Goldhagen & Spielberg's Zwolfkinder

[David Casseres]

[Steelhead sez]
>
>Well, I, for one, believe that Spielberg "thinks" that he has created the
>"definitive flimic treatment" of the Holocaust. He has intimated this in
>numerous interviews. He has also underwritten the showing of the film to
>high
>schools across the country, endocrinating students with his "mythic"

Endocrinating?  I *like* it!

>melodrama. The sophisticated marketing campaign behind Schindler's List
>_was_ worthy of
>Goebbles.

Damn right it was.

>I saw Night and Fog in a public high school 25 years ago (Indiana). My
>pre-Schindler daughter saw it in middle school (Oregon). Now, my son gets a
>week of Spielberg instead of Resnais. Talk about cultural decline.

Yeah.  I saw Night and Fog when I was in college, thirty years ago in 
Oregon.  I am still marked by it and have felt no need whatsoever to see 
Schindler's List.

For whatever Spielberg may have to add to the scenes burnt into my brain, 
I've already seen E.T.  If it were not for the hype surrounding 
Schindler's List, it would be a waste of breath to criticize this 
lightweight.

Leni Riefenstahl, by the way, is utterly irrelevant to the discussion, 
and to compare her to Spielberg, favorably or otherwise, is just weird.  
She was a cinematic genius who has had enormous influence on every 
moviemaker who came after; every Hollywood "epic" or "spectacular," for 
instance, was overwhelmingly in her debt for all the great set-pieces.  
This has to be acknowledged in spite of her Naziism.  But apart from her 
general influence, Spielberg practices a completely different genre, 
devoid of political or social awareness -- except, I gather, in 
Schindler's list where he reached for some sort of statement about the 
Holocaust and managed to expose his shallowness.

Cheers,
David