#7 Schindler's List

In Summary

If Steven Spielberg's work can be divided between his blockbusters and personal passion projects, Schindler's List is the finest example of the latter.

Set in Nazi-occupied Poland, Schindler's List, is the story of how the German industrialist, Oskar Schindler, saved his Jewish factory workers from the concentration camps.

Schindler's List is not just the story of Oskar Schindler, the larger theme is the human tragedy of the holocaust. Schindler is the narrative device through which the audience witnesses the gradual degradation of life for the Polish Jews - firstly, forced into cramped ghettos, then to the concentration camps, then to death.

Shot in black and white, the draining of colour conveys the hopelessness of life in the Second World War for the Jewish people. The one speck of colour comes from a girl in a red coat, only to be snuffed out during the brutal liquidation of the Krakow ghetto.

The sheer bleakness of the film underlines that despite Schindler's heroic actions, it was but a drop in the ocean against the scale of the Holocaust. Schindler's Jews might have survived a brief spell in the concentration camps, but this film makes clear the sad reality that millions were subject to a far worse fate.

A Memorable Quote

"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."

Things You May Not Know

• All of the money due to Steven Spielberg for this film was - and still is - donated to the Shoah Foundation.
• Steven Spielberg offered the director's job to Roman Polanski, who turned it down as he felt it would be too personal. Polanski would later to go on to direct The Pianist, also set in the Polish Jewish ghetto of World War Two.
• Permission was gained to shoot the film at Auschwitz, but Steven Spielberg chose not to out of respect for the dead.

One of the Greatest of All Time?
If anyone was in any doubt as to the human cost of the Holocaust, Schindler's List brings it to life in a grimly impressive manner. As someone who has visited Auschwitz, I would argue that this film does a better job of doing this than actually visiting the place where the crimes were committed.

The big question to be asked of this film is whether it goes too far in portraying someone who was a card-carrying member of the Nazi party as a hero. For much of the film, this is a debate to be had in the viewer's mind, however, the use of the footage of the real Schindler Jews at the end of the film paying tribute to him at his grave kills any sense of ambiguity about Oskar Schindler.

Nonetheless, this is a masterful and important film - aided and abetted by the performances of Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes in two of the main roles - that I would regard as an absolute must-watch.