Ethical Diversions

[David Casseres]

I didn't see Schindler's List on the grounds that I had already seen
Neige et Nuit, which is made out of documentary footage shot by the
Germans, in the death camps.  I feel like I know what I need to know.

And having seen a bunch of other Spielberg movies, I feel he's a
button-pusher, a manipulator of the audience on a very easy-to-do
level.  I don't mind having my buttons pushed for an innocent fantasy
like E.T., but the thought of getting the same treatment in connection
with the holocaust is, well, creepy.

With all that said, I am sure it is a useful bit of education for some
who will never see Neige et Nuit or Shoah.

On 6/29/06, MalignD at aol.com <MalignD at aol.com> wrote:
> << I think it's his job to keep some kind of professional distance to the
> topic he's working at. So generally for a director there's nothing wrong in
> thinking of "camera angle and grey scale" while making a film >>
>
> I didn't expect to be taken so literally, but alas.  I'm saying that
> Spielberg made esthetic choices in Schindler's List that failed the material.  These
> choices were, in my opinion, excrutiatingly inappropriate and thus found the
> film embarrassing.
>
> <<I'm far from being a film critic but making German postwar-kids cry over
> the fate of the murdered Jews cannot be wrong.>>
>
> It can be horribly wrong.  It can mean -- it does mean -- treating serious,
> serious material sentimentally, precisely what Spielberg did.
>
> <<What about "The Downfall" or "Flight 93"? Can these movies be anything
> but embarrassing or is it a special Spielberg-problem?>>
>
> I'm not embarrassed by a movie that shoots low and lands low.  Schindler's
> List is a Spielberg problem; he made it.  But similarly bad choices could be
> made by other directors.  Imagine James Cameron adapting Caryl Churchill.
>
>
>
>
>