Ethical Diversions

[MalignD at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/28/06 7:38:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
ottosell at yahoo.de writes:

<< I don't think "Schindler's List" was embarrassing. It made a whole 
generation of postwar-kids, at least here in Germany, aware of the Holocaust. This 
could not have been achieved with "Shoah". You don't get them to listen to 
survivors for nine hours, but you get them into the cinema for a 120 minutes 
Spielberg-movie.>>

Well if your measure of art is how many children can be enticed to watch it, 
Spielberg's certainly your man.
 
 Of course you are right saying that "Shoah" "was far more powerful and a 
 hundred times weightier than Schindler's List." There can be no doubt 
 about that but it doesn't make "Schindler's List" a bad or embarrassing 
 movie or Spielberg's values "askew".  >>

Don't attribute your confused thinking to me.  I didn't say that Shoah made 
Schindler's List embarrassing; I mentioned Shoah to illustrate a single point 
about Spielberg's filmmaking, in the context of this film and of his slavery 
film.  He may be filming the gassing of innocent Jews, but he's thinking of 
camera angle and grey scale.  

Schindler's List would have struck me as embarrassing were Shoah never made.