I agree with you on this . . . but only a moron would conclude from SL that the Holocaust wasn’t so bad because some survived. We already knew there were survivors, but many people didn’t know the story of those who made their survival possible. Even (or especially) if Schindler had been the only one . . . and he wasn’t . . . the story needed to be told. The audience of the movie is not those who minimize the Holocaust; the audience is those who need to know that someone did what he could to help others survive . . . even if his heroism was mere decency. But perhaps we are wrong . . . perhaps in a vacuum of decency, when actual heroism is impossible, everyday decency actually *is *heroism.
Because *Jurassic Park *is, after all, one of Spielberg’s Christ stories. And the damn t-rex could walk on water. :rolleyes:
I thought he just jumped, what with all that tricky frog DNA.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Vince Vaughn’s character was an moron. He got people killed by bringing the hurt baby T-Rex with him, and taking the bullets out of gun of the man who was hunting for T-Rex. Yet his character’s presented as heroic.
Love how the piping in one of the buildings were arranged ‘just so’ for Malcolm’s kid to show off her gymnastic skills.
The Color Purple? Schindler’s List? Is Oskar Schindler meant to be Christ like? Jaws? Hook? (All right. Dustin Hoffman makes a damned find Christ character.) Catch Me If You Can?
The only one that really stands out for me is E.T. [Simpsons]I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens. He came in peace, and then died, only to come back to life. And his name was… E.T., the extraterrestrial. I love that little guy.[/Simpsons]
ETA:
Ugh, you’re so right. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the Lost World because it’s just SO awful. I love hating on it. But I first saw it when I was a kid and then when I got older and watched it as an adult, it pissed me off so much that Greenpeace guy is supposed to be a hero. And Sarah Harding, touching the baby steg, helping with the baby T-Rex…and then everyone acts as though Ian Malcolm is so cynical. And the only really competent fellow gets ripped in two by rexes trying to save the morons and spunky gymnast.
The book was actually awesome. Sarah Harding was a competent, intelligent person who rescues Malcolm and helps bring down raptors. Why, why, WHY do we have to turn intelligent female characters into sensitive, baby loving “free spirits”?
She’s a gun nut who likes smashing shit, he’s an antiques collector who loves old musicals. Coming up next on “Droid Swap”…
I don’t know whether it had a Christ figure, but Amistad featured the Bible and Christianity somewhat prominently.
Hey! I resemble that remark ;)!
[actually, I like things that go BOOM!!]
I don’t think the point is that it’s demeaning for a smart guy to do manual labor.
This segment starting at about 6 minutes in:
And this conversation between Affleck and Damon starting about 40 seconds in:
The Fugitive: For a prominent vascular surgeon with so many character references convinced that he didn’t commit the crime, no presumed history of violence or domestic disturbance, a complete lack of plausible motive, and a henchman so easily identified, he seems to be convicted and sent off for execution awfully quickly. He either has the most incompetent legal representation ever or the lawyer was in on the scheme.
Also, what woman is going to pick up a scruffy-looking man walking down the road, even if he is Harrison Ford? That was just bald-ass misdirection for the next scene, involving the recapture of another escapee.
Stranger
If Spielberg had created the story, I imagine he would have turned Schindler’s postwar life into some vomit-inducing ball of sugar and sunshine. Instead of a man who left his wife, saw one business venture after another fail and died in poverty, this Schindler would have gone on to great financial success, and would have enjoyed a stable home life with many rosy-cheeked children (who could then produce adorable grandchildren who would ask "What did you do during the war, grandpa-pa?).
I haven’t seen Schindler’s List so I can’t weigh in on the movie itself. But as a general rule, truth alone is not proof that the filmmaker didn’t have an ulterior motive. There were a hundred million people involved in World War II so a filmmaker can choose to use the true story that conveys the message he wants to give and not choose to skip the true stories that don’t say what he wants to say. And even after he’s chosen his subject, he’s going to be working within the confines of a film and only showing about two hours out of all the decades of somebody’s life. So once again he can simply choose to show the events he wants and leave out the events he doesn’t.
It’s what war would be like if wars were fought by crack teams of college poetry majors.
An actual quote from the movie…
“We. We together. One being. Flow together like water. Till I can’t tell you from me. I drink you. Now. Now”
As opposed to *“I’m a schoolteacher. I teach English composition… in this little town called Adley, Pennsylvania. The last eleven years, I’ve been at Thomas Alva Edison High School. I was a coach of the baseball team in the springtime. Back home, I tell people what I do for a living and they think well, now that figures. But over here, it’s a big, a big mystery. So, I guess I’ve changed some. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve changed so much my wife is even going to recognize me, whenever it is that I get back to her. And how I’ll ever be able to tell her about days like today. Ah, Ryan. I don’t know anything about Ryan. I don’t care. The man means nothing to me. It’s just a name. But if… You know if going to Rumelle and finding him so that he can go home. If that earns me the right to get back to my wife, then that’s my mission…You want to leave? You want to go off and fight the war? All right. All right. I won’t stop you. I’ll even put in the paperwork. I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel.”
*
I mean, seriously, who talks like that in real life? It’s just overwrought movie dialogue that sounds impressive as an actor’s monologue.
Yeah. Mamet it’s not.
Meh, I’m no great judge of film, but I got some enjoyment out of both TTRL and SPR. The cinematography for TTRL was superb. The characters were stupid cardboard cut-outs. SPR was a great story, but … dumb.
I don’t know - I think Hanks and Spielberg manage to sell the scene. YMMV, of course.
Yeah I agree, another thing that annoys me about the movie is how the big conspiracy is all about this drug treatment which actually gives people cancer. I mean how could it be profitable for the main bad guy in the long run, having a share of a faulty product. I mean it took Harrison Ford 15 minutes to figure out the treatment didn’t work. I’d imagine the FDA would be at least as stringent. The law suits the company would end up facing would be massive. It always bugs me when the conspiracy is revealed in all its faulty glory.
Yeah well, there was a continuity error at 3.28 that has just ruined that scene for me, by taking me right out of the moment.
Affleck’s canned drink jumps from one hand to the other.
He discovered the test results were falsified, right?. Not that the drug didn’t work.
Exactly, great, so Schindler wasn’t Amon Göth. That doesn’t make him a hero and at the end it’s clear that he didn’t think what he had done was worth the tribute paid to him by the Schindlerjuden. All he saw at the end is how much more he could have done but didn’t.
Whoever saves one life, saves one fucking life and nothing more.
He didn’t make the movie he (IMHO) wanted to,
If he really had balls he would have ended the film with Schindler’s breakdown (the first three minutes here) and left us all asking why there are no Someothernamejuden, no Churchilljuden, no Stalinjuden, no Rooseveltjuden.
We didn’t need to see Göth’s fucked-up hanging.
We didn’t need the feel-good scene with all the actors and the real people they portrayed placing stones on Schindler’s grave.
We needed to share Schindler’s guilt.
A nation made converting human beings into smoke and ash its largest industry, and the world didn’t give a fuck. And we keep on not giving a fuck,“Never Again” is in fact “Again and Again.”.
We needed to own the guilt of all those who knew something and did nothing. What’s the post WWII body count up to, and what did we do to keep it from getting that high?
I look in the mirror and I want to see Oskar Schindler, but history makes it pretty clear, it’s more likely it’s Amon Göth that’s looking back at me.
CMC fnord!