The Importance of Being Idle

Black & White Movie Day

First it was Citizen Kane. Now I don't know about you, but the first time I saw Kane, I don't know, twenty odd years ago, I expected it to be worth seeing beacuse of its place in history, but I didn't expect it to be any good, or indeed any fun. How wrong I was. There's a reason it's considered the greatest film of all time, and whilst a lot of that is because of its historical place, its technical skill and audacity, its performances and blah blah blah, its not all about that: mostly its just 'cos its a damn good story well told. If you haven't seen it, or think you know what its all about, let go of your preconceptions and go watch the damn movie! You'll enjoy it, I promise.
The second movie Schindler's List. Now, I've always avoided Schindler's List like the plague, because I've always figured "I know about the Holocaust, I don't need a three hour movie to depress the ass off me". But I saw it on sale today for £4.99 on DVD, so I thought what the hell, right, and bought it. Much like Citizen Kane all those years ago, my preconceptions were totally blown away. For a start, its not a movie about the Holocaust, its a movie about hope. I mean, obviously its about the Holocaust, but there's so much more here. I also thought it was extremely brave, and important, to humanise Amon Goeth. Sure, he's a bastard, capricious, vain, self-centred and lazy (he seems to feel that every new directive is yet another drain on his precious time, as if he didn't have enough to do) but he's also just a man, and I think more than anything its always been important to understand the the Final Solution was carried out by men, and not by mysterious personifications of Absolute Evil (although if you were to do even minimal research into the real Goeth you'll see that he's been soft-pedalled in the movie - the real man was cruel in ways you simply wouldn't believe in fiction). I expected to feel utterly traumatised at the end of it all, but I felt the opposite, I felt uplifted and hopeful for both my life and for us as a species. The only moment I cried, oddly enough, was at the end when the war is over and Oskar is leaving. They've written him the letter, given him the ring, and then he just breaks down, and starts working out how many more people he could've saved if only he'd sold his car, or his jewelry, or if he hadn't wasted to much on parties... I don't know if it's just the release of tension of knowing that no more bad things can happen or what, but from that point on I was just gone, and it gets worse when you see the real survivors laying stones on Schindler's grave. So yeah, I realise I'm about a decade late on this, but that is one damn good film and everyone should see it. What do you mean everyone already had? I was the last person on Earth...? Damn.
So yeah, those have been some timely movie recommendations today, Schindler's List (1993) and Citizen Kane (1941). Let no-one say I haven't got my finger on the pulse, that I'm not in tune with the zeitgeist, that I'm not down with the kids...

posted by BadMonkey @ 10:11 PM