Customer Reviews

Schindler's List - Limited Edition Gift Set [VHS]

5 star:		(517)
4 star:		(55)
3 star:		(34)
2 star:		(32)
1 star:		(45)

 

 

Meet Oskar Schindler. A German living in occupied Poland during World War II. A member in good standing of the Nazi party. A womanizer, a war profiteer...and ultimately a man of conscience. A man who became one of the great unsung heroes and humanitarians of the war.

"Schindler's List" chronicles Oskar Schindler's spiritual odyssey from war profiteer to humanitarian and hero. Winner of seven Academy Awards® in 1993, including Best Picture, this harrowing and heart-rending film is Steven Spielberg's masterpiece, and perhaps one of the finest and most important movies ever made. It depicts Schindler's ultimately successful attempt to rescue 1,100 Jews from Hitler's "Final Solution" by getting them to safety outside Poland.

Dynamic performances abound in this beautiful movie, Especially noteworthy are Liam Neeson as the suave Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as the monstrously depraved Nazi colonel, Amon Goeth, and Ben Kingsley as the dignified, principled Jewish prisoner Itzhak Stern.

"Schindler's List" is definitely not light entertainment! This beautiful movie allows viewers to feel like they're actually a part of one of the darkest, most horrific periods in history. (I'm sure this is the reason the film was shot in black-and-white, with only minor "colorized" bits included.) The story of the Holocaust needs to be told over and over again, in hopes that future generations can understand the horrors perpetrated on an entire race of people and prevent future occurrences. "Schindler's List" is perhaps one of the best and most effective vehicles for telling that story I've ever experienced.

Schindler's List is my favorite historical drama of all-time for a number of reasons. Not only is it a masterpiece from a cinematic point of view, but it is priceless for the story it tells to the world.

First of all, the acting is superb. Liam Neeson does well as Oskar Schindler, but in particular I liked Ben Kingsley (as Istak Stern, Schindler's accountant) and Ralph Fiennes (as Amon Goeth, the camp commandant). All of the performances were very convincing and reflect the good casting.

Another great feature of this film is the soundtrack. Slow, soaring music tells of the painful circumstances of the Jews and of their conflict with the Nazi regime. Mixed in with the instrumental pieces are Jewish melodies which also gave me a sense of the cultural traditions of the Jewish people.

From a technical point of view, the decision by director Spielberg to shoot the movie is black-and-white was a good one. In fact, I think it makes the movie better than it would have been in color. The few color segments throughout the movie are aptly placed and help to focus the viewer's attention on particular details through the eyes of Schindler. The scenery and photography were excellent compared to other movies I have seen and contribute to the whole atmosphere of the 1940s. Some people may be put off a bit by the length (over 3 hours) but believe me, every minute is worthwhile. Unlike other long movies, there are no lulls or useless scenes -- everything counts.

The best part of the movie without any doubt is the story itself, the tale of Oskar Schindler and how he was able to save 1100 Jews from the Auschwitz gas chambers by employing them in his enamelware factory and eventually his shelling factory. Schindler's ambition and personal success shines through amidst the Jewish tragedy and shows how one man, if he has the willpower, can accomplish what appears to be impossible. Based on the novel by Thomas Keneally (which I have not yet had the opportunity to read), this movie digs deep into the human soul and shows how different people are able to survive.

There are many touching moments in this film; in particular, near the end when the war has been declared over and the Nazis must flee from the Soviet army. This part and the modern-day segment that follows are both truly heart-warming tributes. I finished watching this movie for about the fourth time yesterday, and even though I didn't cry, tears welled up in my eyes (and this rarely happens when I watch movies).

This movie is a must-see not only for its excellence in the film genre but for the story it presents to the viewer. Although it is not suitable for young children (due to its violence and mature content), any mature individual should see it so they can understand that a spark of good can still exist in a fire of evil. This movie deserved all of the Academy Awards that it received and will likely remain in top ten lists for at least the next fifty years. Highly recommended.

