was shot.

It would have been more powerful without Williams' sickly score too; no melody could ever be representative of 6m horrific deaths.

Re: Why is this rated so high?



It would have been more powerful without Williams' sickly score too


Can't say I agree. It is a great score that, in my opinion, does exactly what a film score is supposed to do. Any dramatic music should illustrate and enhance the dramatic content and this score accomplishes that goal successfully.

Some random drone on the background - so popular these days - to hell with it.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

So you think the suffering, torture & death of millions can be summed up with a saccharine violin solo? How on earth can it be? It's making the Holocaust seem purely a 'sad' event, rather than perhaps the worst example of ethnic annihilation in history. I'd expect that sort of melody to be played at the funeral of one person, & one who died through illness or accident, rather than trying to act as a tribute to 6m butcherings. If there had to be music then I think it should have been completely atonal, though you can't beat seeing a violent act committed in silence for ultimate impact.

Film scores should take over where the script stops so as to enhance the drama/comedy/action whatever. I don't need a purposefully-written Jewish folk tune by a non-Jewish composer to help me to appreciate the nightmare of concentration camp existence, I just need imagery or words.

Do you think this photograph (there's film too) would be made more horrific if it were viewed with the Schindler's theme in the background, or would the music cheapen it? Methinks the latter.

http://www.xn--uleviius-obb.lt/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Massacre_Kovno_Garage_27_JUNE_1942.jpg

Re: Why is this rated so high?


So you think the suffering, torture & death of millions can be summed up with a saccharine violin solo?


Yes, of course. Why not? Music can release our emotions in a way that pure imagery or intellectual comprehension of those events never can.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

I'm aware of the potential power of music, thanks.

Why not? Because the murders of 6 million deserve more than a base, super-sweet tonal melody that unmusical people people can go 'oh it's so beautiful' too. Look at Shostakovich's 10th symphony...the 2nd movement is a representation of what Stalin did to Russia & its people. There are motifs, but it's just a barrage of unrelenting terror & hardship.

You seem to think of the Jews' deaths as worthy of romanticising, as Tchaikovsky did in his Romeo & Juliet overture. You don't get any darker than the Holocaust, but just because music has the capability of echoing emotions it doesn't mean it has an echo for everything. It would be virtually impossible to put into words just how terrible the Holocaust was, & that's with 10,000s of words at our disposal. Just screaming & crying would say so much more, as so many photographs are testament to.

With the language of music there's only so much you can do with 12 tones before you run out of conventional harmonies, but seeing as there was no harmony at Auschwitz & Belsen, it seems obvious to me that, if music has to be used, dissonance & atonality should reign; something painful to listen to, something difficult to understand...something that produces a wince & a terrible sense of doom & horror. No melody can do that.

I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to have memories of those nightmarish places, but I think I'd have been insulted by Williams' theme. Silence would have been so much more powerful.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

So you are a fan of atonal music.

My own tastes are strictly classical or even baroque.

I think we just have to agree to disagree.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

I love much music, but atonal isn't one of my passions...not sure where you got that idea from. Not sure why your tastes are relevant to this conversation either. Even so...

Even Baroque? What, even Bach? I love Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky - I have about 1200 cds, 90% of which are classical.

I have a couple of Schoenberg & Berg cds, but my point was that atonal music or silence would seem far more an appropriate soundscape for something as terrible as the Holocaust. You seem to want something aurally comforting to accompany horrific imagery.

Messiaen wrote his Quartet for the End of Time whilst in a concentration camp; it's a mixture of the tonal & atonal, but certainly doesn't entertain any syrupy sentiment that Williams (who wasn't in a concentration camp) employed in his score. Thus, Messiaen's music has a far more 'authentic' feel. If he were still alive, would you tell Messiaen that he should have made his piece more tonal? I wouldn't.

Here's a video which is testament to the power of silence. Please watch it, & if you then conclude that it would be more powerful or shocking with Williams' music in the background, then there's something wrong with you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzIgXkkBSdw

Re: Why is this rated so high?


