202
PARTISAN REVIEW
positive thinkers who assume that this movie will keep alive the memo–
ries of the Holocaust and thereby will help avoid future atrocities. All of
their comments were appropriate - though the preventive effects of this
movie are rather doubtful.
Why then was I bothered by it? Was it the perfection of the medium
that permeated a production featuring the gradual conversion of the
money-grubbing, callous, womanizing Schindler into the sensitive savior
of eleven hundred condemned Jews? Was it the Sunday afternoon atmo–
sphere of popcorn-munching people who, upon leaving the theater, were
handed a flyer headed by Spielberg's trendy pronouncement that he "had
to make this film to remind people to stop the brutal killings in Bosnia?"
Or was I upset by overhearing the senior citizen behind me, with a de–
cidedly Viennese accent, say to her friend, "I told my daugher on the
phone that I was going to see
Schindler's List.
She said she hadn't heard of
it, and that I should stop thinking of the past"?
Ultimately, I believe, I despaired once again at having people under–
stand that the industrialized murder which took place in Auschwitz and
the other death camps is unique, that no amount of "exposure" could
possibly educate masses of otherwise well-meaning individuals to stand up
to clever demagogues intent on inciting them to hate their neighbors - of
whatever race, color, or conviction they might be. Yes, Spielberg tried to
get beyond the customary, well-meaning admonitions, and beyond the
so-called scientific studies that depersonalize the victims. But even though
his effort is paved with good intentions, and he may even instruct a few
people to become more tolerant, he has ended up trivializing the
Holocaust. In fact, Spielberg's extraordinary commercial sense effectively
turned Nazi ideology and monstrous, industrialized murder into a specta–
cle. Thereby, "never again," already one of the slogans of our Zeitgeist,
yet another sales gimmick, has become the most recent vehicle to further
Spielberg's outstanding reputation and populist appeal.
Few movie critics have even mentioned that Spielberg's ordinary ac–
tors are well-formed and well-fed; that they all wore snow boots, even as
they visibly shivered under their coats and scarves while trotting to their
death ; that even the best-looking children - when undernourished, cold,
and scared - develop scars and scabies and look scrawny and listless. None
of the actors resembled the skeletons who were liberated by the American
soldiers in 1945, who could not move, much less run to get onto trains.
Nor would the real bodies of the naked women have been as appealing to
the audience as those of the film's cast when, before being saved, they be–
gan to take the notorious showers of lethal gas in Auschwitz. But what a
suspenseful scene, how magnificently conceptualized by Spielberg! Had
he included a few newsreels of the actual events, fewer people would