Any way you stack it, Steven Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece SCHINDLER'S LIST is one of the most important and enlightening films ever made. It is a heartfelt, deeply personal film about one of the ghastliest events in human history--the Holocaust--and how one man, a Nazi profiteer by the name of Oskar Schindler, while motivated by money, managed to save some 1200 Jews from the gas chambers of Auschwitz during World War II.

Spielberg wisely does not gloss over the fact that Schindler was every bit the womanizer as he was an astute, cagey businessman who made deals with the Nazis to set up an enamelware factory in the Cracow ghetto and employ the Jewish populace there. But his very trusted secretary Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) manages to awaken a latent spark of humanity in the once cold-blooded Schindler. By the time the war is over and the facts are known about the Nazi atrocities, Schindler is financially broke but spiritually enriched. "He who saves one life saves the world entire."

Filmed in somber, documentary-like black-and-white by Janusz Kaminski, SCHINDLER'S LIST features superb performances by Neeson and Kingsley, as well as British actor Ralph Fiennes as the extraordinarily chilling Nazi commandant Amon Goeth, whose basic senses of Nazi business Schindler must appeal to while keeping the fact that he is sheltering the Jews a secret. Spielberg spares nothing in showing us the horrors of the Nazis barbarism; and although it is, not surprisingly, a very lengthy film (three hours and ten minutes), a lot happens for us to absorb, so it never becomes ponderous or heavy-handed.

Winner of seven Oscars, including a Best Director nod to Spielberg that was long overdue, SCHINDLER'S LIST shows us the worst in humanity, but also the best as well. Even in so much pain and death, there is hope. And that is why this film is such a masterpiece.

I was very excited to see the DVD of Schindler's List finally released. So excited, in fact, that I bought the Collector's Edition. To my dismay, it was not a very exciting collection.

Before I get to that, I will just state that the movie is as good as ever and it has been some time since I have seen it. The quality is clean and clear, while sound is great. This is a film that utilizes the widescreen aspect and should be seen in this format (why they even offer a full screen is beyond my comprehension). Nonetheless, it is an amazing film; certainly Spielberg's finest to date.

The collection that comes with the DVD does not quite meet the films quality. What you will receive in the set is a picture disc of the soundtrack. The soundtrack is from John Williams, and perhaps one of his most moving scores I have heard from him. While he instills his usual thematic sound, the music in this film has a deeply personal emotion that is carried with it, along with Itzhak Perlman's violin solos. Truly beautiful music, however sad it may sound.

Along with the soundtrack is a senitype, which is a reproduction of one of the 35mm frames. I imagine they are the same pictures, one of the girl in the red coat walking along the streets. Its a nice photo, but why do I want it? What am I going to do with it?

Also is a small hardcover book of images from the film. A nice book as well, but with a book that shows photos of the movie, why look at the book when you can just watch the movie? Very little in the making of the film.

Finally is a Certificate of Authenticity. Now this just tops the cake. I mean, a Certificate that says this is a real AND official collector's set, because if I did not get one of these, I was going to assume this was a bootleg of some sort. There is not even a printed autograph! It just brags about the film and tells you what the set offers, which, if you did not open the set to see what was in it, you could not read this little certificate to see what was in it. Completely stupid.

If that does not thrill you enough, then you will also get a little pamphlet that tells you about the SHOAH organization which you can send some money to support them. Ugh.

The DVD offers some extras. No commentary, no behind the scenes footage. Can't break that fourth wall, now!! Keep it real! But you will get stories of the real Schindler Jews who have survived. You will also learn about the SHOAH organization. Furthermore is a video on Schindler's life, which is probably the best extra on the disc. The DVD is two-sided which is another unfortunate aspect which takes me back to the laser-disc days when I had to flip the disc over to continue the film. That annoyws me that I have to do that.

