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 As the first blog entry got exhausted. My second book |
| Evolution of Love Part 2 |
| Spielberg thought he was too tall and too handsome for the role. Then he saw him on Broadway and changed his mind. Neeson gave the performance of his life. He didn't win the Oscar. For years, Steven Spielberg avoided making a film about the Holocaust. He was Jewish. The Holocaust was personal. It was his people's greatest tragedy. And Spielberg felt the subject was too important, too sacred, to risk getting wrong. In 1982, he acquired the rights to Thomas Keneally's novel "Schindler's Ark" (published in the U.S. as "Schindler's List"). It told the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and Nazi Party member who saved over 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. Spielberg sat on the project for over a decade. He offered it to other directors—including Roman Polanski, whose mother died at Auschwitz. He didn't feel ready. He didn't feel worthy. By 1993, Spielberg knew he had to do it himself. No one else could tell this story the way it needed to be told. But he needed to cast Oskar Schindler—a complicated man who started as a profiteering opportunist and became a savior. An ordinary man who did extraordinary things. Spielberg considered major stars: Warren Beatty, Mel Gibson, Kevin Costner. All were interested. But something didn't fit. Then Spielberg saw an Irish actor named Liam Neeson performing in "Anna Christie" on Broadway. Neeson was 40 years old. He'd been working in film for years—"Excalibur" (1981), "The Mission" (1986), "Darkman" (1990), "Husbands and Wives" (1992). He was respected but not a major star. On stage in "Anna Christie," Neeson commanded attention. He had presence, depth, gravitas. He could convey complexity without saying a word. Spielberg saw Schindler. But there was a problem: Neeson was 6'4". Tall, handsome, movie-star attractive. Spielberg wanted Schindler to be ordinary-looking, average, someone who could disappear into a crowd. Neeson was anything but ordinary-looking. Spielberg hesitated. But he kept thinking about that Broadway performance. The depth Neeson brought. The ability to show a man's inner transformation. Spielberg offered Neeson the role. Neeson accepted. Preparation for "Schindler's List" was intense. Spielberg decided to shoot in Poland, including at actual Holocaust sites. He'd film primarily in black and white, using handheld cameras for a documentary feel. Neeson immersed himself in Schindler's story. He read historical documents, survivor testimonies, everything available about the real Oskar Schindler. He met with Schindlerjuden—Jews Schindler had saved. He learned about a man who was flawed, complicated, contradictory. Schindler was a Nazi Party member, a womanizer, a drinker, initially motivated by profit. But something changed in him. He witnessed atrocity and couldn't look away. He used his factories to protect Jewish workers, spent his fortune bribing Nazi officials, ultimately saved over 1,100 lives. Neeson had to show that transformation. From selfish businessman to selfless savior. Filming began in March 1993. The shoot was emotionally brutal. They filmed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, at the actual Kraków ghetto, at locations where the real events occurred. One scene became the film's emotional turning point: the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto. In March 1943, Nazis forcibly evacuated the ghetto, murdering Jews in the streets, loading survivors onto trains to death camps. It was chaos, violence, mass murder. Spielberg recreated this horror in black and white—documentary-style, unflinching, brutal. In the scene, Schindler watches from a hillside as the liquidation unfolds below. He's there on business, watching dispassionately. Then his eye catches something: a little girl in a red coat. In the black-and-white film, the red coat is one of only a few color elements. It's striking, impossible to miss. The girl wanders through the chaos—alone, terrified, trying to hide. Schindler watches her. Just her. One individual life amid mass murder. The red coat represented something profound: this wasn't abstract. These weren't numbers. These were individual people—this specific child in this specific red coat—being murdered. Neeson played the scene with minimal dialogue. Just his face. Watching. Something shifting inside him. A man realizing he can't look away, can't pretend this isn't happening, can't remain uninvolved. Later in the film, the red coat appears again—in a pile of corpses being burned. The girl is dead. Schindler sees it. The transformation is complete. The scene is based on real survivor