sycasey 2.0

I'm not sure how true this is to the filmmakers' intent (it WAS 1947, after all), but to me the way this scene reads is not that George is horrified that Mary is unmarried and working at a library. He's horrified that she doesn't know him and is even scared of him. His whole life, that had never been the case. Mary was always there for him. He can't take the loss of that.

I also agreed with him that I would have enjoyed playing Clarence: a relatively small role that makes a big impact on the audience. That's what Orson Welles once called a "star part" (referring to his own role in The Third Man).

Agreed. Mary would NEVER marry Sam, because she's never been interested in Sam. It's other people who said she should be interested. She's a woman of integrity and likes George because he has it too. No one else in Bedford Falls held the same interest for her. The same is true on the other side with Violet. She's not a bad person; George still likes her as a friend. But their brief encounter (when he talks about running out to the country and taking in the scenery, and she reacts with, "What are you nuts?!") demonstrates that they aren't compatible. George only ever had a deep connection with Mary.

Sorry to keep dominating this discussion, but this movie gave me a lot to think about! On this most recent viewing, I found that Schindler's List worked less as a document of history and more as a statement about how to resist such horrors in the future, should we ever be confronted with them again (and frankly, I think we're closer right now than we have been in a while, at least in the West). This was a nice piece that elucidated those ideas: https://www.flickfilosopher.com/2018/12/movies-for-the-resistance-schindlers-list.html IMO, this is also why it's valuable that Spielberg wanted to make his film about a man of action and a man who was fighting for others, not for himself. Such an approach helps make the message more universal.

Something else I noticed while watching this movie again: I was waiting to hear the famous John Williams violin theme, you know the one . . . . . . so plaintive and sad, it sounds like the instrument is literally crying. But the movie goes a LONG time before you hear this, the most iconic musical theme. I think you don't get it until maybe an hour or so into the movie, when Schindler first starts carving out his own factory under Goeth's command, so he can shelter his people from the worst abuses of the Nazis. It's pretty much only used after that when Schindler decides to help someone out of the goodness of his heart, which made me realize: it's the hero theme. This sad little melody is used to tell you when Schindler is acting his best, when his empathy and humanity is winning out. If that's not a great illustration of the conflicting emotions at the center of the film, I'm not sure what is. Hot take: John Williams is pretty good at movie music.

I dunno, it's not as beautiful as the usual Spielberg effort, but there are still some great shots in there. And IMO, it's still terrific visual storytelling, the kind of movie where you can turn the dialogue off and still generally understand what's happening.

Moreover, this is specifically what Schindler's List is about. It's the whole metaphor of the girl in the red coat, that something about this individual stood out to Schindler for some reason, and that image stuck with him and drove him to do what he did. (Yes, the movie presents his motivations as more complicated and ever-shifting than that, but at root that's what it is -- he distilled the whole thing down to individual people he cared about and wanted to save.)

I think it definitely affects you, but in a different way perhaps? It's hard to define, but it definitely feels different (not more or less valuable, just different).

So my argument is that you kind of need both. In school or in a museum you can learn about the numbers of deaths and concentration camps and refugees. But that kind of fact-based learning will still likely feel abstract and not completely "real." Humans are emotional, tribal creatures. I think for a lot of people it doesn't truly hit home until you can connect it to a personal story like this movie does. You see that in politics all the time: the candidate who wins isn't the one who had all the thorough facts and figures behind them, it's the one who connected personally. The message is much more powerful if you feel personally connected to it.

Basically agree with everything here. I was also surprised at how swiftly this film moved, not having seen it in at least a decade. It just flies right along, despite the 3+ hour run time and brutal subject matter. I've heard criticisms like Hoberman and Mamet's before, and I tend to agree with Paul: I think these criticisms generally lose sight of the needs of dramatic storytelling, versus historical record. An audience watching drama responds to things like relatable characters, emotional highs and lows, a driving narrative, etc. You can subvert these things sometimes, but if it's totally devoid of that stuff they're going to check out. So yes, Spielberg chose to focus his story on a non-Jew who was flawed but did a heroic thing in the end. I think this works well for his approach, for a couple of reasons: 1. Spielberg is, above all things, a brilliant director of action. I think this extends to his characters too: he works best with lead characters who are always moving and doing things. Schindler is that, and is Spielberg's way in to exploring the Holocaust. If his central character is Jewish then that character will have to be static and constantly victimized. I don't think Spielberg works well in that mode. (Seems like the only way to get really active Jewish protagonists in a Holocaust movie is to generate a fantasy world, as Tarantino did with Inglorious Basterds.) 2. The audience for this film is not just Jewish people. If Amy's statistic about Holocaust denial is to be believed, then it seems another important task for this film is to get people who might have doubted the existence of the Holocaust to believe it. Schindler is a non-Jew who is led down the path to full understanding of how terrible his government's treatment of Jews really was. The movie is leading its modern audience down the same path. This is part of what makes it effective as drama. I've got more thoughts (boy, this movie was way more emotionally effective than I expected it to be on this rewatch), but will need to return later.

To me, the cancer itself did not read as "resolved" at the end of Creed, just that the characters' relationship was solidified. I don't think the movie states one way or the other if he's beaten cancer yet. I haven't seen Creed II yet, so maybe that further explains what happened there. Or maybe I just don't remember the original movie well enough (I haven't seen it since theaters).

Hard disagree. This subplot culminates in Adonis finding out about Rocky's cancer and admonishing him for keeping it a secret and refusing to fight for his life. This is then reflected in Adonis' epiphany during the last match that he also needs to learn to fight for himself (not against his father or anyone else). Then in the denouement we see Adonis and Rocky running up the steps together, visually demonstrating how they supported each other in their respective battles. It's a supporting arc that feeds the main character's arc, not one that "takes over" at all.

And Adonis says as much in the film. I think that's right. Honestly, most of Amy's criticisms of Creed are pretty baffling to me.

Isn't this really true about almost everything you'd call a "sports movie?" The actual sports scenes are usually relatively few, and most of the movie is spent building up the characters . . . because that's how movies work, you have to care about the people in the "big game" more than the game itself.

If we're taking the description of how hard Drago's punches are in Rocky IV completely literally, Rocky should probably have been decapitated by now.

Sounds far-fetched, but there is precedent.

Yeah, but even after that she's able to watch TV from across the room with no problem. I think Rocky is like E.T., in that he has healing powers to magically cure nearsightedness.

I was kind of rolling with it until he closed the door and held it closed. I guess Adrian is lucky that Rocky isn't actually a sexual predator.

Oh yeah, Rocky IV is SUPER cartoony. It's also basically a series of music videos with the thinnest of plots connecting them. That's probably why the details of it are seared into everyone's brains -- the iconography is so pronounced.

Her argument that I strongly disagree with here is the idea that Creed ever feels like Stallone is "taking over" the movie with his character. I saw the movie twice and never felt like anyone other than Adonis was the central and most important character. The whole climax is centered around him and the resolution of his character arc. Same with the opening scenes. It might have been more interesting if Rocky died in the movie, but it's not a deal-breaker IMO. Where I really like Creed over the other Rocky movies is that I think Coogler's filmmaking chops are a cut above the rest.

She has some very wrong opinions about Creed though. Anyway, on this movie: I like it. I don't have the same emotional connection to the Rocky franchise that a lot of people clearly do, but I can see why it's effective. The training montages and the fight at the end were clearly influential for all future sports movies. So even though this isn't a personal favorite of mine, the cultural stamp of Rocky can't really be denied. I say it stays on the list . . . maybe a bit lower than it is now.