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No one's even replied yet except you. LAAAME.
You should start your own Top 100 thread. Then you can include only the movies you love and explain why you love them so much. I think a lot of us would be interested to know what you'd include, given the movies you don't like.
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"I want a film I watch to express either the joy of making cinema or the anguish of making cinema" -Francois Truffaut



To be fair, your post was filled with inarguable claims, either because they're subjective, or because they're unfalsifiable. Like "I don't get why it's just instantly assumed to be number one" (who says it's "assumed"? It seems to be legitimately chosen), or "Members of AFI who dissent are probably just chewed out as trolls" (do we really have reason to think they are?). And really, there's not much discussion to be had when someone calls a classic "overrated."

It's fine, of course, there just isn't always a whole lot to say to those kinds of things. And to be fairer still, you were kind of deliberately trollish at first, so it wouldn't surprise me if a number of members just sort of wrote you off right away. That'd be a pity, but it wouldn't be surprising.

But since you want discussion, I'll certainly give you some on Schindler's List:

1. SL - There singular moment of genius that this film is hailed for. When Schindler sees the little girl running around the ghetto in her red dress while people are getting killed. This moment is special because of the color on black and white, a powerful technique. But ask yourself what this moment means. It's the moment the Jews themselves become technicolor. Their struggle becomes real for Schindler at this moment. THIS ONE MOMENT.

This is the moment of obscenity. Schindler is like a machine from this point on. A Jew-saving robot, programmed for good. It says nothing of his internal struggles, the true source of his greatness. The greatness in Schindler is that he went to all the Nazi parties and still managed to do good. The moral greatness is that he was able to overcome his immediate zeitgeist in the face of suffering. The film reduces this to a single moment. Schindler is switched ON now everybody.

It's like that movie Pollock were Ed Harris knocks down some paint accidentally and bam THIS ONE MOMENT represents his entire genius, his entire greatness. Pollock is switched ON now everybody.
This is one those complaints that I feel is thoughtful, articulate, interesting, yet still wrong.

Your description of Schindler's greatness seems perfectly consistent with what I saw on screen; we see him at the parties, we see him swept up in the zeitgeist, we see the opulence he receives in exchange for his soul. We get lots of little touches, like people noting that his suit is made of silk, and asking him where he got it. In the tradition of "show, don't tell," we see all this, and are not merely told it. What really needs to be said? Should be monologue about his inner struggles? I think merely showing us his extreme level of comfort and success does the job better.

He's not exactly a "Jew-saving machine," either. If he were, there'd be little to necessitate his legendary self-flagellating speech on the train tracks, where he realizes how little he actually did compared to what he could have done.

As for "THE MOMENT," I think this is both a necessary narrative device, but also something true to reality: even if there is never a single moment where we go from good to bad, and even though every decision is inevitably the culmination of millions of thoughts beforehand, there is still a moment when we make up our minds to do something. And, this being a movie, that moment is a logical pivot point to focus on.

As for "you see something and you're different" -- I feel like we must have been watching different films. The majority of the runtime sees Schindler encountering one atrocity after another and showing varying levels of sympathy. He clearly doesn't love what's going on, and he goes from general indifference, to distaste, to horror, to action. He's not completely carefree up until that moment; we see him clearly uncomfortable many times before that.



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You should start your own Top 100 thread.
I thought about it immediately, but I realized that I can't even begin to choose right now having seen so little Bergman and ONE Fellini film (8 1/2) as well as missing out completely on many other great directors.

I'm in no place to be making big long lists.

Currently, I'm also very biased towards Asian cinema--especially Japanese and Taiwanese cinema--because I've been watching almost only that for about a year now.

SL and FL are just 2 prime examples of "you must liek it or else" films that have major thematic flaws undermining the very reasons "I must liek it". La Vita e Bella is the best holocaust film IMO, because of the very reason that it is a comedy, except at the end. Breaking the Waves is the best film about a simpleton.

