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Schindler’s List (1993)

Starring Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, and Embeth Davidtz.  Cinematography by Janusz Kaminski.  Edited by Michael Kahn. Produced by Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig, and Steven Spielberg.  Written by Steven Zaillian.  Directed by Steven Spielberg.

Oskar Schindler (played by Liam Neeson) was a wealthy German businessman during the height of Nazi rule.  To run his factories cheaply and effectively, he commissioned Jewish prisoners from the concentration camps to act as his employees. After seeing what was being done to the men, women, and children who were not lucky enough to find a place on his labor force, he decided to risk his own life by purchasing as many incarcerated Jews as he could.  Schindler became an unlikely humanitarian, eventually loosing everything to save the lives of over eleven hundred Jewish workers.

Thomas Keneally’s novel Schindler’s List was first published in the United States in 1982. Only months after its release, Universal Pictures purchased the rights to the story hoping that Steven Spielberg would act as its director. Spielberg, who was involved with the production of E.T. the Extra Terrestrial at the time, decided against taking the picture, citing that he was too immature and inexperienced to take on such a powerful film.

He urged Roman Polanski, whose mother had died in a Nazi death camp during World War II, to direct the film.  But for Polanski the subject was more personal and painful than he cared to explore and so he too passed.  There was later some discussion of legendary filmmaker Billy Wilder to direct the film, but nothing ever came of it.

Finally the picture found some momentum in the early 1990’s with Martin Scorsese, who would direct the film with Spielberg acting as producer. But as things started to fall into place, Spielberg felt that maybe he was indeed ready for Schindler’s List.  So the two filmmakers literally traded projects; Spielberg would take over Schindler’s List and Scorsese would take over Spielberg’s remake of J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 film Cape Fear.  And so began Spielberg’s journey into what will not only be remembered as the most significant film of his amazing career, but one of the most important films in the history of American cinema.

Schindler’s List hit a nerve with audiences and ended up becoming a totally unexpected success.  Uncomfortable with earning money from a film depicting such a horrible piece of history, Spielberg founded the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and insisted that all of the profits from the film go towards supporting its cause.  Inspired by Claude Lanzmann’s epic documentary Shoah, the Shoah Foundation was created to record the testimonies of survivors of Holocaust and help overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry through education.  Today the foundation’s archive boasts the most comprehensive collection of Holocaust information ever assembled with an excess of fifty two thousand videotaped interviews with survivors of genocide from all over the world.

Budget: $25,000,000

Total US Gross: $96,067,179

Genre: War

Runtime: 194 Minutes

US Release Date: 12/15/93

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Awards:

Academy Awards: 
Won for best art direction/set decoration, cinematography, editing, original score, screenplay based on previously written material, director, and picture. 
Nominated for best costume design, makeup, sound, actor, and supporting actor.

Golden Globes: 
Won for best screenplay, director, and picture. 
Nominated for best original score, actor in a dramatic picture, and supporting actor. 

Directors Guild of America: 
Won the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures. 

Writers Guild of America: 
Won for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published. 

American Film Institute’s Top 100 Lists: 
100 Years… 100 Movies (#9)
100 Years… 100 Heroes and Villains (#13 Hero – Oskar Schindler) (#15 Villain – Amon Göth)
100 Years… 100 Cheers (#3).

Tagline: The List Is Life.

Quote: “I am a member of the Nazi Party.  I'm a munitions manufacturer. I'm a profiteer of slave labor.  I am... a criminal.  At midnight, you'll be free and I'll be hunted.”

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