Schindler's List is an epic black-and-white film that lasts more than 3 hours. The entire film was 10 years in the making, and director Steven Spielberg told a story based on a live-action event.
The protagonist of the story is Oscar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than 1,000 Polish Jews during World War II.
Although the film was completed in 1993, the entire film is framed much longer than it was released, dating back to 1963. Originally, it was initiated by Podek Feifferberg, a Jewish survivor of World War II, one of the 1,000 Jews saved by Schindler.
In order to repay Schindler's life-saving grace, Pfeifferberg decided to publicize his deeds.
At first, Feifferberg approached MGM to work with it on a biographical film about Schindler, but it didn't work out. It was not until 1982 that Australian novelist Thomas Kennelly was fascinated by Schindler's story after meeting Fiferberg. Later, Thomas Kennelly published the novel Schindler's List, which won the Booker Prize for Fiction.
At this time, Steven Spielberg saw a book review of Schindler's List in the New York Times, and Spielberg was shocked by Schindler's story, and he was curious: "What drives a man to give everything he wants to save those innocent lives?" ”
Spielberg first persuaded Universal Pictures to buy the rights to adapt the novel, and then in early 1983, he visited Fiferberg and promised him that he would bring the masterpiece to the screen 10 years later.
But at this time, Spielberg was not very deep in his heart, and he was not sure whether he had the ability to make this movie well. He approached a director, Roman Polanski, hoping that he would direct the film. Because Polanski himself was a survivor of the concentration camp, his mother died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
But Polanski believed that a film should not have personal feelings, and if he directed it, it would definitely carry a strong hatred, so he regrettably refused Spielberg's invitation.
Finally, after a decade of data gathering and literature research, Spielberg decided to direct Schindler's List himself.
In fact, there was another profound reason for Spielberg's determination to make this film, that is, at that time, neo-Nazism was on the rise after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and he thought it necessary to make a film to curb this bad trend.
The film entered the casting stage. Some of Hollywood's best actors at the time, Warren Beatty, Kevin Costner and Mel Gibb, all wanted to play Schindler. But in the end, Schindler's role got Liam Neeson, who was unknown at the time, to him.
This is because in history, Schindler was an easily overlooked person, and in the eyes of the Nazis, he was just a speculative businessman, completely devoid of that "big hero" aura, and it was by virtue of this that he escaped the Nazis' scrutiny and saved 1,000 Jews. So the big stars were too dazzling to play "little people" because their images were too dazzling, and Liam Neeson at the time was in line with this temperament.
As for the villain Nazi officer Amon Goss, it was Ralph Fiennes (who played "Voldemort"), who won Spielberg's favor with his excellent acting skills in "A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia".
Just as Spielberg expressed that senior Nazi officers should have a "graceful and cruel" personality, Ralph Fiennes fits this temperament perfectly. In the movie, we can feel the moment of kindness in his eyes, but then it will turn cold.
In order to deduce the murderous demon head of both gods and gods, Fiennes not only gained 28 pounds, read a lot of historical material, but also consulted the concentration camp Holocaust survivors.
It is said that on the set of the film, a historian who survived the concentration camp was shocked and trembled when he saw Fiennes in Nazi uniform.
In 1993, Steven Spielberg led the "Schindler's List" film crew to Poland, and while entering the site of the Krakow concentration camp during World War II, preparing to camp, he suddenly received an urgent telegram from the National Jewish Association from New York, which read, "Please do not disturb the souls of the dead, let them rest in peace." ”
The meaning of this is self-evident, and Spielberg read the telegram without a word. Immediately ordered all the film crew to evacuate the Krakow concentration camp and move to a distance of tens of kilometers, set up a set to shoot. At the same time, he left the film crew alone and flew directly to New York to apologize to the Jewish Society, and his humility and sincerity impressed all the members of the Jewish Association.
This move won the support of the members of the Jewish Society for the film. At that time, there was a scene of "liquidation" in the Krakow Ghetto, which was originally only one page in the script, and a survivor volunteered to provide information about the family, and Spielberg adapted it to 20 pages based on this information, which became a classic scene of 20 minutes.
We all know that the whole film was shot in a black-and-white documentary way to highlight the thickness of the story. But there's a little girl in red in the movie, and she's the highlight of the film.
In fact, this girl is really someone. Her name was Roman Rigauka, a concentration camp survivor. She has published a biography called The Girl in Red: An Autobiography.
Before the filming of Schindler's List, the biography stirred up Spielberg's shock. Therefore, in the film, Spielberg treats the girl in red as a turning point character throughout the film, making her an opportunity for the protagonist Schindler's psychological transformation.
There is also a scene in the film where Schindler is arrested for kissing a Jewish girl at a birthday party. Of course, in the film, this is a detail set up to reflect Schindler's "great guangzheng" image; in fact, in reality, Schindler was not convicted of kissing a Jewish girl, but the three crimes he was arrested and imprisoned were all because of illegal transactions on the black market.
During the filming, in order to make the scene more historical, Spielberg found a historical consultant and put him responsible for collecting the costumes of 30,000 extras, and the historical consultants and costume designers also went to Poland to post advertisements to find old clothes from that year. Fortunately, because Poland's economic conditions were still very backward at that time, many people were willing to sell their clothes from the 1930s to the 1940s, so this task was quickly completed.
Schindler's List has 126 characters with lines and employs 30,000 extras throughout filming, all of whom are descendants of "Schindler Jews."
As a result of these efforts, Schindler's List became one of the most awarded films in film history. After the film's big hit, Steven Spielberg refused to accept the film's remuneration, on the grounds that if he accepted the remuneration, it would be "eating human blood steamed buns".
To this day, Schindler's List can be viewed as a movie or as a semi-documentary. Nowadays, there are many "black histories" about Schindler, including "adulterers", "playboys", "fraudsters" and so on. We have no way of knowing the truth, but we have to admit that he did deserve the name of a hero for his feat of saving so many Jews on his own in such a high-handed environment. Text/Lin Hang