By Sean Chavel
The most honored work in director Steven Spielberg’s career remains to
be Schindler’s List, which captured seven Academy Awards
including best picture and best director in 1993. The film did more than transform
public perception of the horrors of the Holocaust, it had transformed the director
as well. Spielberg found his spiritual calling when he created the Shoah Visual
History Foundation soon after the film was released.
Spielberg met with a press conference last week to honor the 10-year anniversary
of the foundation and announce his celebrated film to DVD arrival. Spielberg
is more interested in his humanitarian work and was eager to explain some of
the foundation’s efforts.
Over 50,000 videos have been made of Holocaust survivors who recall their personal
stories. These testimonies will live indefinitely in the foundation’s
library, and soon will be available to classrooms around the world to educate
the youth. “It becomes a specific vehicle for tolerance education so that
future generations will never forget the Holocaust and other crimes against
humanity, that history will not be forgotten,” says Spielberg.
Also present were members of the film’s cast including Ben Kingsley, Ralph
Fiennes, Caroline Goodall and Embeth Davidtz. The absentees made their presence
in spirit. Liam Neeson, the actor who played Oscar Schindler, the gentile industrialist
who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews, could not be present but delivered a message
to the press. “I remember [Spielberg] showing me around the Shoah Visual
History Foundation many years ago – it truly is a testament to the horrors,
prejudice, intolerance and bigotry,” Neeson said.
The new Schindler’s List DVD is a multi-disc set that
contains a remarkable 77-minute documentary called Voices from the List, recollections
of Schindler’s surviving Jews. It’s a remarkably well-packaged DVD
of an extraordinary film. But the greatest achievement remains to be Spielberg’s
commitment to his cause.
“Making that film was truly an experience that did change my life. I made
it with my heart and my mind. It led me to find my faith and my soul. What I
never expected was that Schindler’s List would be the
inspiration in what has become the most important work in my life which is the
Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation,” said Spielberg.
In a critical reflection, you could see how both the film and the Shoah Foundation
are likely to be memorials that will live long after Spielberg has passed on.
Spielberg is not only one of the great directors who has put out big entertainments
(Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Minority
Report), he is one of our most invaluable artistic and humanitarian
voices.
