The Holocaust represented on the big screen...?

Question

Does Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List and Robert Benigni's Life is Beautiful both represent the Holocaust and its perpetrators as horrific and inhuman?

Answer 1

I think that both films do an excellent job of portraying the Holocaust and its perpetrators as horrific and inhuman. Both films are uplifting, but they still shine the spotlight on the horrors of the Holocaust. I think this is especially true of "Schindler's List", because a lot of focus is put on one of its characters, Amon Goeth, who runs a death camp. In the film, Goeth is portrayed as someone who is lacking in any redeeming human qualities. Also, "Schindler's List" focuses on the impact of the Holocaust on various individuals. A good example of this is the use of the color pink in the black and white film for the coat worn by a little Jewish girl who is maybe 2 or 3 years old. Because the little girl's coat is the only thing in the movie that is colored, the viewer is able to focus his/ her attention on her and see her to her ultimate fate, which is an early and tragic death. "Life is Beautiful" does a good job of shining the spotlight on the horrors of the Holocaust, because the viewer comes to know and become attached to the main characters of the film, especially the father. For this reason, it has a real impact on the viewer when the father is killed by the Nazis.

Answer 2

I find that out of the two movies you just listed only Steven Spielburg's Schindler's list does justice to the inhumanity that the Jewish people suffered during the Second World War. There are a couple of scenes where the Nazis go through the town and kill every last Jewish Person they can find. There is the Camp Commander of the Camp that houses Schindler's Jew and how he deals with the situation of the Jewish Problem by firing rounds of bullets from his rifle killing in nonce Jewish people as if they were animals. Of course there is the scene where Jewish inmates from the camp must go back to the mass graves of those who were shot by the Germans and having to dig them up and burn them and you see their ashes falling like snow flakes onto the ground. Of course there is the scene where the women that Schlinder is trying to save are sent to one of the most well known concentration camp, Auschwitz-Bickenau, in the Nazi system and there is one scene where one of the women Schlinder is trying to save looks up at the gas chamber smoke stack to see the smoke of bodies being cremated.

As for Robert Beningni's Life is Beautiful. It turly doesn't show all the horrors of that time period in Jewish history for all this movie shows you is in is the huge mountains of bodies behind a gas chamber that Robert Beningni's character just stumbles upon. There is the selection process for the gas chamber which Robert Beningni's character avoids by recongizing the Doctor doing the selecting and getting his attention. Then of course the closing scene where you see Robert Beningni's character being taken by a Nazi guard to be shot. You don't see much of anything except of course the women with their hair cut short and dress in concentration camp type dress and who are force to seperate the clothes after their owners have been killed in the gas chambers.

Answer 3

Well, they tone if back a bit, because the Holocaust was a horrible thing. If you want the real pictures do a yahoo search for pictures of the holocaust and you'll see how horrible it really was. Schindler's List is VERY close to what it was like.

Answer 4

In my opinion, yes and no. I don't think we can ever truly get a sense of the horrors that holocaust victims and survivors endured. Schindler's List was a touching movie, but moreso, it was the story of someone changing their evil ways, and being held as a hero. In truth, he started out a murderer, and redeemed himself by risking his life to save Jewish people from sure death.
Both these movies were touching and entertaining at the same time, but, if you truly want a sense of how horrific the holocaust was, watch to movies filmed by the Nazis themselves. It is terrifying and chilling to see smug smiling faces of Nazi soldiers seperate mothers from children as they are sent to their demise.
I hope that cleared things up a bit.

Answer 5

Rent Escape from Sobibor. I think they did a really good job of showing what life was like in a death camp. Plus it has a bit of gratification in it.