Schindler's List is an Oscar-winning movie about World War Two. The movie won Best Picture and several other major awards. The basic premise is the true story of a factory owner, Oskar Schindler, who saves Jews from the Nazis. He employed them in his factories, which makes them important in the war effort for Nazi Germany. This is what saves them from being deported from Krakow to one of the death camps. Schindler must also continually bribe the Nazis in order to save the factory workers from death. Reactions

Schindler's List is a powerful film. The first reactions to it are immediate and visceral. First, we today are fairly insulated from such atrocities, and they seem scarcely imaginable, yet the reality is that this what our grandparents and great-grandparents lived through. There is a real human side to the story, especially to see how Schindler changes over the course of the movie. He at first seems more motivated by money, and because he is a member of the Nazi Party, he is not a sympathetic or heroic figure. Yet over time becomes more human in that sense, starting to feel that he owes a strong sense of duty to the people he employs and their families. As a viewer you start to see how war and conflict can change us.

This feeling is especially profound in light of the juxtaposition with Goeth, who is utterly dehumanized through these experiences. He represents the dark side of humanity, as someone who seemingly was always going to be evil. The conflict simply allows him to live out his fantasies in a way that only war can, by expunging any sense of humanity that he might have had. I do not necessarily see Schindler as the light in contrast, but as a more nuanced person, capable of both good and bad. The Jews in the story represent the innocent side, and Schindler is essentially put in a position to ultimately choose between good and evil in this situation. So Schindler is this duality in human nature and that we ultimately must choose. His choice, of course is vindicated as he ends up as a hero while Goeth is executed for his crimes.

History serves as a means to inform us of our past, so that we may not meet that past again in the future. There are certainly some interesting corollaries with the present day. There is still conflict in this world, and there are still victims of conflict. We are faced with a choice to either have compassion and help our fellow humans or to walk the other side. One of the things about World War Two is that the U.S. tried to sit out the war. Yet it was forced to enter eventually, because it was a conflict where a country almost had to take a side. The movie shows that sometimes you can try to play both sides, or think that you can avoid taking sides but when faced with evil you actually do need to choose.

But getting back to the initial reaction, it was quite emotional. The movie uses a lot of pathos. You have scenes were the Jews line up naked, or where Goeth just randomly shoots people or is otherwise cruel, and ultimately these scenes do seek to show you how horrible war is, on all levels, not just for soldiers, because of the way it dehumanizes people. There is something in there that, to my gut, tells me that it might not be dehumanizing so much as showing us that all of this is part of our true nature. This horror story is, after all, entirely created by humans. We must address that reality head on, that evil lives within us and among us, and ultimately it is up to choose.

The characters in the movie are real people, and they are portrayed as a means to get the message of humanity and choices across. The Jews represent the victims of conflict, as they are simply laborers trying to get by. We can look at this example today and see any number of groups of people who are attacked or subject to discrimination -- this type of thing still happens in this world, and even against Jewish people. Schindler is the good side of humanity. His character is developed to the extent that we can see his transition, where he starts to realize that he is good, and really allows that side to come out. Goeth of course is the opposite, but we never really get to see that transition....

This is common in storytelling, where the hero undergoes a transition, especially the type of hero who is unaware of his or her own heroism until under pressure. The villain characters seldom get this sort of character development -- they often appear on their scene as the Nazis do here, their evil fully developed.
If the characters themselves did not make the choice between good and evil evident then Schindler literally offers this choice to the Nazis at the end of the movie, whether they want to be men or murderers, where the Nazi soldiers choose the former. That appeal to humanity really sums up the message of the movie, and the characters demonstrate that duality of human nature.

The Jewish characters, somewhat ironically, are not given as much development. The most important, Stern, ends up not playing a critical role in the emotional side of the movie. Stern does play a functional role, but that is about the extent of his participation. I did not find that this character made an important contribution the emotional story that the movie was telling. The red jacket girl actually played this role. I suppose that makes sense, a little girl has more power to create an emotional narrative than a middle-aged man. The red jacket is important because the movie is otherwise in black and white, but that coat in particular stands out, and is made to stand out by the director by being in color. When Schindler identifies with her, and sees her body, she is the embodiment of humanity, and the catalyst for his transformation and choosing the side of good. The red coat is a sign of warmth, causing Schindler to tap into the warmth of his humanity, in a sea of stark brutality all around him.

In the end, there is some redemption for Schindler and of course the story exists because he is a hero by the end. This shows that there is no better reward for good deeds that to be recognized as someone who does good deeds. Heroism for Schindler is its own reward, and he ends up wishing that he saved more people by the end, despite that he and Stern made an active effort to save as many people as possible throughout the movie.

One of the other themes was the driving force behind the movie, which was the uniqueness of Schindler's work. He was evidently unique in terms of what he did. He saved these people, in plain view of the authorities, and there were very few people like him, who were trying to save the Jews. To do so in the middle of occupied territory was particularly heroic. One of the motivations for the movie was to immortalize this work. It was felt that this was one way of paying tribute to someone who was valiant during the war, a different type of unlikely war hero than the usual one we see about in movies.

The style of the movie, which is very historical and realist, also emphasizes this heroism, because it feels at time like watching newsreel. Schindler was a real person, of course and the audience knows this, and that is also an influence over the way the movie is perceived. You have people who are victims of atrocities, you have people who are evil, and then you have those brave few who are willing to stand up for what is right, even when surrounded by evil and bleakness. It would be easy in this world of the war to be sucked into the same sort of depravity as Goeth, but this does not happen to Schindler, who instead chooses a different path.

I think this conveys a lesson for all of us. We are in troubled times -- there is fear, there are enemies, and yet amidst this in order to truly do the right thing is a brave choice. It would be easy to be sucked into fear, to allow ourselves to lose our humanity, but that is not the right choice. This is something for us to be aware of, that we can choose our paths. Initially Schindler had chosen the Nazi path but eventually went back on that. Ultimately, this is what brought about his vindication -- other Nazi factory owners, if they survived, ended up as the proverbial murderers for the rest of their lives, making the wrong choices about helping their fellow citizens.

Because history does repeat itself, the inherent message in…