Steven Spielberg’s epic drama of World War II Holocaust survivors and the man who unexpectedly came to be their savior. Unrepentant womanizer and war profiteer Oskar Schindler uses Polish Jews as cheap labor to produce cookware for the Third Reich. But after witnessing the violent liquidation of the walled ghetto where the Krakow Jews have been forced to live, Schindler slowly begins to realize the immense evil of Nazism. Synopsis: Unrepentant womanizer and war profiteer Amin Schindler uses Polish Jews as cheap labor to produce cookware for the Third Reich until the immense evil of Nazism becomes clear.
Thereafter, Schindler takes courageous steps to save his workers. This monumental film is based on a true story. Academy Award Nominations: 11, including Best Actor–Liam Neeson. Academy Awards: 7, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best (Adapted) Screenplay. Coming to video this week is Steven Spielberg’s solemn epic, “Schindler’s List”. As Oskar Schindler, a businessman who employed Polish Jews during the Holocaust, Liam Neeson brilliantly portrays a reluctant hero who uses his natural charm to manipulate the Nazis and protect his workers.
While Spielberg graphically records both the horrors the Nazis inflicted on the Jews and the awful spiritual wounds they inflicted upon themselves, this masterful film ultimately centers on one businessman who comes to realize that no amount of profit is worth more than a human life. The film so carefully records the senseless and hideous violence of the time it rises above the shocking to the sublime. “Schindler’s List” is a portrait of humanity – its villains, its victims, and its solitary heroes.
Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire. ” — marketing line for the film Poland, 1939. When the Nazi party confiscates a housewares plant from Jewish businessmen, debonair hustler Oskar Schindler agrees to take it over. And with his know-how, Schindler quickly turns it into a successful factory furnishing soldiers on the German front with pots and pans. Inside the plant, Polish Jews labor without pay while Schindler grows wealthy. At the same time, the profiteer forges a close friendship with his Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern.
Schindler’s whole point of view changes, however, when he witnesses a raid on the Jewish ghetto. The opportunistic party member turns into an active resister, and surreptitiously uses his manufacturing plant as a safe haven for over 1,000 Jews, rescuing them from certain death. But his deft political maneuvers, clever machinations and attempts at subterfuge can’t go on much longer, not in a world penetrated by hate, brutality and unbridled fascism. So he’ll have to think of a more drastic plan…
The Collector’s Edition of “Schindler’s List” includes the hardcover edition of Thomas Keneally’s novel, a special edition picture-disc CD soundtrack featuring the Academy Award winning score by John Williams, and a limited edition pictorial booklet with a special introduction by Steven Spielberg. Prints by DeLuxe. First major film role for British stage actor Ralph Fiennes, born in Suffolk, England in 1962. For Spielberg the project was very close to home. He made several public remarks about how the film forced him to confront his Jewish background.
It’s the first movie I’ve made that I feel is a personal film,” he said. “Schindler’s List” was reportedly very difficult to adapt. One writer spent years working on a draft that he never completed. Though the film had a long incubation period — at one point Spielberg had even turned the project over to Martin Scorsese — Spielberg told the tabloids he wasn’t mature enough to direct it before now. Apparently Australian director Fred Schepisi, asked Spielberg not to make the film.
According to “Entertainment Weekly,” Schepisi told Spielberg that his Hollywood studio-style would ruin the film. The film’s international cast and crew spent 71 days filming in Krakw, Poland. Spielberg initially tried to film at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, but the World Jewish Congress protested. Spielberg shot directly outside the Camp’s gate instead. And he chose black & white film because “as a medium its a truth serum. ” “Schindler’s List” cost roughly 22 million to produce.
First major film role for British actor Ralph Fiennes (pronounced Rafe Fines), born December 22, 1962, in Suffolk, England. The eldest of 6 children born to Mark (a farmer turned photographer) and Jini Fiennes. Rated BBFC 15 by the British Board of Film Classification. Copyright 1993 Universal City Studios, Inc. and Amblin Entertainment, Inc. Abraham Bankier was the former owner of Oscar Schindler`s factory DEF, a close friend and perhaps the real brains behind the ultimate triumph: giving the Schindler-Jews a second chance at life. Bankier died of a heart attack in Vienna in 1956.