PHOTOS BY DAVID JAMES

`EACH HUMAN HAS THE
POSSIBILIII OF BERG
REDEEMED.'

`1101MOOD FLEES FROM SUBJECTS LIKE THIS.'

STEVEIV SPIELBERG, director:

RALPH FIENNES, plays Nazi com-
mandant Amon Goeth:

Q: Did you like playing a heavy?
A: I didn't think of Goeth as just a
heavy. I thought of him as a deeply
warped or fractured human being. He's
not an evil monster. He's a man who
was once a little boy who played in the
garden — and somewhere along the line
things went very wrong.
Q: While making the film was it
the actors' tendency to repeated-
ly remind themselves that they
weren't just 'monsters?' That they
had a family and so on?
A: That was quite clear to most of us
from the beginning since
none of us wanted to
make a film that had
cliche Nazis or cliche
Jews. That's why we
show Jewish guys run-
ning the Jewish police.
They were kind of
hedging their bets that
in the end they would
be OK
Steven was insis-
tent about this — and
there wasn't anyone
who didn't want to
support that. It was as real and as hu-
man as possible. It was a wonderful hu-
man moment when two Germans come
into a room [in the Jewish ghetto] and
in the midst of all this blood-letting
there's a German playing Bach or
Beethoven. They listen and decide it's
Bach. Scenes like that must have hap-
pened.
Q: Does anyone walk away from
this film unscathed? Schindler is
not a saint; he has mistresses ga-
lore. Goeth is human, yes, but cer-
tainly flawed.
A: You're quite right. Very few peo-
ple can be totally unaffected by it. Both
the real people and the people who
made the film.
The film does not just say, 'Isn't it aw-
ful that this happened?" It also says
that somehow, despite the moral am-
bivalence of the central man, he is im-
pelled to do something good. He doesn't
quite know why, but why does anyone
do anything?
This is a film about hope. What was
moving was to be confronted with the
memory of the horror, but also with
hope and the sense of life that could
come out of it.
Q: Does it also say that there is
hope for redemption within all of
us, even within someone as am-
biguous as Schindler?
A: Even with an Amon Goeth. I be-
lieve that each human being has the
possibility of being redeemed.

Fiennes as Nazi selects
a Jewish house maid.

Fiennes (left) and in film(above).

,

Kingsley, Schindleq,
"conscience," advises
the German.

on the anniversaries of the Shoah, but con-
stantly.'
Q: What drew you to "Schindler's
I am not saying that devoting your life
List?'
to the Holocaust defines being Jewish. I
A: Many factors. I had a familiarity as don't believe that. But I do think every hu-
a second-hand witness to the Holocaust man being owes a moral debt to the past,
from my family It was something I grew so that events happening now, in Bosnia
up with. I recall a lot of stories, mainly and with the Kurds, and the heinousness
from my grandparents who had come from of what could take place in the future, are
Austria and Russia and suffered heavy at least given some serious time and at-
losses.
tention.
When I first read... [Thomas Keneally's]
Q: Was making "Schindler's List" a
book, what grabbed me was that it was so kind of reimmersion into Judaism for
accurate as to names and street designa- you?
tions and events from month to month. It
A: It was more of a reaction to my pre-
had no entertainment value, whatsoever, vious reimmersion into Judaism in 1985
it was simply a document of facts.
when my first child was born and I had to
Q: In all your research, did decide how to raise him. When I began
Schindler himself talk about his to read books to him, I had to choose
transformation from a Nazi Party whether to read books about Santa Claus
member out to make his fortune to or about Moses and Abraham and Isaac.
a savior of Jews?
I chose to raise him Jewish with [Spiel-
A: Yes, he did, but that doesn't count. berg's first wife] Amy Irving, who is half-
Schindler did a lot of talking about what Jewish. Then, when I married Kate
he did...after he began to believe his own Capshaw, she converted, which was a
publicity. When
beautiful experi-
interviewed by
ence. I studied
German television
along with her
shortly before he
and was the ben-
died in 1974, he
eficiary of every-
seemed to know
thing she was
exactly why he did
learning that I
it: 'Because I al-
had forgotten.
ways knew the
Q: The old
Jews were mis-
movie moguls
treated and the
over-compen-
Germans were do-
sated about be-
ing a horrible
ing Jewish by
thing and I had to
trying to prove
do something.' I'm
that they were
not sure he really
150 percent
felt that during
Americans.
the war. It was
You're of a dif-
easier for him to
ferent genera-
define his actions
tion, but does
after he had taken
this conflict
them.
ever come up?
It would have
A: That same
been a disservice
question occurred
to his deeds to
to me when I was
have manufac-
trying to find
tured something
movies to inspire
just because I
me to make
couldn't find it in Steven Spielberg: Other projects "seem petty" after `Schindler's List.'
"Schindler's"
real life.
I realized that the
Q: I under-
predominant
stand that at some point when you number of studio heads in the golden era
were proposing "Schindler's List," a of Hollywood were all Jews, yet did not
studio executive suggested that you produce movies about the Jewish race, re-
just make a donation to some Holo- ligion, culture or tradition. They chose be-
caust museum and save the distribu- ing American with fierce determination.
tor a lot of grief.
It was stunning that I could only find doc-
A: Yeah, that was one of the key moti- umentaries that chronicled the Holocaust
vators for me. I felt that was a message because Hollywood flees from subjects like
which kind of capped my resolve to make this. It always has — and it still does.
the movie immediately.
Q: What do you plan to do next?
Q: What do you hope will be the
A: I don't have anything next. I've been
film's impact?
so wrapped up in this story for so many
A: I hope people will say, 'I now feel a years that I can't really look ahead right
need to tell my children about the Holo- now. Some ideas I've been mulling over
caust and someday show them not only for future projects almost seem petty in
this movie, but other films and documen- light of what I've experienced in Poland
taries about it. And I need to remember, with this story.
not just on Jewish holidays and not just
— Tom Tugend