Below The Fold

Never again

Schindler’s List is coming out on DVD. Seeing the barrage of ads brought back a discussion I had with Alex one night over a pack of GPCs and a pot of coffee at Mary and Lou’s in Denver.

“I’m still trying to get over the brilliance of it,” I said. I was amazed at just how emotionally raw the experience had left with. I recounted the story of seeing the movie. Thomas and I went to see it together, with our girlfriends at the time.

“As the credits scrolled and the lights came up, the silence was thick. The theater was completely full, it was a sold out crowd, in fact, and I’ve never heard a room full of 400 people so silent. Except for one.

“This aged, bent man wearing a heavy woolen coat was sobbing. Loudly and openly. He was with a woman who was younger than him, I assume it was his daughter. She tried to help him to his feet and he yelled, “Leave me be!” in a thick, Eastern European accent. We filed out of the theater in silence, walked through the mall to the parking garage entrance. It was late, and as we waited with a few people for the elevator, it was evident they had seen the movie as well. Still, no one spoke.

“Finally, Thomas broke the silence: ‘Well, it was no Jurassic Park.’

“We burst into hysterics, the lot of people standing there, grateful for the release, even if it was ill-timed laughter.”

I related to Alex how the experience was unlike any I’d ever had from seeing a film. He agreed.

He talked about how Spielberg masterfully carried the audience through such a horrific story without letting numbness set it. He talked about how brilliant it was—the way the audience bore witness to the violence until, at a climax of fear and pain, suddenly, in one scene, the gun jammed. The old man knelt in the snow before the Nazi, who cocked the gun and tried again. It jammed again. He took a pistol from another nearby Nazi and pulled the trigger. Click. Frustrated, he struck the old man in the back of the head and walked away, leaving him bruised, but not much the worse for wear.

At the one moment when the viewer was steeled and prepared to witness another horrible act of cruelty, it didn’t happen. And so the scab didn’t form, and the audience was left raw, but not numb.

We talked about the choice to film in black and white—often a contrived device, here, capturing a world devoid of life in this manner. We talked about how Spielberg chose to use color so sparingly, such as the pogrom scene with the girl in the red coat. How he personally hand-painted each frame she was in—He filmed an entire horrific, overwhelming sequence while simultaneously bringing the viewer intimately close with the subject.

The DVD release will not be packed with unnecessary extras. Only some brief background of the film and a collection of interviews with some of the surviving “Schindler’s Jews.”

As a Jew, so much of my life has centered around the holocaust. The effects resonate down to me, two generations removed from its horror. My earliest memories of my “Sunday school” days include trudging through books like Joseph and Me in the Days of the Holocaust, Maus, and of course The Diary of Anne Frank.

The holocaust remains a central component of contemporary Jewish culture, and figures in the daily motivation of my life and will to succeed, as it does for most any Jew born over the last century. It remains the capstone of a story about a people who have endured several thousand years of oppression and attempted genocide—and, strangely it remains a source of some kind of survivor’s pride—a sense that despite the best efforts of the most powerful forces on Earth time and time again…

We endured.

Last weekend, a synagogue almost walking distance from my home was defaced with spray painted swastikas on the eve of a Jewish holiday celebrating our triumph over yet another would-be genocidal maniac (My favorite holiday as a child, Purim is a joyous occasion, celebrated with carnivals and costumes and revelry—akin to Mardi Gras, but with less breast-baring). Here we are, 60 years after the holocaust, and still…

Which is why the rally cry of today’s Jew is, “Never Again!” As witnessed by the hundreds of folks who turned out to the synagogue to wash away the graffiti, so many that each person was only allowed a few passes with the brushes so that all could participate in the symbolic gesture of unity. Never again, indeed.

As a piece of cinema, Schindler’s List stands shoulder-to-shoulder to The Godfather I and II as the best I’ve ever seen. As a story of the indomitable will of man and his capacity for evil—as well as good—it stands alone.

If you haven’t seen it yet, please do.