Of
the many Cinema halls in Cinema Road in Kakinada in East Godavari district,
Satyagowri is perhaps unique. In 1990s
it used to screen only English movies – the specialty was they would issue only
one ticket to the person standing in the queue, all had to stand in the queue
and those who stood within the marked line, were sure of getting a ticket ! –
it had good music system inside – understand that this theatre stands renovated
in 2008, has capacity of 696 and now screens Telegu movies as well. I remember seeing this movie there – on day 1
– there were not many and more than half moved out fast in a few minutes as
they could see more of a typewriter and letter only as someone leaving the hall
remarked.
It
was ‘Schindler’s List’ based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally,
an Australian novelist, released in 1993
- directed and co-produced by Steven
Spielberg and scripted by Steven Zaillian. It was a film based on the life of Oskar
Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand
mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his
factories. It starred Liam Neeson as Schindler.
Reportedly, Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the Schindlerjuden (Schindler
Jews), made it his life's mission to tell the story of Schindler. Spielberg
became interested in the story when executive Sid Sheinberg sent him a book
review of Schindler's Ark. Schindler's
List premiered on November 30, 1993, in Washington, D.C. and is among the greatest films ever made, also a box
office success. In 2007, the American
Film Institute ranked the film 8th on its list of the 100 best American films
of all time. The Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the
National Film Registry in 2004.
It
is a touching story dating back to 1939 when the Germans move Polish Jews into
the Kraków Ghetto as World War II begins. Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German,
arrives in the city hoping to make his fortune. SS-Untersturmführer (second
lieutenant) Amon Goeth arrives in Kraków to oversee construction of Płaszów
concentration camp. When the camp is completed, he orders the ghetto
liquidated. Many people are shot randomly and killed in the process of emptying
the ghetto. Schindler keen to save as
many as possible bribes those in power – the list (Schindler's List") is
the list of people to be transferred to Brinnlitz and thus saved from transport
to Auschwitz. Schindler even stops
production and spends his fortune in bribing and saving people. He runs out of money just as Germany surrenders, ending the war in
Europe.
In
the film after some scenes depicting Goeth's execution and a summary of
Schindler's later life events after the war, the black-and-white frame changes
to a color shot of actual Schindlerjuden at Schindler's grave in Jerusalem.
Accompanied by the actors who portrayed them, the Schindlerjuden place stones
on the grave. In the final scene, Neeson places a pair of roses on the grave.
It is an emotionally touching movie indeed !.
In
Aug 2013 – Oskar Schindler was in news as a historically important letter from him
was is among documents to be sold at New Hampshire auction house. On auction was the one-page letter signed by
Schindler - sent from his enamelware
factory in Krakow, Poland, where he employed more than 1,000 Jewish workers
from a nearby Nazi concentration camp. The letter, written in German and dated
Aug. 22, 1944, was sent on behalf of one of Schindler's employees, Adam
Dziedzic, who had 'received a clearings contract for unloading and assembling
war-necessary machinery and has been sent to Sudetengau.' The nine or 10 lists
of employees he submitted to the Nazis became known collectively as
'Schindler's list.' The documents also included a medical transfer document
that underscores Dziedzic's importance to Schindler and plans for part of
Schindler's Krakow munitions factory, the auction house said.
Subsequent
newsreports in Aug 2013 indicated that the collection of documents of Schindler
fetched more than $122,000 at an online
auction. Earlier, a list of Jews to be rescued by Schindler went unsold on
eBay, after it was listed with a reserve price of $3 million.
Lr of Schindler - picture credit : Daily Mail Co Uk
Steven
Allan Spielberg the director of movie Schindler’s List is considered one of the
most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. In a career
of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and
genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as
archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his
films began addressing humanistic issues such as the Holocaust, the transatlantic
slave trade, war, and terrorism. He is one of the co-founders of DreamWorks
Studios. Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List
(1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws (1975),
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993)—achieved box office
records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time.
With
regards – S. Sampathkumar
29th
Sept.,2014.
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