Schindler's+List+-+Directors+Intentions


 * __Steven Speilburg had 3 main intentions for making this film:__**
 * To reconnect with his Jewish heritage
 * To educate the world, particularly today's youth about the holcaust
 * To ensure people do not forget the horrors of this event and prevent history from repeating itself

In 1983, Australian author Thomas Keneally published his fact-based novel //Schindler’s Ark,// which chronicled, through first-person accounts, the amazing story of the Schindlerjuden. American film director Steven Spielberg read the book about the same time he was filming his movie //E.T.// He was struck by the story, particularly by the book’s powerful rendering of the Holocaust through individual accounts. Spielberg was driven to adapt the book into a film, but it was ten years before he was emotionally ready to embark on the project. Spielberg, born on December 18, 1947 , in Cincinnati, Ohio, was raised by Jewish parents in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. There, he was dismayed to find he was the only Jew most of his classmates had ever met. He went on to study English at California State University, Long Beach, when his grades were not good enough to get him into film school. Nonetheless, he managed to land a job on the Universal Studios lot and, after starting out directing television shows, eventually moved to films. By the age of thirty, he had directed two of the highest-grossing films of all time: //Jaws// ( 1975 ) and //Close Encounters of the Third Kind// ( 1977 ). The story of the Schindlerjuden greatly affected Spielberg. He has said that he had fallen out of touch with his Jewish identity as an adult but that he learned a great deal about his own heritage while researching //Schindler’s List.// After visiting Auschwitz, the enormous responsibility of his project became clear. Spielberg understood that in order to help people digest and understand an event as huge and incomprehensible as the Holocaust, he had to make the stories personal. The director’s intentions for the film were to educate people about the Holocaust, to silence those who deny that the Holocaust ever happened, and to make sure people never forget so that history does not repeat itself. Moreover, he filmed the movie in the early 1990 s when genocide against Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and ethnic Albanians was taking place in Yugoslavia. The fact that another genocide could happen in the present day strengthened Spielberg’s desire to educate. When //Schindler’s List// opened in 1993, it received widespread critical acclaim. Spielberg expected a decent number of people to see the movie in theatres but primarily hoped the film would be adopted by schools in order to educate students about the Holocaust. To his surprise, more than fifty million people saw the film in theatres, and more than sixty-five million people watched it during a special airing on national television. The film finally earned him the Academy Award for Best Director—a prize that had eluded him in the past. In addition to Best Director, //Schindler’s List// won six more Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Best Picture, and Best Writing.