Schindler's List
All actors and roles (10)
Short description
Schindler's List tells the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who arrives in Kraków after the German invasion of Poland and builds a fortune through a factory that relies on Jewish labour. His accountant, Itzhak Stern, is the one who truly understands the business, while Schindler devotes himself to cultivating ties with Nazi officials. At first the arrangement looks like exploitation, but as the persecution of Kraków's Jews intensifies and deportation looms, Schindler begins using his wealth and connections to keep his workers out of the camps, eventually assembling a list of employees whose lives he purchases.
Steven Spielberg directed and produced the film, his nineteenth feature in chronological order, following Hook and preceding Jurassic Park. Steven Zaillian wrote the screenplay, and Branko Lustig and Gerald R. Molen produced alongside Spielberg. Liam Neeson plays Schindler, with Ben Kingsley as Stern, Ralph Fiennes as the SS officer Amon Goeth, Caroline Goodall as Emilie Schindler, Jonathan Sagall as Poldek Pfefferberg and Embeth Davidtz as Helen Hirsch. The production involved 134 credited cast members and 76 credited crew.
Made for a budget of 22 million dollars, the film earned about 321 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 9 out of 10 from roughly 1.6 million votes, while on TMDB it has 8.6 out of 10 from around 18,000 votes. A critics' rating of 9.3 out of 10 from 135 reviews places it at a similar level to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- In the 1980s, Martin Scorsese refused to direct, believing that only a Jewish director could properly make this film. He eventually swapped projects with Spielberg, taking on 'Cape Fear' (1991).
- Filming wrapped four days ahead of schedule. It lasted a total of 72 days.
- At the beginning of the epilogue, the song “Jerusalem of Gold” is performed, which was written only in 1967 and is not thematically related to the Holocaust, and was therefore replaced with another song (“Eli, Eli”) in the Israeli release of the film.
- Spielberg intended to cast Claire Danes in the film, but she declined, otherwise she would have had to put her studies on hold for a time.
- When former Auschwitz prisoner Mila Pfefferberg was introduced to Ralph Fiennes, she couldn't hide her trembling with excitement – he was so similar to the real Amon Göth.
- Tim Roth was considered for the role of Amon Göth.
- Steven Spielberg refused his fee for the film. According to him, it would be “blood money.” Instead, he founded the “Shoah Foundation” with the money earned from the film (Shoah means “Catastrophe” in Hebrew). The Shoah Foundation’s activities consist of preserving written testimonies, documents, and interviews with victims of genocide, including the Holocaust.
- Almost 40% of the film was shot using a handheld camera.
- In the final scene of the film, a man whose face is not visible lays flowers on Schindler's grave. It is not Spielberg, as some assume, but Liam Neeson.
- Spielberg offered the direction to Roman Polanski, but he refused for personal reasons. The fact is that when he was 8 years old, he lived in the Krakow ghetto and escaped from it on the day of its liquidation. Later, Polanski's mother died in Auschwitz.
- To clothe 20,000 extras, the costume designer placed advertisements everywhere stating that the studio wanted to purchase clothing from wartime. And since the economic situation in Poland in the early 90s was quite difficult, local residents readily sold clothes from the 30s and 40s that they had preserved.
- The lawyer of British singer Pete Doherty, Eamon Sherry, committed suicide after watching this film. According to Eamon Sherry's wife, her husband fell into depression after viewing this film, which features a detailed depiction of concentration camps.
- Initially, Steven Spielberg intended to make the film in Polish and German, with English subtitles.
- Unlike the film's plot, Amon Göth was hanged only on the third attempt.
- The renowned director and screenwriter Billy Wilder participated in creating the first draft of the screenplay, and was even considered as director at the very earliest stage of the project's development. It was Wilder who later persuaded Spielberg to become the director of this film.
- Juliette Binoche declined to participate in the film.
- This film marks the beginning of Spielberg's collaboration with cinematographer Janusz Kamiński. He shot all of Spielberg's subsequent films.
- The role of Oskar Schindler was offered to Harrison Ford and Bruno Ganz.
- The actual Schindler's List was found in his Frankfurt apartment only in 2000. Schindler lived the last months of his life in this apartment. He passed away in 1974.
- Schindler's List became the most expensive black-and-white film in history. The previous record belonged to another war drama – The Longest Day (1962).
- Mieczysław Pemper, the compiler of Schindler's List, passed away on June 7, 2011. He worked as a consultant on the filming and is part of the image of Itzhak Stern, Schindler's manager, in the film itself.
- Nothing green could be used during filming, as this color looks poor on black-and-white film.
- Since Spielberg was unable to obtain permission to film in Auschwitz, he had to build a set nearby, meticulously replicating the concentration camp.
- Specifically for his role, Ralph Fiennes gained 13 kg. He did this by drinking a lot of 'Guinness' beer. According to the director, he invited this actor because of his 'devilish sexuality'.
- The scene depicting the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto occupied only one page in the script. Spielberg expanded it to 20 pages and 20 minutes of screen time. He created it based on testimonies of eyewitnesses to those events.
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