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The director set up a number of close-ups and medium shots in a scene in Schindler's appearance, and gave a more targeted description and close-up of Schindler's dress and life taste.
The purpose is to have a clearer positioning of Schindler's image, which is also to give the audience a greater sense of image contrast at the end of the film.
This scene begins with a description of multiple shots of Schindler's choice of clothing, and this shot is even as detailed as Schindler's choice of shirt cufflinks.
Not only to show that Schindler's purpose was to establish relations with the upper class of the German Nazi military, but also to show that Schindler was a person who paid attention to his quality of life.
Profiteers who seek profit
This is also the purpose of his profit as a businessman. Later, when Schindler appeared in entertainment venues, he behaved very naturally and skillfully in dealing with people and bribing officials, and Schindler's image suddenly changed to that of a man who was good at making friends with powerful people, all for his own business purposes.
Even Schindler did not mince words about money. Schindler's wife comes to visit him at the factory, only to see him having a relationship with another woman, and Schindler expresses his ambitions and expectations to his wife in this scene.
Schindler knew that the Jews were in a difficult situation, but he simply wanted to use it to continue to make a fortune. This led to the negotiations that brought Stearns into contact with the Jewish capitalists. This almost blackmailed negotiation completely revealed Schindler's ugly face.
The human struggle of the "redeemer"
Schindler's dislike of Jews did not diminish for a long time in the story, and Stern used his work connections to constantly try to save his fellow Jews, guaranteeing Jews' job qualifications and even fighting for more jobs.
From this point of view, Schindler did not become a "redeemer" from the beginning, Stern was a potential "redeemer". The first time Schindler's psyche was touched by Mr. Roweinstein, a one-armed man, who sincerely expressed his gratitude to Schindler because Schindler had given him the opportunity to work.
However, Schindler, although he expressed his disagreement with Steng's approach, did not drive away the workers who did not meet the requirements, and Schindler's good side can also be seen here, and then Roweinstein was shot dead by Nazi officials. Before he was killed, Ruronstein was still smiling and proudly saying: "I am a worker of Oskar Schindler." ”
Roweinstein's death touched Schindler, who almost warned officials that a good worker had been killed at will by the army and asked officials not to repeat the situation, at a time when Schindler still had illusions about the army and officials, so it was impossible to start giving up money to rescue the Jews.
The second time Schindler's psyche was the massacre of the Jewish B quarter in 1943, and this time it was even greater. When Schindler stood on the hillside and saw the tragic scene, especially when he saw a little Jewish girl in a red coat, he simply turned away.
There was psychological sympathy for the Jews but not enough to make him give up his prosperity and wealth, and Schindler's psychology in this period and Schindler in the early days of business underwent some obvious changes, but at this time, Schindler's tragic experience of the Jews was more sympathetic than wanting to save them.
Repentance Achieves "Redemption"
Schindler eventually decided to say goodbye to the story with what was left of his possessions. He thought in his heart that the disaster would eventually pass, perhaps because he could no longer face and endure the mutilation of the workers and the tragedy caused by all these wars.
But after careful consideration, he decided to move the factory to the Czech Republic. When Schindler made this decision, he had departed from the image of a profiteer at the beginning of the film and completely reversed his thoughts and values. This is the entanglement and struggle of human nature and material, and in the end, human nature triumphs over material desire.
He used the wealth he had accumulated to buy Jews from the Germans, and by virtue of his good relations with German officers, he eventually put Jews on a train to the Czech Republic. However, when the train was mistakenly transported to Auschwitz, Schindler's life once again had irreversible consequences.
He spent almost all his savings to exchange women and children back, and pressured German soldiers in his factory to protect Jews. Schindler's heart changed completely, and although his factory business and sales plummeted, it was very different from his initial expectations.
He was not even willing to let the war go on any longer. Perhaps the Jews could be saved. In the end, the Jews were liberated, and Schindler, despite being bankrupt at the same time, wept and confessed to the workers that he had not saved more Jews.
This plot truly achieved Schindler's identity as a "redeemer" and sublimated the film as a whole. Of course, Schindler's confession also received the most sincere respect from the Jews, especially the embrace with Stern as the finishing touch.
The suicide of "Kadokawa"
In the previous discussion, we analyzed in detail the process of the change and construction of Schindler's image in Schindler's List. However, for Nanjing! Nanking! What are the similarities and differences between the Kadokawa image in "?
Actually in "Nanjing! Nanking! There are no Japanese like "Schindler" in it. There were no such Japanese, and the reason why there were no such Japanese was there in the course of World War II.
From this point of view, "Nanjing! Nanking! " congenitally lacks the height of the perspective. If there must be some height, it also belongs to a Japanese soldier named Masao Kadokawa.
But sadly, from a historical point of view, there are no Japanese soldiers like Masao Kadokawa in history. In other words, Masao Kadokawa is a fictional artistic character. The fictional confession of the Japanese soldier at the end of the film and the collapse of the war become the only height of the film.
