32. Schindler's List; movie review

SCHINDLER'S LIST
Cert 15
187 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong violence, threat, language

Three hours passed like three minutes and as the famous finale played out, I dabbed away a tear.
Schindler's List is one of the greatest films ever made. Anyone who disagrees is just plain wrong.
Its greatest recommendation is that it was both a box office success, making ten times its $30m budget, but is also used as a teaching aid is school lessons about the Holocaust.
Its historical accuracy is what makes Steven Spielberg's so poignant. It highlights the real people who were caught up in horrors of Krakow during the Second World War and escaped certain death, thanks to the conscience of a Nazi Party member - Oskar Schindler.
Liam Neeson plays the factory owner in a career-best performance. He would have won an Academy Award had he not been up against Tom Hanks's portrayal of an Aids victim in Philadelphia.
The other stand-outs are from Ralph Fiennes as the vile and violent camp commander, Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's pedantic accountant, Itzhak Stern.
But, while there are outstanding performances, it is Spielberg's detail and the sum of Schindler's List's parts which make it so spellbinding.
And, course, the battle about good (albeit tainted, in the form of Schindler) against the evil tyranny of the Nazis and their FInal Solution.
Anyway, presuming that you have already seen it, I shall break off from the usual review style to offer some facts about Schindler's List.
Firstly, in October 1980, Australian novelist Thomas Keneally came across the Schindler story in a leather goods shop off in Los Angeles. 
When the owner of the shop, Leopold Page, learned that Keneally was a writer, he told how he, his wife, and thousands of other Jews were saved by a Nazi factory owner named Oskar Schindler.
Secondly, Spielberg relinquished his salary for the movie and any proceeds he would stand to make in perpetuity.
Instead, he used the film’s profits to found the USC Shoah Foundation which was established in 1994 to honour and remember the survivors of the Holocaust by collecting personal recollections and audio-visual interviews.
Because Universal Studios saw a Holocaust movie as a great risk, they prompted Spielberg to agree to make another project which had been brewing at the studios - namely, Jurassic Park.
In the final analysis, Schindler's List made more than $300m profit.
Spielberg had lots of well-known options for his leading man but did want the distraction of a star so chose unknown Irish actor Neeson who he had seen in a Broadway play.
And that's it - Spielberg's genius inspired one of the greatest movies of all time. It is absolutely essential viewing.

Reasons to watch: One of the greatest films ever made
Reasons to avoid: Upsetting scenes

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: Yes
Overall rating: 10/10

Did you know? Schindler survived on donations sent by Schindlerjuden from all over the world. He died on 9 October 1974 and is buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way

The final word - Steven Spielberg: "I couldn't imagine based on the story that we told that an audience would tolerate just the amount of violence, human against human. Or inhuman against human," Spielberg, 71, said. "No one thought the film was going to make any money."

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