"Unfalsifiable"? Jesus, critiquing art is not a science. My god, the one thing you can't argue with is something that is falsifiable. The discussion would consist of the statement and its counterproof and that would be it.
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Without internal struggle demonstrated, he is very clearly an opportunist. What's worse is the position he takes always as "the head of the family", in other words, the head of the fascist state itself, even if such a state is made of Jews. The visual/emotional discourse to characterize Schindler is the same as that of Hitler. He is this elegant savior who brings his people into a new age through fascist collectivization with himself as the paternal leader. The Jews are reduced to being his children. What we want to say now is that Schindler is no better than Hitler. Keep in mind that he "chooses" them. The Jews, themselves the "real" chosen race, with the Nazis re-appropriating this title for themselves, ashamed of their own inadequacy. Schindler creates his private fascist state inside of Hitler's. Even worse because it is the nested core, a perverted reversal of roles in which the oppressed themselves do not even know it, in fact, they have come to love it. His final line, "I could have saved more" is nothing more than Hitler's own deranged imperialist Napoleonism.

The discourse itself is suggestive of the opposite of the attempted message. It undermines itself. Without clearly demonstrating Schindler's moral struggle, the act is not selfless but cynical. He too benefits from the arrangement, you remember.



Just realized I have a few things to say about Forrest Gump, as well.

2. FG - Interestingly enough, almost the same criticism. What we should feel is exactly undermined in script for some kind of inexplicable necessity of plot development/characterization. I know it's an adaptation of a novel, but a work of art is a work of art.

Is FG not about how simple, authentic goodness and true love can lead to success? Is this not the inspirational message of the film?
Hmm, sort of. I'd replace "success" with "happiness." Which, given everything else I'm about to quote below, seems like the crux of our disagreement on the film.

Forrest seems to care very little about his success in a financial sense. And the "true love" is more of the general, love-for-mankind sense, not in the Princess Bride sense (hey, Robin Wright Penn's in both).

This is exactly what doesn't happen in FG. Forrest is anything by simple or authentic. I mean, he is personally, but he's not portrayed as such. First of all, he has superhuman speed. WTF? Second of all he's just amazing at ping pong apparently? Also WTF? These are astounding talents that should be rewarded, but THEY are what make him succeed. There is no message of inspiration. None of us are that fast or good at ping pong. Unless the film was aimed towards that strata of people? It undermines itself with this stupid superhuman stuff. Why, I ask? It was fun to watch, but the message was lost entirely.
These are fun little episodes, to be sure, and more than a little random, but they're not the ultimate reason he's successful, and they're not the most important parts of his life. The ping pong thing is almost completely incidental to everything else that happens, for example, so let's just focus on his speed.

The speed is certainly useful when it comes to running away, and arguably useful for helping him rescue those soldiers, but by and large it just gets him into college. But what does that get him? His diploma ends up being largely irrelevant, seeing as how he just ends up in Vietnam.

Besides, I don't have to tell you that the story has a fable-like quality to it at times, so his speed almost seems like a karmic reward for the leg braces, which I'd always assumed strengthened his legs and made him faster, whether or not that's at all plausible in reality.

But really, the key thing here is not that he's successful, but that he doesn't care that he's successful. He likes it well enough, but his attitude towards money is that having it just means he has "one less thing" to worry about. He has roughly the same temperament when he's a terribly poor, crippled boy as he does when he's a very comfortable multi-millionaire. I think that pretty definitively undermines the idea that the film is about success.

Jenny only wants to be with him when he's a decorated soldier and on television. Isn't that convenient? I'm a good feminist so the caricature of the opportunistic gold-digger taking advantage of a man is very evident here. Simply, it is obscene.
It sure is, but movies are allowed to have obscene characters. She's a counter to Forrest in most ways; she thinks only of herself, and never seems satisfied with what she's doing. She's always looking for the next thing. She's the polar opposite of Forrest in all these ways.

