Schindler's List!

Started by Lt. Col Baby Dinosaur, December 08, 2003, 12:17:19 PM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Print
Go Down Pages 1 2 3 4 5
User actions

Gamblour.

#15
December 09, 2003, 07:48:37 AM
Damn Godardian, I haven't seen In Praise of Love, but why so harsh on Spielberg? The guy knows what the fuck is up: Jaws, Close Encounters, ET, Indy, Jurassic Park, Minority Report, Saving Private Ryan. Now his historical pieces are among his worst films to me, for some reason (Empire of the Sun felt weird, as did Amistad and yes Schindler's List), but wasn't Schindler's List at one point half written by Billy Wilder and going to be directed by Scorsese? You can't really say this was a self-important piece, he directed this movie with good reason. As for the money, Ebert was responding to an argument in the movie, not just bringing in an outside defense.
WWPTAD?

Pubrick

#16
December 09, 2003, 08:11:39 AM
Quote from: Gamblor du JourDamn Godardian, I haven't seen In Praise of Love, but why so harsh on Spielberg?
he's just defending godard. that's the thing about godardian, he always thinks for himself, but when godard or morrissey speak, he's like hypnotized.

i'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.. i'm the same with kubrick, and hot chicks.
under the paving stones.

Jeremy Blackman

#17
December 09, 2003, 09:06:40 AM
Quote from: godardiana film like Schindler's List, aside from being simpleminded and fairly dishonest, serves mainly to obfuscate and placate.

How so?

MacGuffin

#18
December 09, 2003, 09:44:47 AM
Quote from: RaviWhat is TBC?

To Be Confirmed
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

godardian

#19
December 09, 2003, 09:53:36 AM
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman
Quote from: godardiana film like Schindler's List, aside from being simpleminded and fairly dishonest, serves mainly to obfuscate and placate.

How so?

Because, no matter how brave a filmmaker is in graphically showing us the horrors of the Holocaust, there still seems to be the need for the "hero," for the "closure." These are requirements of narrative filmmaking, or would seem to be, and it inherently cannot honor the grinding futility of the kind of moral failure- moral vacuum- the Holocaust represents. For the vast, inconceivable majority of its victims, the Holocaust had no closure, and there were no heroes. And yet people are encouraged to think of Schindler's as an "important," "serious" work; they leave it feeling like they've somehow done their part. That's its "buzz." It's branded- Spielberg has branded the Holocaust!

Even The Pianist, with so much more gravity and dignity than Schindler's, is hard for me to take because of this. It seems to me Polanski tried to give us glimpses of the reality, but how can anyone make a narrative film that shows us what the Holocaust was really about? It's more depressing than almost anything; the only really honest Holocaust film would be a montage of utter hopelessness and naked human sadism, and would probably seem lugubrious and didactic to most viewers.

And please, don't even get me started on Life is Beautiful.

P is kind of right about Godard and Morrissey or anyone else who's pierced my defenses- god, that sounds kind of Freudian, doesn't it? :)- but in this case, I credit Peter Biskind for giving me the real goods on why Spielberg rubs me the wrong way, recently backed up by Chuck White in his book The Middle Mind, which takes on Saving Private Ryan to thought-provoking effect.

I still think Spielberg's best film is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. That's obviously where his passion is, and it's a failure on his part to imagine that a fine, energetic entertainment is far inferior to an insufficient effort at Hollywood/Oscar-style "respectability" and "seriousness," with the Holocaust (or slavery... or Kubrick...) as fodder.

I bet no-one found the Schindler's List episode of Seinfeld as delicious as I did...
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Jeremy Blackman

#20
December 09, 2003, 10:04:16 AM
Quote from: godardianthe only really honest Holocaust film would be a montage of utter hopelessness and naked human sadism, and would probably seem lugubrious and didactic to most viewers.

Good point. Something like Baraka?

I agree that Schindler was cast as a hero, that there aren't really any "heroes" of the holocaust, that it's kind of insulting... but I can't help liking the movie. Why is that?

I have to disagree about The Pianist, though. I don't think he thought of himself as a hero... I think the movie made it clear that he was (and we should be) uncomfortable with that idea.

Gold Trumpet

#21
December 09, 2003, 10:59:42 AM
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanI agree that Schindler was cast as a hero, that there aren't really any "heroes" of the holocaust, that it's kind of insulting... but I can't help liking the movie. Why is that?

