Ethical Diversions

[MalignD at aol.com]

<< 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.