I'd say she's a bit more tragic than anything, but really, she has to be pretty distasteful, because it makes it that much more significant that Forrest accepts her, anyway.



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The bulk of the story is strange then, because it shows his journey. Why not just show him as a very wealthy simpleton who longs for something more? Also, he is kind of proud at his accomplishments. He carries around a magazine of himself. I think this is a bit more than just simple "luuk wat i deed" childish pride. He's not portrayed as being THAT oblivious. You've led me on to yet another aspect of the film that I dislike.

My god, is this not the ultimate pro-millionaire propaganda? Is this not the ultimate conservative-message theme film? It's meant to show that millionaires, like the executive of BP, are just regular guys like you and me and Forrest. They only want simple happiness, but have been caught up in the big world they are in. This is exactly what millionaires aren't, so why portray one as such unless there is some kind of reason. Remember, this is a multi-million dollar film. Zemeckis is probably a multi-millionaire.

What is important is that Jenny is not the fully sympathetic tragic hero. She is to be loved for her womanly flaws, her selfishness and gold-digging. Forrest, our simpleton hero, is the object of our sympathy. We sympathize with him precisely because he should have loved someone else who was better for him, someone who wasn't such a slutty beotch. I'm being tongue-in-cheek here, but as a feminist, there isn't much room to play with negative female stereotypes in family films when they are already embedded so deeply into our culture.

Alright, I've got to log off now. I've been on all morning.



The bulk of the story is strange then, because it shows his journey. Why not just show him as a very wealthy simpleton who longs for something more? Also, he is kind of proud at his accomplishments. He carries around a magazine of himself. I think this is a bit more than just simple "luuk wat i deed" childish pride. He's not portrayed as being THAT oblivious.
I don't know how to answer questions that wonder aloud "what if the movie had been this other way?" and then proceed to offer something that is completely different from what was shown. And the idea of a movie about a person who finds material success to be a poor substitute for personal and relationship-based success sounds like a horrendous cliché to me.

Re: the magazine. Remember the frame story; he's going to visit Jenny. I assume he just wants to show it to her. He does lots of silly things throughout the movie to try to impress her. Even subtle things, like saying he's glad to be with her "in our nation's capital," clearly impressing upon her the fact that he knows this little factoid.

I also buy the simple, childlike pride of it. I don't think that's oblivious, so much as, well, simple. The guy saves a feather, for crying out loud. He doesn't play it cool.

If those two reasons aren't enough, it's also enough for me that it simply makes for a very amusing moment. Which kind of answers the unstated question "why show his journey?" Well, because it's a fun and inventive journey and contains an epicness that contrasts with his simplicity, that's why.

You've led me on to yet another aspect of the film that I dislike.
This, of course, was my intent all along.

My god, is this not the ultimate pro-millionaire propaganda? Is this not the ultimate conservative-message theme film? It's meant to show that millionaires, like the executive of BP, are just regular guys like you and me and Forrest. They only want simple happiness, but have been caught up in the big world they are in. This is exactly what millionaires aren't, so why portray one as such unless there is some kind of reason. Remember, this is a multi-million dollar film. Zemeckis is probably a multi-millionaire.
I really think this is off the deep end. Forrest doesn't even make an attempt to make much money, and seems not to care about it at all. As you yourself point out, this isn't what successful businessmen are like at all, yet for some reason you seem to think this supports your theory, rather than undermines it.

The salient fact here is this: Forrest doesn't seem to care about his success. The movie is not about financial success at all; it undermines the very pursuit of it, if anything. I don't think it has a lot to say about capitalism (is that what you mean by "pro-millionaire"?), but if it has anything to say about it, it's certainly suggesting that money isn't what's really important.