I think because the movie doesn't rest alone on Schindler, himself. There is an entire world being displayed and Schindler's story is just one of the main ingrediants in it. You can appreciate so much of the film with having problems to how Schindler was portrayed.

godardian

#22
December 09, 2003, 11:51:09 AM
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanI can't help liking the movie. Why is that?


Well, there are certainly technically intriguing things about it... the cinematography, etc. Plus, a lot of times movies we love or like irrationally caught us at a particular moment in our lives where our own context didn't enable us to see it as objectively as we might have. Everyone has movies like that.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Gold Trumpet

#23
December 09, 2003, 03:23:39 PM
Godardian, I'm definitely crossed by your opinion and my own, but I want to ask more questions on what you believe:

Do you believe Schindler was not a hero for the actions he did? Was there an unfair portrait of him by Speilberg, maybe? Or does the whole picture of the Holocaust just speak a story of complete and absolute destruction without any real heroes to balance out the total horror?

You also mentioned Sam Fuller and spoke in defense of him. I like Fuller, but my main complaint about him has been his tendency to look at the truth through uncessary genre plot. Its not that I believe he was ever being untruthful, but I always got the sense he was limiting himself with how many of his films had traditional plots and traditional, if skewed, results. On the outside of his banal structures, there is a very honest eye to the subject. Its just this is quite limiting on how objective you can be.  With criticism to Speilberg and his honesty to the subject, I do feel a similiar criticism, if for different reasons, can be brought against Fuller on how he marginalizes some subjects with some very banal stories.

(kelvin)

#24
December 09, 2003, 03:55:30 PM
I agree with godardian. Schindler's List is really a film of minor importance, but the very subject of the film gives it a certain "authority".
I think Spielberg shouldn't really have made Schindler's List. After all, Schindler was not jewish, he was even a member of the nazi party. So, why is it that a semi- or pseudo-semi-documentary about the Shoah deals with an "aryan" German as main character?
This movie was, in my opinion, a try to offer the Shoah, digested by the stomach of pop culture, to popcorn audiences. It's just plain nonsense to introduce hope and heroism to a movie that wants to deal with the greatest catastrophe civilization has ever created.

I would suggest Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah as reference for a film about this subject.

godardian

#25
December 09, 2003, 04:09:06 PM
Quote from: The Gold TrumpetGodardian, I'm definitely crossed by your opinion and my own, but I want to ask more questions on what you believe:

Do you believe Schindler was not a hero for the actions he did? Was there an unfair portrait of him by Speilberg, maybe? Or does the whole picture of the Holocaust just speak a story of complete and absolute destruction without any real heroes to balance out the total horror?

You also mentioned Sam Fuller and spoke in defense of him. I like Fuller, but my main complaint about him has been his tendency to look at the truth through uncessary genre plot. Its not that I believe he was ever being untruthful, but I always got the sense he was limiting himself with how many of his films had traditional plots and traditional, if skewed, results. On the outside of his banal structures, there is a very honest eye to the subject. Its just this is quite limiting on how objective you can be.  With criticism to Speilberg and his honesty to the subject, I do feel a similiar criticism, if for different reasons, can be brought against Fuller on how he marginalizes some subjects with some very banal stories.

The two main differences that spring directly to mind are that Fuller a) didn't make a picture about the Holocaust (as far as I know), and b) hasn't had any of his films canonized the way Schindler's List has (wrongfully, I feel) been.

You're on the right track to understanding how I approach this film with your question about the Holocaust's total destruction and how it wasn't balanced out by heroes. I think Spielberg's film style and where he puts his attention- where his camera eye and spirit naturally go- make him one of the last people who should be putting any part of the Holocaust on film.

The best "fictional" Holocaust film I've seen? The Grey Zone. Compare that and Schindler's List, and it's easier to understand why Godard said Spielberg was turning Auschwitz into Disneyland.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Gold Trumpet

#26
December 09, 2003, 08:09:36 PM
Quote from: godardianThe two main differences that spring directly to mind are that Fuller a) didn't make a picture about the Holocaust (as far as I know), and b) hasn't had any of his films canonized the way Schindler's List has (wrongfully, I feel) been.

I'm guessing the holocaust has personal meaning to you in historical tradegy. It does not for me, but Sam Fuller has covered subjects that are very personal to other people like war and insane asylums. With covering insane aslyums, in Shock Corridor, he reduces the activies of the people committed to just screaming pyschos who say the most ludicrous and radical things one could think of for that time period (the early 60s) such as racism against (by a black himself, nonetheless). Fuller hardly makes an effort to understand these people at all. Its exploitation for the purpose of a very typical story. The benefits of the film is in how much angst Fuller films with.

