Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from January, 2020

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #44: Schindler's List

Noble heroes are easy to root for and vile villains are fun to hate, but characters who are somewhere in the middle can be a lot more interesting. Oskar Schindler, the subject of Steven Spielberg's award-winning film Schindler's List (1993), is a man who could easily deserve the title of hero since he helped save more than a thousand people from the Nazi death camps during the Second World War. Yet by his own admission he was a member of the Nazi party, a war profiteer and a criminal. I would say these flaws, and others, humanize him and highlight the possibility that in times of great evil any person can choose to do something for the good of others. This is certainly a tough movie to watch, but it is essential viewing. I have seen it a couple of times, once with a family member as well as during a history class. Most recently I did a re-watch with my fiancée who is very interested in that period of history, so I got her an anniversary edition of the DVD for Christm