What is important is that Jenny is not the fully sympathetic tragic hero. She is to be loved for her womanly flaws, her selfishness and gold-digging.
How do you get that? I didn't love her, and I doubt most of the audience did. I think they sympathized with her because she was dealt a terrible hand in life and never got over it, and that's reasonable. She's loved in spite of her flaws, not for them.

Forrest, our simpleton hero, is the object of our sympathy. We sympathize with him precisely because he should have loved someone else who was better for him, someone who wasn't such a slutty beotch. I'm being tongue-in-cheek here, but as a feminist, there isn't much room to play with negative female stereotypes in family films when they are already embedded so deeply into our culture.
Wait, are you claiming the movie wants us to love an unlovable character, or that it wants us to think she's horrible so that we sympathize with Forrest for being stuck with her? You seem to be doing both.




Currently, I'm also very biased towards Asian cinema--especially Japanese and Taiwanese cinema--because I've been watching almost only that for about a year now.
been and read your blog but didn't see many reviews of Japanese or Taiwanese films except one anime. I'd be interested to read about your thoughts on what you've been watching as there are a few of us interested in Asian cinema.



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My blog is not about films. It's about me being pretentious and bluffing that I know something about critical theory and Jacques Lacan.

I was thinking for a while about listing the differences between eastern and western cinema, but I don't think there are any "culturally embedded" differences as such since a lot of eastern filmmakers are influenced by western filmmakers and equally the reverse. Seven Samurai forever impacted western action films. Anime was originally based off of Walt Disney's animation style. Tsai-Ming Liang, my favorite filmmaker period, takes Tarkovsky's pacing but shirks off the despair and heaviness for slapstick and sight gags. I think Cries and Whispers can talk more about what makes Japanese cinema unique, since she took a class on it. I haven't got a lot I can say definitively in terms of specific differences in form unfortunately. The Japanese seem to move the camera very little, if at all, Ozu being a good example, but I feel that this is common in the past everywhere, no? Current directors seem to be doing whatever they want. Tsai's form is very Japanese, very Ozu, I think, even though he's Taiwanese. He rarely moves the camera, but the thing that makes him stand out are his long takes and how he keeps figures at a distance without close-ups. He also never uses music that isn't in the film itself. It could be called ultra-minimalist. I'm not sure if Tsai has a western analog yet. He's very new. I've seen all his films except his very latest, but maybe he represents someone for me that is truly innovative in the medium.

Hou Hsiao-hsien is from Taiwan too. I've heard he's great, though I've only seen his Café Lumière which is supposed to be based off of Ozu's style, which is just awesome because it's very instructive to see his "techniques" come alive when depicting postmodern Japan.

Of course, I also count anime as Asian cinema. Hideaki Anno, a former Ghibli animator, is one of my other favorite directors. He's done 2 live-action films, Shiki-Jitsu and Love & Pop, using the same composition and editing style that he uses in his Animes, several of which are some of the most famous in Japanese history. He's very postmodern Japanese in the sense that he doesn't "obey" the Ozu rules and experiments with a lot of different techniques.

As someone already said before on the Departures thread, the Japanese also have a tendency to be ultra violent in recent decades. Anime is prone to this as well. Takeshi Miike is a well worn transgressor of violence. A lot of people like his lolmagnum opus gorefest Ichi the Killer, but I definitely prefer his Audition. It is relatively goreless, but very disturbing. The latter is widely available; I saw it in Best Buy once.

Sion Sono, who directed #10 on my list, is one of the most amazing directors around, and I'm easily considering letting him trump Tsai as my favorite director. All his films are a mindf*ck and utterly saturate you with his mastery of the medium. The plots are 100% original too; they're like nothing you've seen. Suicide Club and it's sequel Noriko's Dinner Table are tremendous.

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang is like the Michel Gondry of Asia; he's from Thailand. I've only seen 2 of films, Last Life in the Universe and Monrak Transistor, but they are very good. Thailand has their own style too, I feel, but again I can't put it into words. The only other Thai director I've seen is Apichatpong Weerasethakul, called Joe's, Syndromes and a Century. This film has literally zero plot and tells the same "story" twice in completely different settings.