Fuller has been canonized, but just not here. Among the film art crowd of France, he was a living God of American filmmakers. Late in his career, he got financing from Europe because it was the last place he could and he finally moved to Paris and spent the rest of his life going from tribute to tribue. The funniest one is that he even walked down a fashion runway right before he died. I wouldn't say there is anything wrong with getting this (all the more power to him), but I don't think his filmmaking career is up to the snuff they say.

Quote from: godardianYou're on the right track to understanding how I approach this film with your question about the Holocaust's total destruction and how it wasn't balanced out by heroes. I think Spielberg's film style and where he puts his attention- where his camera eye and spirit naturally go- make him one of the last people who should be putting any part of the Holocaust on film.

The best "fictional" Holocaust film I've seen? The Grey Zone. Compare that and Schindler's List, and it's easier to understand why Godard said Spielberg was turning Auschwitz into Disneyland.

I'm glad you mentioned The Grey Zone. I admired its aim in story a lot, but felt a loss of feeling for it considering the skill of filmmaking applied to earlier films really was felt more by me and holds up in my memory more.

On Schindler's List, I agree the total horror can't be balanced out by this one man, but what about for the realism of the lives and events he touched? The movie is very wide spanding, but also still related to the things Schindler influenced. Couldn't his story, a heroic one, be told if the film weighs out that yes, this was just one miracle in a world of terror? I think the film conveys he was just a businessman being driven to save lives but yet strained with grief because he could do so little. I don't think the film is overblown in realism to any romantic proportions, but I think it does understand he was a hero in this mess. The film gives weight to the awesome carnage but Schindler's struggle to save as many lives as he can. I don't think the film necessarily ended with the world being saved, but that little world of Schindler's Jews being saved only.

I think Speilberg, given his romantic touch, does a fine job for the story he has to tell. Also, Stanley Kubrick almost made a film about Oscar Schindler as well and went into pre production of a Holocaust film where the protaganist Jews survive WW2 without even touching a ghetto. What would you have thought about this? I ask because I know you admire him greatly.

godardian

#27
December 09, 2003, 08:34:34 PM
Another important difference is that Fuller's films are a theater of the absurd, while Spielberg clearly wants us to believe he's doing justice to what "really" happened. Fuller's films are allegorical to the point of being symbolic; they're heightened, overripe, more fiction than fiction.

To get back to the original point of these comparisons, though: If Ebert can't think of why Godard would revere the films of Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller, but not those of Steven Spielberg, he must not be thinking very hard, even if he disagrees.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Gold Trumpet

#28
December 09, 2003, 09:06:08 PM
Quote from: godardianAnother important difference is that Fuller's films are a theater of the absurd, while Spielberg clearly wants us to believe he's doing justice to what "really" happened. Fuller's films are allegorical to the point of being symbolic; they're heightened, overripe, more fiction than fiction.

That's a nice way of looking at Fuller. I think it is him aim, but I don't believe though it justifies a lot of the faults I see in many of his films. A film like Shock Corridor explodes with so many issues and topics thrown in with minor characters who just stand there and yell it out at best. Thing is, most of what they say is hardly interesting as drama but is closer to "shock" speech for everything sacred in society. The film doesn't even follow through on any of this because it ends of genre terms for the journalist protaganist just succumbing to pyschosis himself. What decent commentary on society is that? It seems like a minor one, at best. Fuller's view points seem like flavor to the cheap genre he grew up writing and never grew out of. Going through his autobiography, The Third Face, I did notice his belief of absurdity in society but I also noticed his complete belief in the quality of the films he made when not dealing with the censors. With Shock Corridor, he just dealt with lack of money. This shouldn't matter because he says all that matters in film is a "good story".

I'm not sure, though, Spielberg wants us to believe what he conveys is what "really" happened. Moments like the girl in the red dress are artificial markings by Spielberg, but I think his chief aim and accomplishment is that he looked at the subject with maturity.

Jeremy Blackman

#29
December 09, 2003, 09:57:15 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpetmore fiction than fiction.

That reminds me of what Van Gogh said about art being "more true than literal truth."
Print
Go Up Pages 1 2 3 4 5
User actions