The Japanese Kadokawa Masao was called "a man who had read" by his comrades-in-arms, and before coming to China, he studied in a Japanese church school, and after receiving a militaristic education, this naïve young man came to the battlefield in China.
Several details in the movie reflect Kadokawa's youth and innocence, such as Kadokawa smiling contentedly after drinking soda, and when he comes out of the house of the Japanese comfort woman Yuriko for the first time, he is very serious about Yuriko wanting to be his wife.
This is an image of a Japanese soldier that we have never seen in any movie. Lu Chuan explained that in fact, there is a group of good people in all wars, and he has seen many such records in the diaries of Japanese veterans. The director's choice of such a Japanese soldier's perspective was a bold attempt.
In the early stage of film preparation, when Lu Chuan sorted out the historical materials of the Nanjing Massacre, he found that in his attitude towards this history, Chinese more accusing the Japanese of their crimes. However, in the memoirs of a large number of Japanese veterans, the recollections of Nanjing or China rarely contain sentences of confession.
In fact, Japanese soldiers are first and foremost ordinary living individuals, but how did war turn these ordinary people into tools or machines for slaughter?
But the real controversy over Kadokawa's character is whether the character is representative. In Schindler's List, Schindler is representative, his good relations with the Nazi Party, and his status as a businessman all predestined him to be representative as a Jewish "redeemer".
The tragedy of "Bruno"
This tragic story revolves around an eight-year-old child, Bruno. Whether it is the original novel or the film adaptation, the story has not changed the mode of telling it from Bruno's perspective.
Because looking at and examining the Holocaust with the innocent eyes of a little boy is not only a unique perspective, but also more cruel and sad. Many people compare "Beautiful Life" with this movie, pointing out the shortcomings and regrets of "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas".
In fact, the author believes that the latter has its advantages in terms of the choice of perspective and the telling of the story. The tragic birth of "Bruno" is a process in which everything looks good is more heart-wrenching.
When watching this film, what the audience has to do is to enter the environment and history of the characters, and the long shot of Bruno running with his arms spread at the beginning of the film is to give the audience time to enter history.
Bruno constantly seeks adventures in the outside world because his move from Berlin to his father's workplace has left him with a missing identity. There are two reasons for this lack of identity: one is because of his lack of playmates, and the other is because he lacks a sense of identity in the family.
His father was the head of a Nazi concentration camp, his mother was a housewife, and his sister was an avid Nazi supporter. His father thinks that Bruno must be with his family to grow up happy, and his sister always despises his naivety and ignorance.
This family environment is the main reason why Bruno fell into a sense of non-existence. Bruno in the film is therefore full of loneliness and depression, and he has been trying to explore the outside world to find a sense of his place.
In this case, he met his friend Schmur. For a child, finding the sense of existence of their true self is a process that must be experienced in growing up. The establishment of interpersonal relationships thus seeks a support for identity.
Friendship with Schmur allowed Bruno to achieve this sense of self-identity. Expeditions to barbed wire again and again were seen by Bruno as a witness of his friendship with Schmur.
It must be mentioned here that the setting of the character of Bruno's sister, to a certain extent, this character hints at the destruction of human nature by war.
Bruno's sister moved to the concentration camp with her family, and she received a militaristic education from their tutor, so she threw away all her dolls and put a map of Europe in the house. She told her brother that Jews are bad.
She seemed to have been brainwashed by Nazi militarism. This performance fully explains the second alienation of human nature from war, pushing the wavering and unconscious existence into the abyss.
This plot reminds me of another film, The Wave, a German film about a middle school teacher who experimented with his own students in a "dictatorship," where the teacher is pushed to the pinnacle of power and the students are to obey absolutely.
Over the course of the week, the students gradually changed and the situation began to spiral out of control, leading to tragedy. While The Tide's warning about the resurgence of Nazi thought is more obvious and profound, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is also a successful metaphor in this regard.
epilogue
For the end of the film, although the treatment of the long shot is praiseworthy, there are still regrets and shortcomings. This harsh reality should be left to the viewer, not to take the time to see how painful the child's parents are. Perhaps the director thinks that the portrayal of the two children is full enough.
This serves the purpose of indicting war and massacres, but in reality it is the wrong thing to do. Bruno's death cuts off the connection between reality and cinema in an instant. We would not expect to reflect on war and massacres as fathers of Nazi officers.
Because he will only get worse, and even kill more innocent people in revenge. Children represent hope in both reality and virtuality, and without children there is no hope. The truly cruel and profound approach should be for Bruno to grow into adulthood.
This will involve how he faces his family as a murderer, how he faces the friendships he forged during the war, and he will reflect on what he saw as a child and reflect on this history. The meaning of this kind of film is to make modern people reflect on how to do it without returning to history.
Bruno's death will only reduce the impact and sense of history of the film, and reduce the intensity of reflection. After all, we cannot expect a family to take on the responsibility of reflecting on what a nation should do. The criticism of cinema should be left to the masses. So, the tragic ending of the movie is debatable.