Keep in mind, I've seen zero films from Mikio Naruse and Kenji Miziguchi, who are said to be the best Japanese directors long with Ozu and Kurosawa. Currently, I'd like to see as many Asian films as I have seen western films and in all time periods.



Tsai-Ming Liang, my favorite filmmaker period, takes Tarkovsky's pacing but shirks off the despair and heaviness for slapstick and sight gags. I think Cries and Whispers can talk more about what makes Japanese cinema unique, since she took a class on it. I haven't got a lot I can say definitively in terms of specific differences in form unfortunately. The Japanese seem to move the camera very little, if at all, Ozu being a good example, but I feel that this is common in the past everywhere, no? Current directors seem to be doing whatever they want. Tsai's form is very Japanese, very Ozu, I think, even though he's Taiwanese. He rarely moves the camera, but the thing that makes him stand out are his long takes and how he keeps figures at a distance without close-ups. He also never uses music that isn't in the film itself. It could be called ultra-minimalist. I'm not sure if Tsai has a western analog yet. He's very new. I've seen all his films except his very latest, but maybe he represents someone for me that is truly innovative in the medium.
I would be wary of calling Tsai 'very Japanese' and 'very Ozu'. You have contradicted yourself, as i'm not sure Ozu is 'very Japanese' and further to that contradiction, although Ozu rarely moves the camera, he works in domestic grids and close-ups. I scarcely recall anything in Tsai's canon tantamount to Ozu, aesthetically or even thematically. You would never catch Ozu resting for seven minutes on a lone woman crying for instance, like Tsai did in Vive L'Amour.

Hou Hsiao-hsien is from Taiwan too. I've heard he's great, though I've only seen his Café Lumière which is supposed to be based off of Ozu's style, which is just awesome because it's very instructive to see his "techniques" come alive when depicting postmodern Japan.
Now Hou is someone who has been bombarded with comparisons to Ozu and rightfully so. Cafe Lumiere is a straight-up homage to Ozu, specifically Tokyo Story. While I am unsure Hou's techniques ever 'come alive', he is a splendid, splendid fimmaker who like Tsai has struggled off the festival circuit.

And check out Edward Yang. We're talking favourites here so only superlatives will do, but I run out of them for A Brighter Summer's Day and Yi Yi.

Sion Sono, who directed #10 on my list, is one of the most amazing directors around, and I'm easily considering letting him trump Tsai as my favorite director. All his films are a mindf*ck and utterly saturate you with his mastery of the medium. The plots are 100% original too; they're like nothing you've seen. Suicide Club and it's sequel Noriko's Dinner Table are tremendous.
I'm with you here. An extremely promising filmmaker - not one who has done anywhere near enough to be a favourite - but still, Love Exposure was a blast.

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang is like the Michel Gondry of Asia; he's from Thailand. I've only seen 2 of films, Last Life in the Universe and Monrak Transistor, but they are very good. Thailand has their own style too, I feel, but again I can't put it into words. The only other Thai director I've seen is Apichatpong Weerasethakul, called Joe's, Syndromes and a Century. This film has literally zero plot and tells the same "story" twice in completely different settings.
Ratanaruang's Invisible Waves dissapointed me but Last Life in the Universe was an interesting, if unspectacular effort. As for recent Palme d'Or winner Weerasethakul, his Syndromes and a Century was enigmatic and beautiful but Tropical Malady - another that splits in two, this time (partially) interweaving a gay romance with some folkloric jibber-jabber about shapeshifting - passed me by with a whimper.

