The making and context of Schindler's List (Spielberg,1993)

Schindler's list follows the true story (based on the book Schindler's Ark, by Thomas Keneally) of Oskar Schindler, a Nazi party businessman who saved over 1,000 Jews during the holocaust in WW2. The film won seven academy awards (including best picture and best director) and starred Liam Neeson , Ralph Fiennes , and Ben Kingsley. 

Spielberg's film is known as one of the most emotive films of all time which is due to some contextual factors as well as micro features such as close-up shots, performance and movement of the characters and the score used. The context behind Spielberg making Schindler's list is that the holocaust was not very well know about and so he wanted to make the subject more well known to those who were oblivious, those who deny the holocaust, and those who had no idea what happened to Jews in Poland during the war. As a Jew, Spielberg felt that the film was a Jewish film for Jews to use against non-Jews as a historical record of what happened. He also felt that any money he made from the film would be 'blood money' and so did not receive a salary for the film. In Germany post 1993, Schindler's List was shown to every schoolchild over 14 years to show them what the Germans did and to also highlight the racial guilt of the country.

Another contextual point is that Spielberg chose to use B-List actors (Liam Neeson who played Oskar Schindler, Ben Kingsley who played Itzhak Stern, and Ralph Fiennes) rather than A-List actors so that the cast would not dominate the film to allow for the story and content to be the main focus of the film. As the the film is based on a true story, it makes it more engaging as the audience want to know what really happened. However, the way audiences react to the film completely depends on their own experiences of the film and the subject matter. For example the German school children would react differently to the film as they have been forced to watch a something that completely disgraces their country and forefathers; whereas a Jewish descendant may react to the horrific events that took place as it was a family member it happened to. When the survivor Mila Pfefferberg saw Ralpf Feinnes, she started shaking as he reminded her so much of the real Amon Goeth. This just shows how much your nationality/ experiences effect how you react to film as well as the context of the film.