Schindler's List DVD

SCHINDLER'S LIST is Steven Spielberg's black-and-white monumental film based on the true story of Oskar Schindler. Schindler is a businessman in World War II Poland who uses Jews as cheap labor in his factory. After his workers are sent to a concentration camp run by a demonic Nazi soldier (Ralph Fiennes), Schindler and his accountant, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), devise a plan to save 1,100 Jews by sending them to his factory in Czechoslovakia.

Based on a true story, SCHINDLER'S LIST is 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. When his employees are sent to a work camp, they come under the terrorizing reign of sadistic Nazi Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes). With the help of his accountant, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), Schindler creates a list of "essential" Jews. Bribing Goeth, Schindler manages to get 1,100 people released from the camp and brought to the safety of his munitions factory in Czechoslovakia. Spielberg's glorious film is wondrously evocative, visually stunning, and emotionally stirring.

Theatrical release: December 15, 1993. Shot on location in Kraków and outside the gates of Auschwitz. Estimated budget: $22 million. The film grossed nearly $100 million at the domestic box office and more than $320 million worldwide. SCHINDLER'S LIST is number 9 on the American Film Institute's list of America's 100 Greatest Movies. SCHINDLER'S LIST won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Picture and Steven Spielberg won for Best Director. Oskar Schindler in real life was unsuccessful in his other business ventures after the war and was divorced from his wife, but he was honored with the status of Righteous Gentile by the Martyrs Memorial Authority in Jerusalem. The Collector's Edition 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. 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 until he actually began making the film. 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 Kraków, 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-and-white film because "as a medium it's a truth serum." The only color in the film belongs to the little girl in red. The film marked the first major film role for British actor Ralph Fiennes, the eldest of six children born to Mark (a farmer turned photographer) and Jini Fiennes.

Schindler's List Reviews:

"...Brutal and intelligent..." - Recommended -- Tom Russo, Premiere

"...A near-documentary, brilliantly designed and choreographed....A privilege to watch..." -- Philip Strick, Sight and Sound

"...Existential vividness unprecedented in any nondocumentary film..." -- Rating: A -- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

"...Staggeringly intense....Spielberg has done something that can't quite be said of any other film about the Holocaust. He has allowed us -- for the first time -- to see it..." -- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

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