Keep in mind, I've seen zero films from Mikio Naruse and Kenji Miziguchi, who are said to be the best Japanese directors long with Ozu and Kurosawa. Currently, I'd like to see as many Asian films as I have seen western films and in all time periods.
You must. Naruse and Mizoguchi are generally thought of to be more 'Japanese' than Ozu and Kurosawa (whatever that means; there is certainly room to manoeuvre here), but cultural criticism aside, and shouldn't it be just, I can't think of many other filmmakers i'd rather be around.



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It might be hard or stereotypical to ever pin down what Japanese means, but for some reason I always think of Ozu's quiet style and familial subject matter.

Well Tsai = super long takes if you want to distill him down. I get the same minimalist vibe. Maybe it would be safer to compare it to Hou's Cafe Lumeire, which had some long takes, but not Tsai level.

Yes, I've seen Yi Yi and it is wonderful. I have yet to check out more Yang.



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Now that I'm reading more on Ozu, it's kind of clear how he's not really much of anything but a cinematic genius in the universal sense. Though, I think Tsai develops similarly to Ozu in an analogous sort of way. His camera gets more static for one. He has much less films and no films in the silent era, but let's think about that last statement, eh?

About Mizoguchi, I think I did see his version of The 47 Ronin at one point, but you can never be sure about that story since there're so many versions. It may have been Kon Ichikawa. I just don't even remember it much.

And I just "obtained" Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy. Someone told me that it was the place to start. I won't wait for confirmation on this.



Yes, I've seen Yi Yi and it is wonderful. I have yet to check out more Yang.
The Terrorizer is my favourite, so far.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091355/

Going to check out Love Exposure, although I'm not too sure when as it's quite lengthy. And if we're talking somewhat recent Japanese films I'd recommend these two:

United Red Army (2007, Koji Wakamatsu)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0923869/

Eureka (2000, Shinji Aoyama)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243889/
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I've not seen any of those, Lime. Thanks for the recs. Yang only has a few films, but they seem to be hard to find besides Yi Yi.

Love Exposure flies by. You'll sit down to watch the first 30 mins and get sucked in.
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I never noticed the second part of this response, because it was edited in afterwards. D'oh.

"Unfalsifiable"? Jesus, critiquing art is not a science. My god, the one thing you can't argue with is something that is falsifiable. The discussion would consist of the statement and its counterproof and that would be it.
I disagree; you can say that the film does this or that, and I can give counterexamples, or ask questions about it, and it can be revealed to be a fair critique, or not. It's not science, sure, but if someone says that Schindler, for example, shows no inner turmoil, there is the potential that scenes can be cited that contradict this.

Anyway, as you might remember, I said this in response to you wondering why you weren't getting any responses, and my suggestion was that very subjective opinions are hard to respond to.


Without internal struggle demonstrated, he is very clearly an opportunist.
Okay, but as I mentioned, we see him increasingly uncomfortable with many of the things around him. And I mentioned that good films show us things without telling us. My hypothetical was: how would you do this other than the way it was done? Voiceover? Just talking to himself? I think they did it the best way they can without resorting to something hammy, expository, or amateurish.


What's worse is the position he takes always as "the head of the family", in other words, the head of the fascist state itself, even if such a state is made of Jews. The visual/emotional discourse to characterize Schindler is the same as that of Hitler. He is this elegant savior who brings his people into a new age through fascist collectivization with himself as the paternal leader. The Jews are reduced to being his children. What we want to say now is that Schindler is no better than Hitler. Keep in mind that he "chooses" them. The Jews, themselves the "real" chosen race, with the Nazis re-appropriating this title for themselves, ashamed of their own inadequacy. Schindler creates his private fascist state inside of Hitler's. Even worse because it is the nested core, a perverted reversal of roles in which the oppressed themselves do not even know it, in fact, they have come to love it. His final line, "I could have saved more" is nothing more than Hitler's own deranged imperialist Napoleonism.
I find this very misguided, for several reasons. For one, your leap from "he's the head of this group of people" to "he's just like Hitler" is strange. The only connection here is that they're both leading people and claiming to do so in the name of what's right. That describes a ridiculous number of people throughout history, and throughout fiction. You might as well say they're equivalent because they both like milk.