The best part of the collection is the case, which is a plexiglass casing with the names of the list printed in gray. Its pretty cool. While all this stuff is held in a slip case, which does not hold it very well, the plexiglass case has some metal dowels to keep it all in place.

In all, a poor set and for the price, definately not worth it. If I had known it was going to be a disappointing set, I would have just saved my money and bought the movie only version.

The ratings are 5 stars for the movie, and 2 stars for the set, which culminates to about 3 stars overall. If you love the movie, get the movie, not this set.

Schinlder's List is the only movie I have ever seen in a theater where everyone there didn't move during the movie and stayed through the credits. The movie is so moving and powerful words can't do it justice. Spielberg for all of his great movies: Jaws, Close Encounters, Raider's, ET ect. None compare with the masterpiece that is Schilder's List. Not even Saving Privite Ryan, while being as powerful, the movie doesn't hold together as well as Schinder's List. Spielberg threw his heart and soul in this movie and you can tell. The Holocaust is one of the most tragic events in human history, and no movie can ever relate the horror of what happened. But in Schindler's List Spielberg comes as close as one can. The film is shot in Poland on some of the actual sights the real events happened. The true story of how a German businessman/war profiteer saved over 1100 Jews in WWII. With great performances by Liam Leeson, Ben Kingsley and a truely horrifying performance by Ralph Fiennes. This movie tells a story of the power of the human spirit.

Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition)I saw this movie for the first time along with a group of seven other people, in a completely full theater. When the curtain went down and the lights came on, everyone got up and moved to the door, but no one said a word. Not one. It was dead quiet all the way out to the street. I've never experienced anything like that.

I was raised knowing all about the six million we lost in the Holocaust, not to mention the five or six million others who died in the camps, but I didn't really get it until Spielberg silenced me and everyone else in the room. How did he do it?

First of all, he chose the right protagonist. Oskar Schindler, the savior of a thousand Jews, was anything but an angel - he toadied up to those in power unashamedly, paid bribes with money he didn't have, took advantage of the unfortunate for his own ends, cheated endlessly on his wife, and kept his eye on his bottom line to the exclusion of everything else. He was flawed, vulnerable and human, like you and me, and through his reaction to what he sees we can feel the indescribable horror as we could not through the reactions of a saint. There's a scene in this movie where Schindler, out for a horseback ride with one of his girlfriends, happens upon a mountain of corpses being burned. A saint might look sad or angry at such a scene - Liam Neeson's expression is that of a man falling off a cliff he didn't know was there. Faced with such carnage, that's probably how I'd look, too.

Spielberg's other smart move was filming "Schindler's List" in black and white. Siskel and Ebert have pointed out, rightly, that black and white makes images appear somehow eternal, like historical documents rather than mere pictures. That's certainly true here, but it works on many levels. Sometimes the black and white photography has a matte finish and takes on the character of news photography, showing how banal (and therefore how terrifying) an image is, such as those times when Ralph Fiennes Commandant Goeth shoots a few passing prisoners for breakfast. On the other hand, "Schindler's List" contains a great many images that look like they were etched on mirrors, such as the famous shot of a little boy hiding from the Nazis at the bottom of a latrine. At those moments, even when (as one character says) "all around lies the gulf," the pictures soak up a truly heavenly light, as though Someone were watching.

The performers involved certainly behave as though Someone were watching, and they turn in the work of their lives, from the stars to the bit players. Neeson has just the right sort of big, craggy face that can show decadence one minute and agony the next, and he's got the talent to run the whole gamut in all the right places. Fiennes, in his first major role, resembles nothing so much as a sort of human hog, but a cunning and crazed one - he seems able to sweat on cue. Ben Kingsley as Schindler's factory manager, with almost no change in his facial expression, makes us see how he moves from suspicion to hope to love for this strange animal, his boss. And besides these monumental performances, there's the black marketeer who finagles his customers with one breath and loves his wife with the next; the engineer who sacrifices her life to the fact that concrete needs to be poured with care; the old hinge-maker who waits on his knees for a miracle involving a jammed gun; the pretty young woman who informs Schindler that he's running a haven rather than a factory; the kindly but finally gutless industrialist, and a many dozen others, all unforgettable.

