Schindlers List cinematography

Show captionGirl in the red coat … Oliwia Dabrowska in the 1993 film Schindler’s List. Photograph: Cinetext Bildarchiv/Allstar/Universal

The classic film I've never seen

Wed 17 Jun 2020 10.33 BST

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There’s a game that off-duty film critics play. Usually at a film festival, after a hard day toiling at the coal-face of arthouse cinema; always after alcohol. Someone will suggest another bottle of wine and a round of Embarrassing Omissions. Essentially the premise is the same as that of this column – people take turns to admit their personal gaps in the cinema canon – but with added professional humiliation.

It sounds innocuous enough. Just harmless banter with colleagues, right? Well sure, until it’s your turn and you are expected to own up to the most mortifying gap in your knowledge, baring your inadequacies in front of a group of peers and, inevitably, being judged for it. The trick to the game is to never, ever admit the actual most embarrassing omission, while also giving just enough ground to ensure you don’t get challenged for ducking out of your turn. It’s a fine balance. A bit like playing chicken, but rather than dodging juggernauts on a dual carriageway, you risk crushing shame and a thundering case of imposter syndrome. Get it right and you can still just about hold your head high; get it wrong – like the newby critic who confessed to never having watched Taxi Driver – and there’s a palpable chill in the air, a sharp intake of breath from the assembled cineastes who have, apparently, seen every important film ever made except for some second tier neo-realist gem that you’ve never even heard of.

Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson in Schindler’s List. Photograph: Snap/Rex Features

My go-to cover story used to be the fact that, despite several attempts, I hadn’t watched Terry Gilliam’s Brazil in its entirety, having fallen asleep every time. The flesh was willing, but the brain shut down, repeatedly. I would never, however, have owned up to the really big gaps in my viewing. Certainly not the fact that I hadn’t watched Steven Spielberg’s multi-Oscar-winning acknowledged masterpiece, Schindler’s List.

How can it be, even as I dedicated a fair amount of time and effort to polyfilla the cracks in my film knowledge, that I never watched Schindler’s List? Partly, I think, it’s to do with the fact it’s easily available. It would always be there, once I finally got around to it. There was always something more urgent – a season of little-seen marvels from a rediscovered genius; the one and only chance to catch that elusive second tier neo-realist gem. That, and the fact that it’s more than three hours long.

So here we are. I have the opportunity, not just to confess, but to atone. It’s certainly a change of pace for me. My lockdown movie flavour of choice has been rather more brash and lurid: lots of De Palma, mixed up with a fair few martial arts movies. I approach the film with the hope that it will live up to the near universal praise, and the fear that, like so many of Spielberg’s films, it will tip over into melodrama.

In some ways both are realised. I am struck, immediately, by how beautiful it is. Shot by Janusz Kamiński in limpid black and white, the film has an almost expressionistic quality, using blades of light to carve up the image and to ennoble Liam Neeson’s already chiselled profile. The gorgeous photography doesn’t exactly mitigate the mounting horror but it’s gentler on the soul than something more immersive and immediate, like the Hungarian Holocaust picture Son of Saul, or indeed the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. But while arresting beauty acts almost like a protective carapace between the audience and the evils of the Nazis, I am less keen on the jarring use of colour – the scene with the child in the red coat who catches Oskar Schindler’s attention jolted me out of the film and into the filmmaking.

But on balance, there was much I loved. The use of space – moments of silence and contemplation; pauses in the dialogue which say as much as words do. The score, with that klezmer-infused version of Gloomy Sunday which drenches the whole film in melancholy and foreboding. And Ralph Fiennes’ remarkable performance as camp commandant Amon Goeth, with his petulant ennui and cosseted cruelty.

And yes, there are moments when the approach becomes a little overwrought – Schindler’s tortured self-recrimination, for example. But that didn’t grate on me as much as it normally would. Perhaps, with nerves frayed by months uncertainty and home-schooling, a big cathartic old sob-fest was exactly what I needed.

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• Schindler's List
• The classic film I've never seen

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• Won 7 Oscars
  • 91 wins & 49 nominations total

Oskar Schindler is a vain and greedy German businessman who becomes an unlikely humanitarian amid the barbaric German Nazi reign when he feels compelled to turn his factory into a refuge for Jews. Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler who managed to save about 1100 Jews from being gassed at the Auschwitz concentration camp, it is a testament to the good in all of us. —Harald Mayr

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