When Spielberg retold Schindler’s List in Premiere

In the early 1990s, the ET filmmaker crafted these two very different films in quick succession. Flashback.

Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist, perfectly understood, in 1939, that the occupation of Poland could provide him with real opportunities to enrich himself. He therefore took charge of a kitchenware factory, became a supplier to the German army and indeed prospered. While he assiduously frequented the Nazis of Krakow, whose camaraderie was essential to his business, he hired, on the advice of his accountant, Itzhak Stern, Jewish workers. Little by little, through contact with everyone, he becomes aware of the barbarity of the regime he serves and the terrible threat that weighs on its workers. The carefree collaborator will suddenly fall into resistance…

Schindler’s List will return this Monday evening on France 3. It is one of the big critical and public successes of Steven Spielberg : this drama about the Holocaust attracted two and a half million spectators in 1994 in France, even if it did not did not win the César for best foreign film to everyone’s surprise!

The channel is in fact offering, at the end of January, special programming around the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, just like Arte, which is planning, for example, this evening Music box (1989), by Costa-Gavras.

Schindler’s List: Steven Spielberg’s definitive coronation

In 1993, the filmmaker began filming with Liam Neeson, Ben Kinglsey, Caroline Goodall and even Ralph Fiennes in Krakow even before having completed post-production on Jurassic Park. He then confided In Firstto François Forestier, this choice to chain together two such different film projects, and explained that initially, he would have liked to do the opposite: first shoot his adventure blockbuster on dinosaurs, then his historical story. Excerpts.

“(Shoot at Auschwitz)It is indeed very painful. Looking back on these events that took place fifty years ago, it’s very close, a heartbeat, it’s hard. The most incredible thing is that I realized that, even among the people who make up my technical team on Schindler’s Listthere are many who are ignorant of the historical facts of the Holocaust.”

“(I remember) these numbers tattooed on my arm… I was three years old, and I was reading these numbers. The people who gathered at my house were survivors: they came to take English lessons, which my grandmother taught. My mother was born in the United States, and my grandparents come from Russia and Austria. I was born after the war. My suffering, when I am confronted with the pain that these people experienced, is nothing. Nothing.”

“My mother is proud, she is so proud… She told me: “Finally! A film I could see.” The last one was ET”

“Being happy is easy for me. My problem is to touch on a subject like this, where my usual happiness would be crumbled. In fact, I wanted to do Schindler’s List first, and Jurassic Park Next. I was forced to reverse the order of production, for practical reasons. It took us two years to prepare Jurassic Parkand waiting another year would have been very expensive.”

“People often take me for a slot machine. But I only shoot projects that interest me. Jurassic Park fascinated me. Schindler’s List fascinates me. For other reasons, of course. Yet it’s the same Spielberg…”

Trailer for Schindler’s Listwhich can also be (re)watched on Première Max:

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