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Repetition instills rote learning - good for multiplication tables and spelling and grammar practice. The ARTS has the overarching role to create INTEREST in a subject for students/children or adults to then go and critically think about a subject. Boring ass documentaries on the holocaust existed in schools for decades. And yes they will "teach more facts" about the holocaust than Schindler's List. But that's not really surprising is it? You should not bloody well be learning all your facts from movie or TV screens - it's called books - pick some up sometime. The ARTS are often commentary of the sociopolitical climate of their time - and yes by the bloody way, that includes a lot of Hollywood films. Shakespeare, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Miller would all be called Social Justice Warrior Snowflakes in 2018! merely presenting an actual injustice even when 100% factually proven means you are an SJW. And THAT is why Spielberg triumphs as a director because he was smart enough to choose the source material where he could lift the subject matter out of memorization of facts and INVERT the subject matter. Kenneally's novel was a bottle in the ocean until the film came about. Schindler's List - NOT Lanzmann's Shoah or any other Holocaust film "helped to inspire national educational curriculum changes, the growth of Holocaust degree programmes, the institution of an annual remembrance day in the United Kingdom and the setting up of museums and memorials across the globe." And WHY? Because Schindler's List had a profound affect on film goers at the time and is often cited as one of the ten best films in history - please show me the list where actual intelligent professionals in the movie industry have chosen the La Rafle. My extra F was subconsciously awarding it it's deserved letter grade! There are endless critiques - good ones - that can and should be made about Schindler's List - one of the better ones is from Kubrick and Lantzmann who both more or less said "The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. Schindler's List is about 600 who don't." But that is just it - all the largely failed, uninspiring, and most importantly UNSEEN films (and if you want to teach people history through film - they first have to bloody well see it) is that you have to take your film making prowess and create something of - well - a Hollywood Blockbuster! And to do that you need a protagonist. It is far better to tell any of these kinds of stories through character. I have read most of the criticisms of the film and most all of them fall flat. The mistake all of these "critics" got wrong is that the story was actually about the power that one person can wield when he values something other than the almighty dollar. It is not a "Holocaust Movie" about the "Holocaust" - It doesn't ram the Holocaust High School lesson down the audience's throats - been there and failed at that! Other criticisms should have been leveled at the book - I remember laughing at the dimwits who hate Spielberg - "the girl in the Red coat is Spielberg and Hollywood manipulation" - I am quite sure you were first in line with that correct. Only in Schindler's Ark - the real life Oscar Schindler sat on his horse and gravitated to a small girl in a red coat!!!! Oh wait - it wasn't a Spielberg ploy after all - it was a recounting of a REAL very likely plausible motivation for Oscar Schindler to decide to DO SOMETHING. Guess the morons never bother to pick up a F-ing book. Fortunately one of the most vocal critics against the film re watched it without the fanatical hatred of Steven. Umm but she still needs to read the book and the actual historical Oscar Schindler and Amon Goeth. Regardless of the historical minutia - that is largely the point of any Historical drama - to get people interested in the subject to learn more. No film of this duration can possibly have the breadth and depth to encapsulate the time frame of events. Schindler's List probably is responsible for a vast number of people renting Shoah or for a film producers to even allow a film like La Rafle or The Pianist even being green lit to get made. You may not realize this - but even your beloved non Hollywood artsy fartsy nonsense - have backers who ONLY give money to MAKE money - they are greedy soulless pigs in it to make a buck - but since they barely have two coins to rub together they MUST make a movie on a million bucks and you can bet that just like Disney - they want to double their investment. They're not making your precious French/Hungarian/Belarusian love story because they love movies - they are producing them for the exact same reason porn directors make porn movies - they want to make money! Hollywood goes for the biggest audience - porn industry goes for the horny masses and the niche art-house market focuses on the folks who hate the other two. you aren't smarter or better (as you think you are) than the people who line up to see Deadpool. You are just PLAYED by a "different" money grubbing producer who finds and artsy way to impress a different sort of sheep. Leave It to Spielberg: A Critic Revisits 'Schindler's List'
By Lisa Rosman
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