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THE 100 GREATEST MOVIE SEQUENCES OF ALL TIME Return to Main 100 Sequences Page | Enter Your Choices! |
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Several sequences
I have to cheat on this one, because there are so many sequences from Steven Spielberg's powerful film on the Holocaust that are so very memorable, and they are all prime examples of the pure art of cinema, conveying through the moving picture historical events in such graphic and upfront detail, that we in essence relive them, and in a good director's hands, we're seeing them almost exactly and precisely as they happened, and in this landmark film, there are so many sequences of sheer horror, sadness, and terror -- exactly the feelings that come to mind when thinking of the Holocaust.  The image of the dead, decomposed bodies of several murdered Jews being dug up and burned was one of the most horrific and sick images ever presented. It's almost unbelievable. If it weren't true, it would be hard to believe it true.  Schindler and Stern sharing a drink together before everyone is to be shipped off to Auschwitz. The emotion on Ben Kingsley's face reveals everything.  The images at Auschwitz still remain the most haunting for me -- the Schindler women are accidentally routed to Auschwitz, and when they arrive it's an image of dark brutality and horror, with the fires rising from the smokestacks on the ovens where so many humans died. The image of the women, naked, forced into a chamber where they usually gas several Jews, saved at the last minute and brought back. When they are brought back to Schindler, they watch other Jews entering the death chambers where of course they'll never return from.  And of course the ending when the war has finally ended and the Jews gather to see Schindler off. As he realizes the good he has done by saving the lives of 1100 Jews, he breaks down, saying he could have gotten more and saved more. Stern tries to reassure him, telling him there will be generations because of what he did. He gets in the car, and as he drives past, the images of the surviving Jews are reflected in the glass. So many other scenes such as the little boy having to hide in the human waste, images of children singing happily not knowing they have been rounded up to be killed as their mothers scream and run after them, Goeth (played by Ralph Fiennes) executing a woman who is trying to tell him a building is not being built right to only have him agree with her after killing her, the horror of the Germans invading the Jewish ghetto taking the Jews from their homes, and the image of the little girl in the red coat (a very interesting use of color in a black and white film) wandering through the madness of the Jewish ghetto, only later to be found dead. But perhaps the greatest image of all is the final sequence, where in a rare moment, real life actually ends the film. The actual surviving Schindler Jews are escorted by the actors who played them in the movie to Oscar Schindler's grave where they place rocks on the stone. A final rose is placed by Liam Neeson on the grave during the final dedication.  SCHINDLER'S LIST is a pure classic in the history of the cinema, and we shall forever have a visual reminder of the unspeakable and incomprehensible horror that killed six million Jews. It's what cinema can do that no other art form can do -- bring the past back and bring history back to where we can actually feel it and endure it. |