And then there's Spielberg's damping down his usual sentimentality, his choice of Yiddish music for the soundtrack, his placement of the camera at a quiet and unobtrusive angle for the worst of evils - I found all of this pretty nearly perfect, but there were those who complained about the movie's historical inaccuracy. In one scene, much noted for its supposed softening of the facts, Schindler's female "employees" find themselves in a big room with shower heads in the ceiling and actually get a shower instead of a flood of poison gas. It's true that most prisoners were not so fortunate, and that such scenes may play into the hands of the filth who claim that there was no cyanide in the camps, but I can't see that as an argument against this movie. If nothing else, the looks of tension on the women's faces before the water comes down is more than enough to tell us what they expect to get.

After all, Spielberg is not a documentarian, he's a storyteller; this story could not have had a better servant. The meaning of the Holocaust is as plain as plain here, particularly at the end when Schindler realizes that he could have saved a few more human beings if he had just thought to sell his car or his gold Nazi pin. He crumples weeping to his knees, only to be lifted up by the men and women he has saved.

A little later we learn that the descendants of Schindler's Jews living in Israel outnumber the entire current Jewish population of Poland. That silences all criticism, as the movie audience already knew. Hence the quiet after the final credits.

Benshlomo says nothing.

"Schindler's List" is a movie so epic and far reaching in its impact that one stops watching it and says, "...so that's why film was invented." Steven Spielberg takes us back to the haunting horror of war-torn Poland and its condemned Jewry during WWII in a film so impeccably well filmed and performed there need not be any kind of "suspension of disbelief" on the part of the viewer. Liam Neeson delivers the performance of his life starring as Oskar Schindler, a true person who takes pity on the imprisoned Jews and helps over 1,100 to safety. He does this against the will of supervillian Amon Goeth, masterfully played by Ralph Fiennes in what in my opinion is the finest theatrical presentation ever captured on film. The film is primarily historical but beautifully touches at the theme of the survival and triumph of the human spirit. Truly, the only disappointment about "Schindler's List" is that not enough films such as this grace our lives. END

Wow. Just wow. That's all. Gripping, moving, tear jerking, uplifting, top notch acting, stunning photography, script line in synch with the book, true life ending, OMG. This is the story of Oskar Schindler who kept over 1,000 people alive during the Nazi reign. This is a movie (and book) you must watch (or read) to believe. I generally do not care for "war" movies, and although I love splatter films and gory fiction books, I despise real life violence. Having once been a victim of violent crime, I have a relationship with real life horror that I do not like to explore, but the heroism of this story so dramatically overwhelms the real horrors that it is a must see for anyone. Liam Neeson is phenomenal in his role as Schindler, and Ben Kingsley along with Ralph Finnes fills out the superb acting. Difficult to watch, impossible to forget, it is truly the story of heroism on its grandest scale.
The most poignant moment is the one, the only, faded splash of faint color in the little girls red coat; the rest of the movie is black and white, which only adds to the impact of the total emotion of this fantastic film.

Schindler's List is such an emotionally shattering and gripping movie that no true words can even describe it. There are scenes in this movie that will live in your memory forever. The performances from Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes are flawless. The soundtrack is also great, with sad, classical music from the great John Williams and violinist Itzhak Perlman. The last few scenes of this movie are so moving, inspirational, and touching that you find yourself literally crying when Oskar Schindler says to Itzhak Stern that he could have got more Jews out of the concentration camps. When Schindler suddenly breaks down and cries, he is so magnificent. I think that crying emotionally on-screen in movies is a greater and better acting style than others. Liam Neeson can act in the last scene he's in, and in general. He should have won the Oscar for playing Oskar Schindler in this movie. Director Steven Spielberg really created a true masterpiece with this movie. This movie should be shown in every history class there is in high school. It is a triumph!