testimony. The red coat symbolized all the individual lives lost—each one a person, not a statistic. Neeson's performance throughout was extraordinary. He showed Schindler's complexity—the charm, the selfishness, the gradual awakening, the desperation as he realized he couldn't save everyone, the breakdown at the end when he wishes he'd saved more. In the final scene, Schindler breaks down, looking at his gold Nazi pin: "I could have saved one more person. And I didn't." Neeson sobbed. It wasn't acting—it was genuine grief for the six million who died. Spielberg refused salary for the film. He considered any money from "Schindler's List" to be "blood money." He donated all his proceeds—millions of dollars—to Holocaust education. He also founded the USC Shoah Foundation to record video testimonies from Holocaust survivors. Over 55,000 testimonies have been recorded and preserved. "Schindler's List" premiered in December 1993. The response was overwhelming. Critics called it a masterpiece. Audiences were devastated, moved, educated. At the 1994 Academy Awards, "Schindler's List" was nominated for 12 Oscars. It won 7: Best Picture, Best Director (Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction. Liam Neeson was nominated for Best Actor. He lost to Tom Hanks for "Philadelphia." Neeson gave one of the greatest performances in cinema history. But 1994 was a competitive year, and Hanks was playing another culturally significant role (a gay man dying of AIDS). Neeson didn't win. But his performance as Oskar Schindler remains his finest work and one of cinema's most acclaimed performances. The film's impact extended far beyond awards. "Schindler's List" became mandatory viewing in schools worldwide. It brought Holocaust education to mainstream audiences. It preserved survivor testimonies. It made the Holocaust personal—not six million faceless victims, but individuals with names, faces, stories. The real Oskar Schindler died in 1974, largely forgotten, financially struggling. The Jews he'd saved—the Schindlerjuden—had supported him financially after the war. He was buried in Jerusalem and honored as Righteous Among the Nations. After "Schindler's List," Liam Neeson became a major dramatic actor. He went on to star in "Michael Collins" (1996), "Kinsey" (2004), and eventually the "Taken" franchise (action films that made him a different kind of star). But "Schindler's List" remains his definitive performance. The role he was supposedly too tall and too handsome for. The role Spielberg hesitated to give him. One personal note: Liam Neeson met actress Natasha Richardson while performing in "Anna Christie"—the play that led to Spielberg casting him. They married in 1994, shortly after "Schindler's List" was released. They had two sons. In 2009, Natasha died from a skiing accident. She was 45. "Schindler's List" brought Neeson his greatest professional triumph and led him to the love of his life. Both are linked to that Broadway performance in "Anna Christie." The film endures 31 years later. It's studied in schools. It's preserved in the National Film Registry. It's shown to new generations learning about the Holocaust. And at its center is Liam Neeson's performance—showing how an ordinary, flawed man can choose courage over complicity, can risk everything to save lives, can become better than he was. Spielberg initially thought Neeson was too tall, too handsome, too much for Schindler. Instead, Neeson became Schindler. He inhabited the role so completely that we forget we're watching an actor. He showed us a Nazi Party member becoming a hero. A profiteer becoming a savior. An ordinary man doing extraordinary things. He gave the performance of his life. He was nominated for Best Actor. He didn't win the Oscar. Tom Hanks did, for another culturally significant role. But Neeson won something more important: he helped preserve the memory of 1,100 people Oskar Schindler saved. And the six million who died. He made the Holocaust personal. Individual. Real. That little girl in the red coat—one person among millions—symbolizes what "Schindler's List" achieved: making us see individuals, not statistics. Liam Neeson, at 6'4", supposedly too tall and too handsome, delivered that vision perfectly. Spielberg was wrong about the height. He was right about the depth. Neeson had both. And he gave us one of cinema's greatest performances. The Oscar went to someone else. The legacy is eternal. "Schindler's List": 1993, 7 Academy Awards, over 30 years of educating audiences about the Holocaust. At its center: Liam Neeson, showing us that ordinary people can choose to be extraordinary. That's more than an Oscar. That's immortality. |
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