Even Baroque? What, even Bach? I love Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky - I have about 1200 cds, 90% of which are classical.


I meant to say that my tastes are conservative. When it comes to classical music: give me Handel, give me Mozart, give me melody.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

No comment on the clip?

Re: Why is this rated so high?

It's almost as if Spielberg thought as you do because he's very sparing in his use of the theme throughout the film (very unlike his usual tendencies) as if he's being careful to avoid a tear-jerking sort of feel. I haven' seen it in some years, but the only heavy playing-time I remember that piece getting is the bit at the end with the survivors by Schindler's grave. It certainly isn't used in scenes of killing (the liquidation of the ghetto is mostly without music) and in later scenes he leans on other compositions by Williams that sound less sentimental, such as "Auschwitz - Birkenau": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GOy6t6TGAg.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

You're right, it's not used in the worst scenes, which would have been truly terrible (in a mawkish way), but more as a summation of what was happening, or had happened...& thus it still cheapened / diluted the horror. I wish Spielberg had been brave enough to have no music at all.

That ending...hmm, never worked for me; whilst it was interesting to see the actual survivors, the sledgehammering-home of the sadness via Perlman's fiddle seemed to set the wrong mood. It wasn't sad that Schindler had died. His death had nothing to do with the Holocaust...& yet there was the same bit of music. If it's an appropriate accompaniment for the survivors' remembrance of him, then surely other (maybe atonal) music or no music should have been used for the murders of 6m?

Ultimately Williams' score seemed far too packaged & contrived...the musical equivalent of a Jurassic Park lunchbox. You get figure skaters using it for their routines now, & that it's regularly performed in JW concerts stinks a little of profiting from the deaths of millions...it seems rather poor taste to ask an audience to dip into dark thoughts of the Holocaust before getting them to smile at the March from Raiders...all rather disrespectful.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Re the Liquidation of the Ghetto...of course the music that DID feature was the A minor Prelude from Bach's English Suite no.2. This was an inspired use of music from Spielberg. Bach's music has a power like no other - it seems to be a reflection of all that is beautiful & terrible in the human world, but not in an immediate way, as a film score might be, more transcendentally. I hear it like that at least. Thus to have it played by a Nazi whilst unimaginable horrors were going on around him makes that scene all the more powerful...the best & worst of humanity in one.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

"Das ist Bach?"

"Nein, Mozart. Mozart?"

Great and terrible scene.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

I think it's a great film.
My daughter recently asked why it was filmed in mostly black and white. I responded without thinking, saying this may be how we think of those days as most photos and film from then aren't in color.
It's painful to think of the murdering in color.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Propaganda is popular.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Most overrated movie Ever, Just cuz it is about Jews

Re: Why is this rated so high?

There's always some puerile attention-seeking qunt floating around every board...hi there.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

if you don't think this film is the best of all time, then you're an anti-semite.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

That's an absurd & stupid thing to say; one hopes you weren't serious. It would be an absurd & stupid thing to say even if it had been watered down to 'if you don't like this film you must be an anti-semite'. I hate the film The Piano, but that doesn't mean I'm anti-piano. You're allowed to dislike a film regardless of its subject matter.

I'm guessing therefore that you think the best music is Klezmer; the best artist Chagall; the best writer Asimov, the best food Tzimmes...if not, you must be an anti-semite too.

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Re: Why is this rated so high?

Simple, different people have different opinions. You say it's 8/10, others say it's 10/10. There are probably even some who rate it as 1/10.

That's it, no other reason.

Re: Why is this rated so high?

Because it is about a subject and a crime that cannot be communicated properly in words. Somehow Mr. Spielberg was able to communicate with an artistic mind honed to perfection that unspeakable crime in thousands of haunting, painful images, in a story about a man who had sunk to the lowest depths but suddenly in the most dangerous of times rose to an almost apotheosis of what it means to be human
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