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Schindler’s List

There are many movies that I didn’t watch because the topic and the protagonist didn’t appeal to me. Often because they were female-oriented. They just didn’t push enough buttons for me to be excited about. That they won Best Picture mattered not.

A lot of these great movies I saw accidentally.

  • Nothing better on the plane
  • It was free (plane/tv)
  • A group scenario (backpacker hostel lounge / peer pressure)

And now, semi-boredom and wanting to tick boxes before cancelling Foxtel.

Spielberg clearly has a skill. But his skill is not transparent like so many directors. Here’s my go, untested on other movies of his, just from Schindler’s List:

  • Uses trickery sparingly and intriguingly – red dress, camera movement
  • Clear good guy / bad guy
  • No “what the heck” twists
  • Bad guys are slightly larger than life, in the direction of super-villians
  • Bad guys have a moment when you think they will be nice, then they double down
  • A cast of regular Joes, like a framework of reality
  • Regular Joes being defiant or standing up bravely to the villians
  • A lot of brief extras with personality
  • Occasional extreme violence, shocking relative to the rest of the film
  • Occasional sexuality, unusual relative to the rest of the film
  • Family members in the periphery
  • Children existing in the story
  • Subtle colouring (or black and white)
  • Not too many main characters, not confusing
  • Pace – I know that is editing but the story has a faster pace than similar dramas
  • Movement. A known known. Don’t have talking heads, have moving talking people
  • Lessons learned from the silent era – expressions
  • Rare use of two heads on the screen, talking
  • Voice of one while looking at the other

A lot of these sound obvious as I write them, but I think the skill is to do all of them. No egotistical flourishes, just getting everything correct, by the book. Plus a whole lot more, obviously.

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