5.9 Million: The estimated number of Jews killed by the Nazis in World War II.

2.1 Million: Jews in Poland killed by the Nazis.

1,200: The number of Polish Jews saved by Oskar Schindler.

SchindlerJuden. Schindler Jews. The Polish Jewish workers who survived in Oskar Schindler’s factories and whose names were recorded on his lists. In 2012, there were over 8,500 descendants of the original 1,200. Today, hopefully, there are more, many more; and they are all alive because one man did everything he could and spent everything he had for them. A righteous man, one righteous man, among many who were not.

It was a hard movie to make. It is a hard movie to watch. Steven Spielberg was reluctant to direct. The movie, “Schindler’s List,” was released in 1993. It received seven Academy Awards, including the Oscar for Best Director to Spielberg, the reluctant director.

A word on ethnofamilymovieography. Ethnography is the study of a people thing from within the people experiencing the thing. In its manner, ethnofamilymovieography is the newest branch of ethnography. The people thing being studied is the encapsulation of all the Academy-award-winning Best Pictures — viewed sequentially one-by-one. The people are the movie watchers within the study group, who themselves represent in microcosmic form the cultural amalgam all those to have viewed the film. To a real extent, the studiers are the studied. Each reviewer fills out a form after viewing a film reflecting his or her participation in the movie, individually and as a member of the group, as much as their appreciation of the Best Picture. A curious endeavor, this is the 66th film to be so ethnoexperienced, evaluated and recorded.

One of the questions on the post-film survey is this:

“You stop at a crowded intersection during rush hour in the rain. This movie approaches as a panhandler. Assume you have unlimited cash on your person and you regularly give to panhandlers. Circle how much money you would hand through the window:  NONE  $10  $1,000,000  More”

The coordinating ethnomovieographer collects, collates and presents the data in different formats. One “form” is a sentence of no less than 100 words that summarizes the “Likes” and “Dislikes” of the audience with a brief explication of how the movie fared with respect to the other Best Pictures studied to this point.

For “Schindler’s List,” this process resulted in the following sentence of 209 words. It was a long movie.

Steven Spielberg shares his personal view of the murder of Jews during WWII in Poland; our audience was captivated by the story, the acting, the cinematography, and the music, as they were saddened and horrified by the cruelty, killing, torture, brutality, hatred, and evil presented in this largely black & white picture of the Holocaust; yes, the movie is too long, but only one person commented on the length — the story is too captivating and too unbelievable to be as true as it really was; at the Oscars, Spielberg received the Best Director Oscar – this may be his best work of so many excellent films; the movie was awarded Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original score; the acting, which was great, did not take home a statuette — the story is so much that the individuals are lost in the overwhelming tragedy of the mounting scenes; at the end, our ethnofamilymovieography audience filled out their forms in a still room, awarding the show a 9.69-of-10 average rating, placing the move, in their estimation, at #2 of the first 66 Best Pictures, and, influenced by what they saw, they handed to the panhandler through their open car windows more money than a movie had ever before received.

Only “Ben-Hur” fared better in average rating, and no movie has inspired greater generosity on the part of its viewers than “Schindler’s List.”

“Schindler’s List” is a deeply troubling piece of filmmaking, a picture of good emerging reluctantly, haphazardly, unexpectantly and never completely in the midst of such horrible wrongdoings that to have survived and to be able to walk freely over the hillside in the bright sunshine at the end can only be seen as miraculous.

It is our reluctant director’s best work.

Grandpa Jim