Well, where to begin? Usually I can twitter on for pages about a product, but this is a tough one. Well, let me start with my opinion that Schindler's List is the best film ever made, and deserves all the critical praise it has received. Never before have I seen such an emotionally powerful film.

I am the grandson of a man who, at the age of 14, was trapped in a concentration camp, before later escaping through some miracle. He wasn't Jewish, but lived in Russia and was hauled off one day when he found out that his father had been dead for months, even though he continued to receive letters from him. He later discovered the letters had been written by the Nazis, and sent to him as a cover up. He refused to talk about his experiences, even until his death in July 1996, so I have always tried to find other information about this dark period in history through sources such as books, films and documentaries. I first saw Schindler's List a few years ago, but never watched it all the way through - until recently.

Schindler's List revolves around a true story of Oskar Schindler who helped save the lives of more than a thousand Jews from a terrible fate. In the film, Oskar Schindler is a well-known Catholic, drinker and womaniser who is just in the whole extermination process to make pots of money at the expense of the Jews. He only cares about himself, and is more bothered about his public image than anything else. With all this behind him, he is hardly a man who thinks about...until he starts spending more time at the concentration camps. As the true horrors of the Holocaust unfold, his conscience changes dramatically until the point where he is willing to do anything he can in his power to save 1,100 Jews.

Liam Neeson is absolutely amazing as Oskar Schindler. I cannot think of any other actor than him to play this part. He pulls off the role very effectively and professionally, considering the subject was so hard to pull off. The perfect counterpart to Schindler's character is that of the evil German Nazi commandant Amon Goathe. Played by the remarkable Ralph Fiennes, his character is one of pure evil. The man is demonic, heartless and totally frigid. He has no care for anyone else but himself, and has piercing eyes that will no doubt have been the subject of millions of nightmares. Continual praise is essential for Fiennes, as it must have been very hard to re-enact some of the scenes that caused so much shock and terror throughout the world.

Ben Kingsley is also wonderful as Itzhak Stern, the Jewish man who works as Schindler's accountant. He doesn't have much of a large part in the film, but that all changed when he is needed to type up Oskar's list of people to save. The entire cast consists of more than 30,000 extras who give amazing performances as truly terrified Jews, giving the film a very real feel of what actually happened.

The way Schindler's List is filmed in black and white is perfect. This gives the film a documentary style, which is just the way director Steven Spielberg wanted it. There are only a few colour segments, but these are put to optimum use in making the viewer take note. The most famous of these is the one where Schindler sees a little girl in a red coat running away from the Nazis. He continues to watch her escape, until he later sees her on a pile of bodies awaiting cremation at a concentration camp. He is truly shocked. Spielberg is expressing the horror of the Holocaust here by saying that not even the young and innocent are spared. There are some truly shocking and disturbing scenes in this film, but all of which are brilliant in their tried ways to describe what actually went on. There are many random killings for no apparent reason at all.

This Special Edition of Schindler's List is truly one of the most essential DVD's you could ever hope to own. The movie is, in my opinion, the best I have ever had the pleasure to view. The emotion on display just blows you away, and to own the Special Edition is a great advantage for DVD fanatics. The extra features include:

- Movie soundtrack
- Book
- Senitype from the film
- Voices From The List documentary
- The Shoah Foundation Story With Steven Spielberg
- Cast and crew
- About Oskar Schindler

OVERALL GRADE: 10/10

Schindler's List is my all-time favourite film and is definitely one that all young people should see. It's different for me because my grandad went through almost everything that is in this film, and that makes me think of him as someone very heroic and courageous. While not a film you can watch again and again, Schindler's List is one that will change you and your views on the supposed idealistic world that we live in. It makes you realise how cruel society can be and how far it is possible of going if we let it. Buy this film now - you'll see things totally differently after watching it.