Ethical Diversions

[Otto]

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'm far from being a film critic but making German postwar-kids cry over
the fate of the murdered Jews cannot be wrong. It's a beginning to get
them interested in what their great-grandfathers had done/were
responsible for. If entertainment delivers that much it's o.k. to me.

For someone who knows more already of course "Shoah" is the better way
to get a deeper knowledge about the Holocaust and "Schindler's List" is
a waste of time.

If "Schindler's List" is indeed embarrassing, well, then there's a lot
more produced in Hollywood which is absolutely embarrassing. Because
"Schindler's List" of course was the Hollywood-version of the Holocaust.

What about "The Downfall" or "Flight 93"? Can these movies be anything
but embarrassing or is it a special Spielberg-problem?


MalignD at aol.com wrote:
> 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.
> 


		
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