I have no idea where the thought that the Jews are "oppressed themselves [and] do not even know it" is supposed to come from. They accept working for Schindler because the alternative is likely death. I don't think there are any illusions here, and I think their response is perfectly rational. This guy's giving them a way out, so they take it. It's no more complicated than that.

Hitler wasn't like Napoleon; he may have become that way eventually, if he'd won/survived/whatever, but his goal was not random conquering, and that's one of the reasons it was so treacherous and, sadly, effective. Comparing Schindler to him here is just like comparing him to Hitler before: the most tenuous of connections. In this instance, you seem to be using only the fact that they both thought they could have done "more." But what they're doing "more" of makes all the difference in the world.

That's pretty much my one retort to everything you say in the above quote: the actions are different because they're doing different things for different reasons. You seem to be analyzing the structure of the events without seeing their actual meaning. IE: a guy sets himself up as a leader of sorts and thinks he's doing something right, and wishes he could have done more, thus, they are equivalent. What's left out is WHAT they're doing, and why, and whether or not they're right to think what they do.

The discourse itself is suggestive of the opposite of the attempted message. It undermines itself.
Only if you care more about the structure of each person's motivation than about what they're ACTUALLY doing. You're basically taking "KILLING" and "SAVING" and just replacing it with "VERB."

Without clearly demonstrating Schindler's moral struggle, the act is not selfless but cynical. He too benefits from the arrangement, you remember.
How does he benefit? He spends his fortune in the process.



I find this very misguided, for several reasons. For one, your leap from "he's the head of this group of people" to "he's just like Hitler" is strange. The only connection here is that they're both leading people and claiming to do so in the name of what's right. That describes a ridiculous number of people throughout history, and throughout fiction. You might as well say they're equivalent because they both like milk.
I agree. PN drawing parallels between the two is absolutely absurd. Not particularly the notion of them being similar, but definitely in the evidence he uses to cite this similarity. So is every leader who cares for his people as he would his 'children' similar to Hitler?! Was Moses like Hitler for leading his people out of oppression to the Promised Land? Was Harriet Tubman like Hitler for caring enough for slaves to orchestrate the Underground Railroad? I'm not saying one couldn't argue a correlation between Hitler's motivations, actions, and philosophy and those of Schindler--I don't see one, but the argument can be made I guess--but PN's reasons are just wrong. They're presumptive and require a large stretch of the imagination to link.

I have no idea where the thought that the Jews are "oppressed themselves [and] do not even know it" is supposed to come from. They accept working for Schindler because the alternative is likely death. I don't think there are any illusions here, and I think their response is perfectly rational. This guy's giving them a way out, so they take it. It's no more complicated than that.
Yup.

Only if you care more about the structure of each person's motivation than about what they're ACTUALLY doing. You're basically taking "KILLING" and "SAVING" and just replacing it with "VERB."
YES. EXACTLY what I feel PN has done here.



For the record, I'm not against the idea of critiquing Schindler's List on some meta level where you break it down into a structure absent morality and look for parallels that way. I'm just against using that to draw some kind of moral equivalence, or suggest that such an analysis can be used to suggest that it's undermining its own message.

If anything, I think most discerning movie lovers tend to be impressed with films that have an underlying symmetry like that. The idea that the actions of Hitler and Schindler might mirror each other in some very abstract, stripped-down way can be read as trying to equate them (though, really, why would Spielberg do that?), or it can be read as a way to emphasize the ways in which they don't mirror one another; to emphasize that the WHAT is more important than the HOW. It can be used to hint at an actual equivalence, or more likely, it can be used to highlight the ways in which they contrast. Personally, I think neither is happening, since the criteria is so vague, but even if we grant that this sort of thing is intentional, it's more sensible to read it the second way than the first.