Schindler's List Comparative Essay

Films serve as a powerful portrayal of events because it allows the audience to become engrossed within the story, being able to both visualize and hear details. Although Spielberg in his “Schindler’s List” employs a cinematic portrayal of the Holocaust, while Lanzmann utilizes a first person testimony to provide a historical and emotion filled account of the Holocaust, both use work as a symbol of worth and survival. The juxtaposition of those seen as fit vs those seen unfit parallels that of life and death, thus serving as a motif throughout both films. Spielberg and Lanzmann, in their depiction of the mass genocide of the Jewish people, both utilize the reoccurring symbol of work as means of survival. The prevailing notion that Jews must prove their worth exemplifies how they are completely enslaved to the wills of the Nazi Regime and although they …show more content…
A clear progression of the Holocaust: before the war, as new laws implemented, Jews forced into ghettos, sent to concentration camp and finally in a fantasy reality ending of Jewish survival after the war. The director’s choice to have a German sympathetic hero, as well as, focus on the survival of Jews glamorizes the horrors of the Holocaust and shits the focus from the terrible injustices faced by most and the massacre of millions if the Jewish population. Shoah serves as documentation of one of the two surviving members of Chelmno. This retrograde documentary presentation portrays a more historical depiction of the Holocaust by survivor, a man who can attest to the unspeakable crimes that were committed. These first hand anecdotes not only help the audience to identify with the speaker through empathy, but suture them to the film with a sense of compassion toward the victim and extreme animosity toward the