The Men Who Wear the Star

[Mark.Novitz at ny.ubs.com]

     >Schindler's List is really the false story of how capitalism with a 
     >human face can triumph over fascism and, by implication, socialism. 
     >It placates the audience with the assumption that the genocide 
     >against the Jews (no mention of gypsies, socialists, or homosexuals) 
     >was really an aberration caused by the ascencion into power of a few 
     >mad and evil people--and not rooted in a culture of extreme 
     >prejudice.
     
     >Ford's sponorship of the film is the perfect coda to this otherwise 
     >banal and dangerously false enterprise.
     
     >Steely
     
     ------------
     
     (Jeez.  As a lurker, I hate to do this--in fear of Steely-level 
     flames, but here goes...)
     
     Disagree.  False story or not (I still have a problem with the credit 
     that reads "Based on the Novel by Thomas Kenneally"--novel?  Yeah, 
     but..) I don't think there is all that much placating going on.  After 
     all, the entire film is fairly intimate, particularly one that in 
     theory deals with a historical cast of 6 million murdered and the 
     god-knows-how-many of the Nazi party.  Yet SL deals, character-wise, 
     mostly (film-lengthwise) within a fairly tight community--the 
     "Schindler Jews", Schindler and his women, and also, only a few 
     tight-on Nazi officials/characters.  In other words, the "way" in 
     which the film is done does not merit graphic representations of a 
     "culture of extreme prejudice"--propaganda rallies, etc.  (I don't 
     even know how many, if any, times "the Fuhrer" is mentioned in SL. No 
     Eichmann, no Mengele.)  In fact, to some degree, it's _all_ about how 
     the culture permeated into some guy named Amon from Vienna and how he 
     came to run his camp...and look at the Ghetto liquidation scene--there 
     are thousands of Nazi and SS running about--"just a few mad and evil 
     people"?  In my opinion, you can get quite a sense of the mass 
     prejudice...even such, there _are_ at least a few examples of how the 
     culture permeated the German masses...I'm sure you, like me, have yet 
     to fully forget the shouts of the young German girl..."Goodbye Jews!  
     Goodbye Jews!!!..."
     
     /novitz/
     /nyc/
     
     
     
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